This week, as the UK Government collapses in on itself and the timid and inadequate Scottish Climate Change Bill is developed in Holyrood, it’s clear that neither the Conservatives or the SNP are planning a greener, more prosperous future for Scotland.
David Attenborough has joined climate negotiators in Poland to prepare for the future and warn of the consequences of inaction, but the authorities in both Edinburgh and London are failing to ensure Scotland gets the thousands of good climate jobs it deserves.
With so much wind, so many waves and such impressive local skills, Scottish towns and ports from Fife to Inverclyde should be leading the way in the clean energy transition. The wind turbines dotting the hillsides and off the coast should be manufactured locally by well-paid, secure, highly-skilled and unionised jobs.
But that isn’t the case. Industrial communities have been hollowed out and manufacturing has moved overseas. They say you don’t carry coal to Newcastle. But although the UK has more offshore wind installed than any other country – 36% of the global total – it is heavily reliant on imports, running a trade deficit of hundreds of millions of pounds.
Without clear government backing, and facing competition from publicly-owned or publicly-backed manufacturers in other countries, Scottish manufacturing has struggled to get a toehold. When Fife-based BiFab received contracts to produce foundations for the Beatrice wind farm but ran into a cash crisis, the SNP failed to save the workforce, with almost every last worker let go. The SNP was happy to be front and centre on for positive photo opportunities, but disappeared when the chips were down.
New renewables industries like floating wind and tidal stream offer the chance to do things differently – and that’s Labour’s plan. The Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult in Glasgow believes we could create 11,000 jobs in floating wind by 2031 and 22,600 jobs in tidal stream and wave by 2040.
Most of the England’s seabed is shallow enough for “fixed” turbines standing on the seabed, but Scotland’s waters are deeper. Here, in some of the windiest areas, a new type of floating turbine is needed, one that’s tethered to the seabed. So Scotland is particularly well-positioned to develop the technology. There is a strong overlap between the requirements of this country’s natural landscape, and the opportunities presented by the skills of our oil and gas workforce. But that workforce has faced years of cutbacks and needs pathways to transition. Scottish engineers were central to inventing floating wind – with Hywind off Peterhead and the Kincardine array off Aberdeen the first two significant installations in the world.
It seems odd, then, that just as Scottish firms are ready to lead a climate jobs revolution, the Tories in Westminster are choosing to kill off the floating wind sector. Two installations - Dounreay Tri and Forthwind – needed a very small extension in the deadline to qualify for the UK’s Renewables Obligation scheme for encouraging renewable energy production. These delays were beyond their control, but Minister Claire Perry wasn’t interested in keeping British industry alive – in the words of the trade association RenewableUK: “It looks as though the government doesn’t get it”.
Other countries are less hesitant to act. The US, China and Japan have announced ambitious goals for floating wind farms, sending a powerful signal to investors in those countries. In California, a floating wind farm is being built by Humboldt County’s publicly-owned energy company. Humboldt County has a smaller population than Dundee.
Scotland’s coastline also has fantastic potential to create electricity from waves and tides. Local companies have built up world-leading knowledge and expertise in tidal stream from years of painstaking testing and practice. Tidal stream is now in place or under construction in Scotland in the Pentland Firth, in Shetland and at the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney.
Many of these are built by Scottish firms, with a supply chain that is 90% domestic – creating high wage, high value jobs - particularly in Shetland, Orkney, and North-West Scotland. Because tides are regular, tidal stream has important advantages in helping balance intermittent renewables like solar and wind – making the potential global export market huge.
But the Tories are effectively cutting the tidal stream sector out of the UK’s energy future. Other governments like France and Canada offer revenue support for tidal pilot projects. There is evidence of British companies relocating – taking know-how, technology, economic value and jobs with them. One, Scotrenewables, has renamed itself Orbital and has warned that opportunities in France and Canada now compare favourably. "It would be a terrible shame, but it does look like unless the UK government changes its mind that we might have to do our first commercial projects there instead."
Instead, the government added further nails in the coffin of Scotland’s tidal and floating wind industries when it announced details of its 2019 renewables subsidy auction. It looks like they will provide no ring-fenced support for less mature green technologies. The government doesn’t understand that it’s precisely by supporting renewable energy innovation in its early days, that we can nurture the skills base and ensure thousands of well-paid decent jobs.
Unlike both the Conservatives and the SNP, the Labour Party is serious about ushering in a green jobs revolution. We are committed to bringing homegrown green energy technology to maturity.
This is not just because it is the right thing to do for the climate, but because of the tremendous economic opportunities from placing our communities – whether on Lewis or in Dundee – at the heart of a booming domestic and export industry. Every day the Conservatives and the SNP remain in power is a day these opportunities are thrown away.
Rebecca Long Bailey, Labour’s Shadow Business and Energy Secretary in Westminster
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