Shoring up the environmental legacy of Nicola Sturgeon

By Mary Church, Head of

Campaigns

In February, Nicola Sturgeon announced her resignation as First Minister of Scotland and leader of the SNP. She took up these roles with little if anything in the way of a track record on the environment, but in the eight years since, she has put tackling the climate crisis high on the list of the Government's priorities.

While the rhetoric has not always been matched by action, her personal engagement was extremely important in pushing forward this vital work. As her successor, Humza Yousaf must understand that tackling the climate emergency is the defining challenge of the era, and seek to build on her work in this respect In this article we look at some of the progress that has been made under Sturgeon's leadership, and where more action is urgently needed.

Stronger climate targets; weak delivery plans

A key win for the climate movement in recent years was securing the passing of the Climate Act in 2019 which introduced substantially stronger targets including a commitment to net zero emissions by 2045, but more crucially, strengthened the targets ahead of 2030. This was due in part to the re-energising of mass movements exemplified by the youth climate strikers and Extinction Rebellion, horrified and inspired by the powerful science on what breaching the critical 1 5C threshold means for life on earth.

While the stronger targets are welcome, Sturgeon’s government has failed to grasp the scale of transformation needed to meet climate targets, and failed to put forward a credible plan to deliver on them. Under Sturgeon’s watch, Scotland has missed three of the last four targets. The Government's continued over-reliance on speculative technologies, like carbon capture and storage and hydrogen, means that the pattern of Scotland missing emissions targets is set to continue, without a new plan prioritising real solutions that can be implemented immediately

Nicola Sturgeon has always been keen to project Scotland as a climate leader on the world stage, and her leadership on ‘loss and damage’ undoubtedly helped secure a global finance mechanism to deliver badly needed reparations. However, if we don't meet emissions reductions at home, we fail to do our fair share of climate action, which all nations must do to put the world on a path to a climate safe future.

Now Humza Yousaf has been elected as the new First Minister, he must prioritise driving forward urgently needed changes which can tackle the cost of living crisis whilst cutting climate pollution. This means making every home warm and well insulated, supercharging public transport, transforming our energy system, and moving towards a circular economy.

Fossil fuel phase out

Fossil fuel phase out in this decade is essential if we are to do our fair share of keeping global temperatures under the critical 1 5C threshold Over the last several years, we have seen the end of coal in Scotland, and Sturgeon has begun to steer her party away from oil and gas: no mean feat for a party whose long-standing rallying cry has been ‘it’s Scotland’s oil’.

Crucial decisions have been taken, from the 2017 ban on fracking, to the pre-COP26 announcement that the Scottish Government no longer supports drilling every last drop of North Sea oil. Sturgeon has spoken out against the Cambo oil field, and the current energy strategy consultation asks whether the Scottish Government should oppose new licensing of oil and gas fields and support a faster phase out than the natural decline of the UK's fossil fuels

The new leadership must set a clear end date for oil and gas, to provide certainty for workers, communities and the sector, rule out the new gas power plant at Peterhead, and focus on phasing out fossil fuel use in our energy system

Just transition at the heart of climate narrative

In centring the concept of a just transition for energy workers and communities at the heart of the decarbonisation narrative, Scotland is genuinely breaking new ground. A just transition is essential if we want to move away from fossil fuels in a way that acts as a catalyst for a fairer society.

Sturgeon's Government enshrined just transition principles in law, appointed a Minister for Just Transition, committed to just transition plans for regions and sectors and established a Just Transition Commision with an economy-wide remit While we are yet to see a just transition being realised on the ground, the framework is in place to enable one, and crucially to hold the Government to account on its delivery.

With the Just Transition Plan for the Energy Sector currently out for consultation, plans for agriculture, transport and buildings are expected to be unveiled in the coming weeks They must set out robust delivery plans, showing how just transition outcomes will be met, how the necessary investment to transform our economy will be marshalled, and what measures will be put in place to support workers and communities to make the transition