The climate change bill will boost many industries but not everyone is as happy as Arnold Schwarzenner, writes Ian Fraser
It is not every day that “the Governator” heaps praise on something Scotland does. But last week Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor of California, eulogised the Scottish government’s historic decision to impose the toughest targets for reducing carbon emissions of any developed nation.
Schwarzenegger said that Scotland’s move, which secured unanimous support from MSPs on Wednesday, sent a clear message to other nations ahead of the UN’s climate change conference in December.
“Scotland’s ambitious and comprehensive targets encourage other nations to step up to the plate as we look toward an international agreement in Copenhagen, and it sends a message to the world that we must act now and must act swiftly,” he said.
With its climate change bill, the government will impose very demanding targets on Scotland’s private sector, public sector and citizens.
They include cutting carbon emissions by 42% (compared with their 1990 levels) by 2020, and by 80% by 2050, as well as ensuring that all Scotland’s electricity is generated from low-carbon sources (including renewables, clean coal and carbon capture) by 2030. The legislation also contains proposals for tighter building regulations, the electrification of all Scotland’s railways, enhanced insulation programmes and new efforts to promote the adoption of electric vehicles.
Paul Nelson, managing director of Allied Vehicles, a Glasgow-based manufacturer of electric vans, minibuses and taxis, welcomed the Scottish government’s targets. “We are keen to support any initiative like this,” he said.
Allied Vehicles is part of the Peugeot Electric Cars project that last week won a share of the £25m the government is offering to design, test and produce 40 electric-battery cars in Glasgow.
Stewart Stevenson, Scotland’s climate change minister, said: “Achieving these targets will be challenging, but I’m confident that government, business and the people of Scotland are ready to rise to the challenge.”
Industrialists and business people broadly supported the move, with industries likely to thrive as a result thought to include low-carbon transport, renewable energy, carbon capture and microgeneration of energy (such as domestic wind turbines and solar panels).
The consensus is that countries that stick their necks out and make firm commitments to tackling climate change are more likely to become magnets for high-value green jobs — especially if, as a consequence of their targets, they become worldwide centres in low-carbon technologies such as wave and tidal power.
Economists also point out that research and development jobs in indigenous industries and emerging industries such as these are less likely to drift away to lower-cost destinations a few years down the line.
Ian Marchant, chief executive of Perth-based Scottish and Southern Energy and chairman of the Scottish Climate Change Business Delivery Group, said: “The whole point of having a target is to stretch and change behaviour. We need to reach a tipping point in our response to climate change, and quickly.”
He believes the tougher the target, the more jobs will be created and was delighted MSPs chose to raise it from a 36% reduction in CO₂ emissions by 2020. “Think of the target as an incentive for investment as well as common sense. Private investors take their signals from such targets.”
Gary Davis, operations director of the Edinburgh-based environmental consultancy Ecometrica, agreed that the bill would be a catalyst for change and sustainable growth. “It’s a very ambitious target. It means that things will actually start to happen rather than there being endless further consultation,” he said.
The Scotch whisky industry has been quick off the mark. It came up with an industry-wide environmental strategy on June 3, three weeks before the bill was ratified. This includes a commitment to slash its use of fossil fuels by 80% by 2050. Other targets adopted by firms including Diageo and Pernod Ricard were reducing packaging and the sourcing of casks only from sustainable oak forests.
However, some business leaders, including David Watt, executive director of the Institute of Directors Scotland, questioned whether the Scottish government’s targets were achievable without replacing the country’s ageing nuclear power stations at Hunterston and Torness. The stations are due to be decommissioned in 2016 and 2023 respectively. The minority government of Alex Salmond, though, has said it has no intention of replacing them when they close. Watt said: “We’ve made it very clear that we believe nuclear will have to be part of the energy mix, with new stations coming on stream in 2015-2020 in order to avoid an energy gap.”
He said that, despite all the hype, reliable generation from wave power was “at best 10 years away”.
He also believes there needs to be a much stronger commitment to upgrading Scotland’s electricity grid and, particularly, building a new offshore grid if renewable energy is to fulfil its potential.
Keith Anderson, director of Scottish Power Renewables, a subsidiary of Iberdrola, said: “We need to ensure that the grid network in Scotland is fit for purpose to support the growth in renewables.”
However, Ecometrica’s Davis warns that investment in new nuclear plants would divert resources away from renewables — and from the offshore grid.
He said: “I think it will be possible to meet the Scottish government’s targets without nuclear. If the government were to give nuclear the level of financial support that it needs, then wave, tidal and offshore wind energy would be starved of resources.”
Not everyone in Scotland was ecstatic about the pollution-busting measures ushered in last week.
Patrick Harvie, a Green MSP, was incensed about a loophole that would enable the Scottish government to lower its targets if the UK government’s advisory panel on climate change were to deem them unrealistic or if the UN conference failed to come up with a replacement for Kyoto in December.
Professor Jan Bebbington, vice chairman of the Scottish Sustainable Development Commission, believes that the government must push for a radical shift in consumer behaviour and not simply rely on technology. “We need a root-and-branch review of everyday life in Scotland in order to become a truly sustainable society,” she said.
Some business people are disappointed that the bill will probably put the brakes on road-building programmes, with the planned dualling of the A9 between Perth and Inverness a likely casualty.
This article was published in the Sunday Times on 28 June 2009