To meet its energy requirements, the UK needs the Cambo production much more than Scotland. The hardware will be built abroad with the bulk of profits and taxes flowing to London or offshore despite the UK government’s oil and gas tax regime being the most generous on earth. In 2020 Norway earned £9 billion from the North Sea whereas the UK allocated a notional £400,000 to Scotland under Gers.
Currently Scotland, with eight per centof the population, produces 26 per cent of the UK’s gas consumption and produces a similar surplus of electricity mostly from our renewable industries that pay the highest transmission charges in Europe.
Scotland has 25 per cent of Europe’s entire offshore wind power resources, 25 per cent of Europe’s tidal energy resources and ten per cent of its wave energy potential. Scotland’s world-leading tidal power could produce enough electricity to meet Scotland’s needs but the UK government won’t invest in it and Scotland lacks the borrowing powers to significantly invest in manufacturing projects such as hydrogen fuel cells and electrolysers
Scotland also has 30 per cent of Europe’s carbon storage capacity but our climate change targets have been sabotaged by the UK government’s decision to ignore our better claim for carbon capture investment despite having earned over £350 billion from Scotland’s oil.
However, the Scottish Government is committed to a gradual just transition towards thousands of renewable jobs with a £500,000 investment for the North East. Earlier this week, the Scottish National Investment Bank backed the Iona Wind Partnership to the tune of £13m which follows £6m investment in thermal storage, £6.4m in tidal energy and £2m for an electric vehicle charging network.
Mary Thomas, Edinburgh
Adaptation is key
The storm of 31 January, 1953 carried sizeable stones from the Ayrshire beach near where I then lived at least 50 yards inshore from the normal high waterline, the Stranraer/Larne ferry sank, England suffered much coastline damage, the SE was flooded and more than half The Netherlands was soon under water.
Human lives lost were in the thousands, animals in the tens of thousands. No cry of global warming then, it was simply regarded as a natural disaster to which the response was to clear up and adapt to prepare for any similar future happening.
About 60 per cent of the The Netherlands had lived below sea level for centuries so their answer was simply to strengthen their dyke systems. London, ten per cent of whose population is regularly under sea level, put in place its massive but moveable barrage scheme.
These schemes have of course served their design purpose, became effective from the moment of completion and were only possible because of the wealth of the countries affected and their access to ample cheap and reliable energy.
The floodings so much favoured by the media as a prime example of global warming and the need therefore to cut carbon emissions are no worse than that of The Netherlands mentioned above and could possibly be fixed in the same way.
Even if we could magically put an end to emissions tomorrow the inertia in the system coupled with population growth will mean that global warming will keep on rising.
An immediate end to fossil fuel use as demanded by juvenile protesters (including politicians and newspaper columnists!) is therefore no answer at all. Adaptation should be our first consideration, including assistance to needy countries. Fossil fuels need to be phased out , but slowly, and not by any means completely – we will still need to make things like steel and plastics.
Dr A McCormick, Terregles, Dumfries and Galloway
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