NICOLA Sturgeon’s declaration of a climate emergency is being “undermined” by her own MSPs backing more North Sea oil and gas extraction, the Greens have warned.
The First Minister used her closing speech to SNP spring conference on Sunday to say an emergency response by governments was needed to avoid runaway climate change.
Experts are expected to announce this week that more can do more to cut carbon emissions.
But Ms Sturgeon’s statement was met with scepticism at Holyrood, as SNP ministers last month opposed declaring an emergency when the Greens suggested it.
Despite warnings that fossil fuels must be left in the ground to avoid disaster, the SNP is also relying on taxes from oil and gas to create a sovereign wealth fund for independence.
At the SNP conference on Saturday, delegates backed the party’s Growth Commission on this point, making it party policy.
The text read: “Conference endorses the Commission’s recommendation that future revenues from North Sea oil and other windfalls should be invested in a Future Fund for Generations to support intergenerational projects such as the transition to a green economy.”
On Monday, former SNP climate change minister Stewart Stevenson told STV’s Scotland Tonight that “extracting oil and gas from the North Sea is not an issue”.
Green MSP Patrick Harvie urged Ms Sturgeon to face down those in her party who would turn the climate emergency declaration into “a complete sham”.
He said: “Everyone who shares my desire to see a meaningful response to the climate emergency hoped that the First Minister’s declaration would lead to an urgent and decisive change in direction. But within days, senior SNP figures are rushing to TV studios to undermine their leader.
“Only a matter of hours after the First Minister made her declaration, senior Minister Mike Russell appeared on the BBC stating that we should continue to issue exploration licenses for oil and gas. And now a senior SNP MSP and former Climate Change Minister has made the extraordinary statements that extracting oil and gas 'is not an issue' and that spurious ideas like offsetting would make up for SNP plans to keep growing aviation.
“If the SNP’s idea of an emergency response is to simply restate existing policy, everyone will see that the First Minister’s words are nothing more than a cheap political stunt.”
Asked if a sovereign wealth fund relying on continued oil and gas extraction was in conflict with the climate emergency declaration, Ms Sturgeon’s official spokesman said: “We are leading the world in climate change policies, climate change emissions reductions, world leading targets already, and if the [expert] report says Scotland should go further faster, then we will act to do that. North Sea and aviation are incorporated into those targets.”
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