Rob Edwards
IT actually was the end of an era. On March 24, 2016, Scottish Power closed
down the 2,400-megawatt power station at Longannet in Fife … and king
coal died.
The closure of Scotland’s biggest generating station marked the end of
coal-fired electricity production north of the Border. Its little
coal-burning sister across the Firth of Forth at Cockenzie had previously
been shut down, with its two iconic chimneys exploded into a heap of rubble.
In the future, Scotland’s power will not come from coal, but from wind,
nuclear fuel, gas and imports. For environmentalists this was not a cause
for mourning, but for celebration.
Longannet, which ran for 46 years, was by far the biggest climate polluter
in Scotland. For the last few years of its life, it belched around nine
million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually into the air, making a major
contribution to climate chaos.
Its demise means that Scotland’s carbon emissions will fall, and that the
country will perhaps achieve again what it achieved for the first time in
2016 – meeting its annual climate change targets. In June, the latest
figures showed that Scotland had succeeded in cutting its carbon emissions
by 45.8 per cent between 1990 and 2014.
This was hailed as “great news” by the climate change secretary, Roseanna
Cunningham MSP. “We will continue to rise to the challenge,” she said. “We
are not complacent and we will continue to take action and encourage others
to do their bit to tackle climate change.”
Globally, 2016 was another record-breaking year for the climate. According
to the World Meteorological Organisation, it will be the hottest year on
record, the third year in a row that this has happened. This means that 16
of the 17 hottest years since 1880 have all been in the 21st century.
August and July 2016 were the two warmest months ever recorded globally. On
May 16, 2016, India recorded its hottest day ever, when the temperature in
Phalodi, in the desert state of Rajasthan, rose to 51C.
In the Arctic, scientists reported that air temperatures were up to 20C
higher than normal in November, staying above freezing when they should
have been well below. “This is unprecedented,” said Professor Jennifer
Francis, an Arctic climate expert from Rutgers, the state university of New
Jersey in the US.
“These temperatures are literally off the charts for where they should be
at this time of year,” she told The Guardian. “It is pretty shocking. The
Arctic has been breaking records all year. It is exciting but also scary.”
Sea ice, which freezes and thaws annually, is reckoned to have declined
more than three per cent in the last 25 years. In late November, it had
reached a record low for the time of year, with two million square
kilometres less ice than average formed since September.
According to Francis, the dramatic changes around the North Pole were
already causing climate change across the world. “These rapid changes in
the Arctic are affecting weather patterns where you live right now,” she
said. “We are going to have a lot of very interesting weather.”
Paradoxically, Scotland’s weather in 2016 wasn’t that extreme, though it
might have felt so at times. The year started with heavy rainfall and
floods, with six of the river gauges maintained by the Scottish Environment
Protection Agency (Sepa) in northeast Scotland measuring record levels in
January. January was the fourth-wettest it has been since 1910.
The Sunday Herald reported scientists warning that this was the new normal.
“There is no natural weather any more,” said Professor James Curran, Sepa’s
former chief executive and a climate expert. “The world is now warmer by
one degree centigrade than it would be without climate change – so there is
no weather anywhere, at any time, that isn’t man-made these days.”
November in Scotland was the sunniest on record with nearly 66 hours of
sunshine, compared to the average between 1981 and 2010 of nearly 46 hours.
October was the third sunniest it has been since 1910.
Overall, 2016 looks like being Scotland’s 27th warmest year, and the 13th
sunniest year. Though not startling, the predicted average temperature of
7.6C is still above the average of 7.4C for 1981 to 2010.
Dr Richard Dixon, director of Friends of the Earth Scotland, explained why
the country’s weather had been less disrupted than elsewhere. “Shifting
ocean currents and high atmosphere winds mean Scotland is one of the least
affected by the record global temperatures,” he said. “These averages
conceal a lot of variation though.”
He commended Scotland’s ambition to cut climate pollution. “With record
temperature rises and dramatic changes in the Arctic, the world is rapidly
heading for climate chaos,” he said.
“Scotland is one of only a few countries looking to increase action on
climate change, with a new plan and a new climate bill with more ambitious
targets due in 2017.”
The latest international agreement to tackle climate change agreed in Paris
came into force on November 4, 2016, and has been ratified by 118
countries. It promises to limit “the increase in the global average
temperature to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue
efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5C above pre-industrial
levels”.
But critics say that this is not tough enough, and they were disappointed
by the lack of any substantive further progress at last year’s climate
summit in Marrakech in Morocco. “The pledges from the Paris Agreement are
nowhere near enough to keep temperature rises below danger thresholds, so
Scotland is setting an important example by aiming even higher,” said Dixon.
“President-elect Trump will no doubt do lots of damage to climate action at
the federal level in the States but one positive outcome of the Marrakech
climate conference was a strong resolve to keep the global process going,
even if the US is outside the process for the next few years.”
Green groups also talk up Scotland’s breakthroughs in renewable electricity
generation in 2016. On August 7, windfarms on their own generated more
electricity than Scotland consumed, delivering 39,545 megawatt-hours to the
national grid on a day when Scotland used 37,202 megawatt-hours.
Plans for the new £2.6 billion Beatrice offshore windfarm in the outer
Moray Firth were also given the green light by the power company SSE. There
were significant advances with tidal power on Shetland and in the Pentland
Firth, and Scotland’s biggest solar farm went live on Tayside.
Just before Christmas, the Scottish Government announced that the
equivalent of 59.4 per cent of Scotland’s gross electricity consumption was
met from wind, hydro and other renewable sources in 2015. “It is fantastic
news that renewables are now, for the first time, Scotland’s biggest
electricity generator,” said energy minister Paul Wheelhouse.
The news was also warmly welcomed by the environmental group, WWF Scotland,
which urged more action to cut climate pollution. “Sadly all the signs
suggest that not only are the problems associated with global climate
change not going away, but they are getting much worse,” said director Lang
Banks.
“It’s been another year where temperature and climate records have tumbled,
increasing further the environmental threats facing vulnerable people and
nature. However, during the year there were a number of signs that humans
are finally facing up to the climate chaos unfolding around them.”
Banks highlighted accelerating moves to pull investments out of fossil fuel
companies. “Globally we saw countries ratify the Paris climate agreement
and hundreds of firms commit to selling off fossil fuel assets worth
trillions,” he added.
“Here at home we closed our last coal-fired power station and three-fifths
of Scotland’s electricity needs now come from clean renewables. After a
long legal battle, even the windfarm Donald Trump tried to stop has begun
construction.”
Though Scotland was doing well, it had to do more, he argued. “In the year
ahead our politicians must ensure Scotland delivers new climate and energy
policies that are in line with what the climate science tells us.”
A key aspect will be energy policy. In October 2016, Scottish ministers
finally ruled out oil tycoon Algy Cluff’s idea of setting fire to the coal
under the Firth of Forth and tapping the resulting gas. But underground
coal gasification’s big brother, fracking, still remains an open question.
In November, ministers published six expert reports on the environmental,
health and economic impacts of fracking for underground shale gas. One
report by the UK advisory committee on climate change warned that
Scotland’s environmental regulation was not strong enough to prevent
fracking from causing climate pollution.
Energy minister Wheelhouse promised to launch a public consultation in
January with the aim of making a decision on whether or not fracking should
go ahead in the second half of 2017. In the meantime the moratorium that
has been in place for nearly two years remains.
This month, the Scottish Government is also planning to publish its
long-awaited energy strategy for public consultation. Its stated aim is to
“decarbonise our energy system” to meet a “strengthened ambition to tackle
climate change”.
The strategy – and the intimately linked decision on fracking – will
determine whether ministers will fulfil their ambitions.
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