Humza Yousaf has launched a new green energy blueprint for Scotland’s net zero mission - as he also vowed not to “abandon” oil and gas workers. In his first major business speech since becoming First Minister, at the All-Energy conference in Glasgow, he pledged to boost renewables and invest heavily in projects trialling so-called “green hydrogen”.
The FM insisted the Scottish Government will “lead from the front” in moving to cleaner energy sources - and warned UK ministers not to hold back progress. It comes amid a growing clamour for the Tory government to commit funding to the Acorn carbon capture project in Aberdeen and division over plans to green-light more North Sea projects.
Giving his keynote speech to the All-Energy summit at the SEC - the UK’s biggest green energy conference - Yousaf said he would continue to support the oil and gas sector while investment in low-carbon technologies is ramped up.
It follows controversy over the SNP-Green government’s draft Energy Strategy - published under predecessor Nicola Sturgeon - which could commit ministers to opposing all new fossil fuels projects. North Sea licensing remains reserved to Westminster.
Yousaf told delegates: “I know that economic change can often bring uncertainties, in many parts of the country, but the North East in particular. I understand the impact that deindustrialisation had on many parts of Scotland in the 1970s and 1980s, and that impact is still felt by many former mining and steel communities to this very day.
“So I’m certainly determined that, from the government perspective, from the government that I lead, we will not abandon those in the oil and gas industry now in the way that, I’m afraid, UK Governments abandoned coal miners and industrial workers in the '70s and '80s. There is a reason we call it a just transition. There is nothing just, nothing progressive, about throwing workers on the scrapheap."
But he showered praise on schemes already under way in the offshore industry to decarbonise and retrain workers for green jobs - claiming Aberdeen is “transforming itself into the net zero capital of Europe”. And Yousaf vowed to “unlock and unleash” the potential of Scotland’s wind power sector.
But he faced embarrassing criticism from Scottish Power chief Keith Anderson, who spoke before the First Minister and lashed out at an onerous planning process he said was holding up new wind farms and upgrades. The Scottish Government has also made green hydrogen - which uses renewable electricity to create the alternative fuel - a key part of its net zero blueprint, which Yousaf hailed as a “potential game-changer”.
He announced £7million in funding for 32 different research and development projects across Scotland, including work on how to store hydrogen on floating wind-farms and on decarbonising farming. The debate over fossil fuels comes as the UK Government is considering whether to approve the huge new Rosebank oil field off the Shetland coast.
Scottish ministers have refused to say if they support the controversial development. Asked about the issue by the Record yesterday, Yousaf said: “The decision on Rosebank - one for the UK Government, of course - should take into account a number of different factors… We know we can't just turn off the taps tomorrow."
Pressed on the new Energy Strategy, which suggests ministers should oppose new North Sea projects, the First Minister hinted he could row back on that stance, replying: "It's a draft Energy Strategy and the consultation has just closed."
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