REFORM UK have threatened to “scrap” net zero if the party ever win power in Westminster.
Deputy leader Richard Tice promised earlier this month that the party would impose new taxes on green energy to recover subsidies previously given to companies and end the Government’s emissions target.
While the policy was written on the back of a fag packet – Reform haven’t said how the taxes would work or how much they expect to bring in – it will have sent a chill down the spines of environmental campaigners and green capitalists alike.
Between 2010 and March 2024, there was £300 billion of public and private investment pumped into green energy, across the UK.
And that figure is only going up, with Labour boasting in October that in their first 100 days in power, they had leveraged £24bn of private investment into clean power.
In Scotland, the clean electricity sector is on the up, with renewable capacity jumping 1621MW between 2021 and 2022, according to industry body Scottish Renewables.
It is big business, too, with the industry and its supply chain supporting more than 43,000 jobs and generating £10.1bn in output in 2021 alone, employers said.
That last figure is roughly the same as the amount in subsidies for renewables per year that Reform want to scrap, according to their 2024 General Election manifesto.
Experts do not believe that high energy bills are tied to renewables or even the Government’s financial support for the sector, but rather to the price of gas.
Renewables are the cheapest form of electricity production but so that they still turn a profit for investors, their price is fixed to that of gas.
Apparently, in an effort to bring that down, Reform have committed to fast-track new oil and gas licences as well as introducing fracking licences for a two-year test period.
In what seems to see off local opposition to shale gas exploitation, a deeply controversial practice, the party have committed to local “compensation” schemes and to only allow “major production when safety is proven”.
Elsewhere, Reform’s sweeping vow to tax renewables should be worrying for the many small renewables projects in Scotland, which do not benefit from the UK Government’s Contracts for Difference scheme, the main mechanism by which the state supports clean energy developments.
Contracts for Difference are used for big projects, meaning that smaller things like community heating schemes are not eligible.
And electricity is already taxed more than gas. Putting up taxes would surely only hike prices further.
There is also little option to “cash in” ahead of time if Reform ever do come to power – which polls suggest is not impossible.
Battery farms to store the electricity generated by renewable sources are popping up all over Scotland. But they still aren’t enough to keep the lights on all the time if the wind isn’t blowing or the sun isn’t shining.
Even major projects backed by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners will, once completed, only be able to store 3GWh of electricity, or enough to meet the demand of 4.5 million households for two hours.
Small wonder that SNP MSP Kevin Stewart (above) said Reform’s plans would “not only be a dangerous threat to the environment, but put Scotland’s economy and workers at serious risk, as we lead the UK on net zero jobs by some distance”.
He told The National: “For Nigel Farage's Reform party to suggest scrapping net zero is simply unconscionable and buys into increasingly dangerous right-wing rhetoric around the threat posed by climate change.
“Some may say progress towards net zero puts economic growth at risk, but the evidence shows otherwise. Scotland’s net zero sector has grown by over 20% in the last two years, with employment in the sector increasing by a similar figure – there are now over 100,000 jobs in the net zero sector in Scotland.”
Stewart added: "The truth is, you can’t trust any of the Westminster parties with Scotland’s industries or resources – but you can have both economic growth and progress towards net zero, as the rapid growth of the sector in the past few years shows.”
