IN THE TWENTY years since devolution the ecological crisis has gone from critical to catastrophic and the emerging Scottish Government has strived to respond. It has had some limited successes in setting ambitious climate change targets. But, with energy, a retained power at Westminster, and without control over the North Sea, the Scottish Government has struggled to resolve and transcend environmental policy.
Successes include the closure of the Longannet power station in March 2016, which ended coal-fired power production in Scotland, and the overall growth of the renewable sector. The Scottish Government has set ambitious targets for renewable energy production. In 2005 the aim was for 18 per cent of Scotland’s electricity production to be generated by renewable sources by 2010, rising to 40 per cent by 2020. In 2007 this was increased to 50 per cent of electricity from renewables by 2020, with an interim target of 31 per cent by 2011. The following year new targets to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent by 2050 were announced and then confirmed in the 2009 Climate Change Delivery Plan. Maf Smith, director of the Sustainable Development Commission in Scotland said:
Governments across the world are shying away from taking the necessary action. The Scottish Government must be commended for its intention to lead the way.
Scotland has significant quantities of fossil fuel deposits, including 62.4 per cent of the EU’s proven reserves of oil, but also 85 per cent of the UK’s hydroelectric energy resource, much of it developed by the north of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board in the 1950s. If energy is both our blessing and our curse this is not to say that some failures have not been entirely of their own making. The Scottish Government exists in a world unable or incapable of making the seismic changes required to respond to the climate crisis.
In 2018 The Herald reported:
For the first time the scientists worked out Scotland’s carbon budget under the international climate agreement made in Paris in 2015. They conclude that for Scotland to meet its global responsibilities it can only emit a total of 300 million tonnes more carbon dioxide – meaning it has to cut emissions by at least ten per cent every year starting now.
The report points out that if the world is to meet international climate targets 70 to 80 per cent of known fossil fuel reserves must stay in the ground. ‘Scotland needs to begin an urgent and phased closure of its oil and gas sector’, it says. Now this is going to cause some problems.
No-one really wants to do anything, even though the overwhelming evidence is that the world is teetering on the brink of catastrophic change. Real courageous leadership is conspicuous by its absence. No one wants to give up the lifestyle they’ve assumed is their right. At either end of the income scale in developed countries there’s little appetite for change. Many of the wealthiest people have made their money from resource exploitation and can’t see beyond it. Many people suffering in poverty don’t see how this ‘crisis’ is to do with them or how they might have agency to change such a reality.
Many people who want to see an independent Scotland are still obsessed by the ‘It’s Scotland’s Oil’ trope of the 1970s. Many will no doubt claim that ‘it will make no difference’ and we should use every last drop. Of course, it’s not Scotland’s oil, its Shell’s, Exxon’s and BP’s. And yes, we could tax them and yes, we could create an Oil Fund – but we would be doing so at least 30 years too late. Other emerging industries, and non-industries have far more potential and far less destructive impact. But our problem isn’t just the obsession with oil, but climate polluters, and the exertion of corporate power.
Table 1: Scotland’s Top 20 Climate Polluters
Plant |
Tonnes of carbon dioxide emitted in 2016 |
Petroineos refinery, Grangemouth |
1,650,000 |
Longannet power station, Fife (now closed) |
1,640,000 |
ExxonMobile ethylene plant, Mossmorran |
885,580 |
Combined heat and power plant, Grangemouth |
614,863 |
SSE power station, Peterhead |
602,641 |
Tarmac cement plant, Dunbar |
537,029 |
Ineos Infrastructure, Grangemouth |
495,214 |
Ineos Chemicals, Grangemouth |
486,809 |
RWE biomass plant, Glenrothes |
438,000 |
E.ON biomass plant, Lockerbie |
370,965 |
Shell gas plant, Peterhead |
356,334 |
Ineos Forties Pipeline System, Grangemouth |
351,262 |
UPM-Kymmene paper mill, Irvine |
279,483 |
Norboard chipboard factory, Cowie |
268,160 |
Total gas plant, Shetland |
235,234 |
Engie oil terminal, Shetland |
211,741 |
Shell gas plant, Mossmorran |
193,554 |
William Grant whisky distillers, Girvan |
152,913 |
Repsol oil terminal, Orkney |
144,206 |
O-I glass plant, Alloa |
141,902 |
Source: Scottish Environment Protection Agency
As the light flashes on the very precise figures for Scotland to reach its climate change obligations – and the companies needing to be divested away from immediately – focus turns also to the disastrous state of our lochs, rivers and seas. The investigative project The Ferret have highlighted a full-length version of this video of lice infested salmon in a Scottish fish farm and been told that the Scottish Government confirmed officials would inspect it ‘immanently’. A video shot underwater on 27 August 2018 inside a cage at Vacasay fish farm in Loch Roag showed hundreds of sea lice feeding on salmon with open wounds and damaged tails and fins
While the issues are being presented as an animal rights and cruelty issue (which it surely is) it also raises significant questions about, first, the ‘Good Food Nation’ and the constant cheerleading about salmon as the champion export of finest Scottish produce; and second, the rights of coastal communities to have their own marine habitats protected from these rapacious and damaging companies. If a company abused animals on land like this with a significant damaging impact on the wider countryside local communities would be rightly up in arms.
Who will win out? The natural environment and local communities who benefit little from these dire practices? Or, the handful of big companies leaching off the pretence that Scotland has high quality food standards? But as the UN announces it is taking its first significant steps towards legally protecting the high seas another new exploitation closer to home is emerging.
Marine Biopolymers has submitted a scoping report to Marine Scotland outlining plans to dredge for the kelp Laminaria hyperborea over a huge area of Scotland’s West Coast. It is perhaps stating the obvious but:
Kelps as primary producers and habitat providers play a key role in the maintenance of fish stocks and ecosystem structure, sustaining regional fisheries and the coastal communities they support.
As Ailsa McLellan stated:
Marine Biopolymers want to tow a large-toothed dredge in strips through kelp beds ripping the entire plant up by the holdfast (killing it), then throw the holdfast over the side to ‘facilitate survival’ of invertebrates.
Assuming any invertebrates survive this treatment, where are they meant to go when chucked back over the side? Their habitat is gone, the other invertebrates are not going to ‘budge up’ and make room for them, that’s not how biology works.
Kelp is long-lived a vital part of the habitat and much employment of coastal Scotland is reliant upon a healthy coastal ecosystem: fisheries and eco-tourism would all be jeopardised by the destruction of kelp beds.
Moreover, climate change is happening. Its effects, such as increasing acidity and rougher seas are already being measured in our oceans. Kelp sequesters significant amounts of carbon, Kelp sequesters significant amounts of carbon, buffers acidity, and acts as a storm barrier for coasts.
She continued:
Kelp dredging is currently not allowed in Scotland. Marine Biopolymers seek to change that and have submitted a scoping report to Marine Scotland with plans to dredge for kelp over a huge area of Scotland’s West Coast. Kelp is one of the most biodiverse habitats on the planet, it protects coasts from erosion, absorbs carbon, buffers rising ocean acidity. We need it. Please call on MPs and MSPs to ensure that NO kelp dredging licenses are granted.
Precisely because the marine world is ‘beneath’ the, or out to, sea it is more vulnerable and needs our protection. It is inconceivable to continue to promote our land and coast as tourist destinations for their beauty and natural wonder and still allow this level of exploitation, or to conceive of us as a ‘Good Food Nation’ with lice-infested lochs.
The Scottish Government’s attitude to aviation expansion is a prism on their environmental policy under devolution. How does anyone in Scotland benefit from a third runway at Heathrow? How is this in anyway in alignment with Scotland’s (much vaunted) climate change emission targets? The Government’s latest figures foresee aviation emissions rising by 7.3 million tonnes of CO2 by 2030 if a third runway is developed at Heathrow airport – equivalent to the annual CO2 emissions from Cyprus.
Heathrow expansion flies in the face of efforts to tackle climate change. As Friends of the Earth Scotland have said:
The UK Government’s proposal now needs to be approved by the Westminster Parliament. The Government has a minority of MPs and many Conservatives oppose this disastrous scheme. The votes of the 35 SNP MPs are likely to be crucial in the final decision.
In 2018 scientists on board the Greenpeace’s boat MV Beluga II skirted round Scotland’s coast collecting data on the concentration of plastic and micro plastics in the sea. Micro plastics are defined as pieces of plastic measuring less than 5mm in any dimension. All plastic waste tends to break down into micro plastics over time, and most of the plastic in our oceans is in the form of micro plastics. It is the first and possibly the only such research of its kind. Almost two-thirds of Scottish waters were found to contain micro-plastic pollution.
A total of 49 individual samples were analysed by Greenpeace’s laboratory to determine the types of micro plastics found, and any chemicals or contaminants carried on individual micro plastic pieces. Despite the remoteness of Scottish coastal waters, and the low levels of coastal development of the areas surveyed, 31 of 49 samples tested contained micro plastics.
The survey raises profound questions about the state of our ecology and our responses to environmental problems. Greenpeace focused on the ‘pristine’ waters of Mull, Tire, Rum, Canna and the Western Isles precisely because these waters contain basking sharks, dolphins, whales and sea birds. Just as polar bears equal a climate change icon (people like bears), so sharks also play well in the public conscience.
At the launch of the report we had Tory Maurice Golden MSP and SNP Kate Forbes MSP talking about the Scottish Parliament’s possible responses. Beach clean-ups were focused on and we were told to think of ‘Ocean Optimism’. But if the West Coast is contaminated then that must mean the rivers are contaminated. We have created a product (plastic) that doesn’t break down, is very cheap to produce and has multiple applications. Then we have created an economy based on mass consumption and a culture that thrives on throwing things away.
Kate Forbes has been leading the Final Straw campaign for an end to plastic straws and succeeded in the Parliament banning straws. Pupils from Glasgow’s Sunnyside Primary School have persuaded Glasgow City Council to ditch plastic straws. The Scottish Government announced in September it will introduce a Deposit and Return Scheme for drinks packaging. Detailed proposals for a Scottish system are being worked up by Zero Waste Scotland at the instruction of Roseanna Cunningham MSP, the Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform, and a final design is expected to be published in the summer of 2019. Michael Gove has also suggested he would look at a similar scheme at a UK level.
Campaigners for the Scottish scheme have insisted their plans will go ahead regardless of whether it happens at a UK level, though obviously a UK-wide scheme would be preferable. Now both of these initiatives are to be welcomed and the deposit scheme has already been backed by more than ninety organisations, including businesses, local authorities, outdoor sports organisations and universities. A small fully refundable deposit on empty drinks containers has been proven elsewhere to reduce litter, boost recycling, and contribute to the circular economy and has widespread public support.
What we need to be doing is thinking about the leap to a post-plastic society and departure from our throwaway consumable culture. If these measures are steps towards that goal, then that is good. If they are steps away from that goal by chaining us to ameliorative and negligible differences, then we need to be aware of that danger.
The idea of a Scottish food (and seafood) ‘brand’ being associated with being ‘clean’ and ‘green’ (itself highly problematic) is also potentially undermined by these findings and the reality of a ‘Plastic Sea’. Environmental policies need to be allied to, and connected with, the wider aim of a rupture from consumer society and the reality that the production-consumption cycle is what fuels the climate crisis. Rather than a spurious ‘Ocean Optimism’ we should have a radical realism, face up to what is happening, and demand change at a level that has meaning.
The issues explored here are focused on the recent Scottish Government record on the environment. But successive devolved governments have failed to respond to the ecological crisis in a meaningful way. In part this is due to the limitations of devolved rule, but it is also in part due to a societal failing of all of us to ‘give up’ the lifestyle we have become accustomed to.
Ultimately it is due to the economic system we are tied into and a reliance on which has proven to be incompatible to the carrying capacity of the earth. To transcend this crisis will require not just constitutional change but massive political and economic rupture. That ultimately is about more than the Scottish Parliament and devolution, and even independence, but us as global citizens.