Net Zero Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon will tread cautiously, by Brian Taylor

Perhaps it is his minimalist title. He is, after all, the Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero. Scarcely uplifting, even with “Energy and Transport” added as explanatory qualifications.

Seriously, as he delivered his chamber statement this week, there were substantial grounds for solemnity. He was confirming a miserable hat-trick. For three years in a row, the Scottish Government has failed to meet its interim targets en route to creating, by 2045, a Scotland where carbon emissions are zero, net.

What is more, the latest report disclosed that we can no longer rely upon trees and grassland to act as a carbon sink, absorbing emissions.

READ MORE: Why does Nicola Sturgeon want a pact with the Greens? There's more to it than meets the eye...

Mr Matheson tried his very best. There had been real progress. He noted that the figures only covered the period up to 2019. There had been substantial efforts since then to turn the picture around.

One faintly cynical observer told me that the stats for the most recent period would indeed be better. However, that was because business and families were locked down by Covid 19, unable to disseminate anything, including carbon.

I think there may be yet another reason underlying Mr Matheson’s grave outlook. He has to set out the next, challenging steps towards erasing Scotland’s carbon footprint, most notably in response to a report from the Just Transition Commission, two years in the making.

The very title of that body signals potential compromise. We must move towards carbon reduction but will do so in a fashion which strives to avoid disproportionate disruption.

The commission report itself underlines the need to protect communities, notably those hard pressed by existing economic structures. It stresses that change must be “shaped by Scotland’s citizens, not imposed on them”.

Still, the potential changes are enormous, leading to “huge pressure” upon government, as one insider confirmed to me.

The transition may be just, the ultimate objective may be worthwhile, indeed earth-saving, but the impact upon people and business will include, for example, a move away from car use, the replacement of gas-fired domestic boilers, curbs on aviation, and an end to North Sea oil and gas extraction.

Nicola Sturgeon and Patrick Harvie

That final point is particularly exercising government, although the entire project is tough. I was told that the very last thing Ministers want to do is to visit upon the North Sea economy the desecration which, they recall, was inflicted in the past upon coal, steel and shipbuilding.

Hence the search for a just transition. One that, hopefully, allows time and investment to create new opportunities in sustainable industries. Hence the point that such a transition is mandated in statute, alongside those targets on the roadmap to carbon reduction.

More generally, expect Ministers and environmental campaigners to accentuate the positive. To stress the better air quality, the enhanced health, the improved public transport and the new jobs which can accompany a drive to curb pollution. Either as a consequence or as a productive preamble.

In addition, there is a party political dimension to this too. The SNP government is talking to the Scottish Green Party about a possible co-operation deal. As The Herald disclosed, that is provoking potential contention within the Greens. Both parties will proceed cautiously.

They are not, however, operating in a vacuum. While supportive of measures to tackle climate change, the Conservatives are voicing concern about the impact on the economy, particularly in the north-east of Scotland, if reforms are too abrupt.

READ MORE: Holidays and football matter but beating Covid matters much more

Bluntly, they also see an opportunity for their party if they can argue that the Greens are tugging the SNP in a direction which could be characterised as anti-business and anti-jobs. That campaign is already under way, countered by arguments to the effect that a new economy can arise, enhancing the redefined well-being of the citizenry.

Politics often operates through a spectrum, rather than discrete silos. Parties find their place on that spectrum, founding their appeal to the voters from a modulated, subtle standpoint.

The most familiar spectrum stretches from Left to Right, from Socialist to Conservative. However, in Scotland, that has been supplemented by another spectrum, based upon the constitution.

That ranges from all-out independence to unwavering support for the Union. The emergence of that spectrum, which partly arose from a renewed focus on distinctively Scottish interests, allowed the Tories to re-establish themselves as the principal opposition to the SNP, by positing their party as the most consistent advocates of Unionism.

Now, it seems there is a further spectrum to consider. The environment. It has become commonplace to say that we are all Green now, to varying degrees. Those degrees create that new spectrum.

At one end, the gradualists. At the other, evangelical environmentalists. Just as some Nationalists are unable to comprehend any argument against independence, so the most fervent Greens can become exasperated when their credentials or programme are questioned.

However, the more astute Green campaigners know full well that they need to persuade. As one put it to me, people cannot be expected to adopt a programme which appears to make no economic sense in their own lives. So, on aviation for example, Greens tend to condemn frequent flights, not the annual family sojourn to the sun.

The Tories will form the gradualist end of this spectrum. The risk for the Liberal Democrats is that they are supplanted, on this measure, by the Greens. The risk for Labour is that they cannot forge a distinctive place for their message.

And the SNP? Remember, always, that they have a fixed aim, independence. On tax policy and pretty much everything else, they want to annoy as few people as possible, in pursuit of that wider objective.

Expect them, therefore, to pursue a sustained drive for Net Zero. For the First Minister, that commitment is genuine and personal. However, expect the “just” element of the transition to be emphasised. Expect caution too.

Our columns are a platform for writers to express their opinions. They do not necessarily represent the views of The Herald.