ENERGY Minister Gillian Martin has said it would be “unusual” if Scottish bond plans don’t help fund the country's net zero ambitions.
It comes after First Minister Humza Yousaf pledged to issue Scottish Government bonds for the first time during the SNP conference in October.
Bonds are the standard form of borrowing for governments and support spending including on major infrastructure projects, with buyers owed the value of the bond plus interest over a specific period of time.
The Scottish Government currently has capital borrowing limits, which are set to increase with inflation from their current levels of £450 million per annum and £3 billion cumulatively.
Yousaf described it as the party’s “most ambitious proposal yet”, with further details to be set out in the Budget in December.
Asked whether the Scottish Government had any future plans to issue a green bond, or incorporate the same principle – that money raised is specifically earmarked for climate and environmental projects - within current plans, Martin told The National that this was within the finance portfolio, not hers.
She added, however: “I would say that anything the Scottish Government is involved in would [include Net Zero]. Net Zero goes through pretty much everything we’re doing at the moment.
“It would strike me as being unusual if we didn’t make it dovetail with our Net Zero ambitions.”
It comes after the MSP for Aberdeenshire East announced on Thursday that The Net Zero Technology Centre (NZTC) has been awarded £200,000 to look into the feasibility and economic opportunity of exporting green hydrogen between Scotland and Germany and solidify the case for infrastructure investment.
In a report in August, NZTZ estimated that a pipeline between the two countries would cost around £2.8bn to deliver.
Martin said that it represented a “great opportunity” for Scotland, with the proposed pipeline key to unlocking an already burgeoning market for Scottish hydrogen in Europe.
