Scotland is Europe's green energy capital, says energy minister

Jim Mather counters Fred Pearce's claim that Scotland is 'planning to green its electricity by burning more coal'

Jim Mather
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 10 February 2009 10.42 GMT

Fred Pearce's claim in his Greenwash column that "the Scottish government is talking up the world's dirtiest fossil fuel as clean in its push to revive its coal industry" cannot go unchallenged.
The Scottish government is unequivocal in our commitment to tackle climate change. Our Climate Change Bill is the most ambitious legislation in the world – it will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050 and will create a statutory framework committing Scotland to securing this reduction.
This will be backed by the legally binding targets set by the EU for greenhouse gas emissions reductions of 20% by 2020 – or even 30% by 2020 in the event of an international climate change agreement being reached in Copenhagen later this year. Scotland is embracing that challenge.
Our energy policy commits us to substantially increasing the supply of renewable energy, while developing clean energy technology, to move Scotland to a low-carbon economy.
Already, 20% of Scottish electricity comes from renewables. Compare that with the paltry UK total of just 5% of electricity from renewables.
We have some of the best natural resources in the world for harnessing energy from wave, water and wind. We have the Clyde wind farm, the largest approved onshore wind farm in Europe; we have recently approved one of the largest commercial wave farms in the world off the Western isles, and there are plans for investment in marine energy the Pentland Firth – which has been dubbed the "Saudi Arabia of marine energy", so great is its potential.
In December the Scottish government unveiled the £10m Saltire Prize, one of the biggest scientific innovation awards in history.
The prize – which will be awarded to the team that demonstrates commercially viable wave or tidal in energy in Scottish waters that achieves a minimum output of 100 GW over a two-year period using only the power of the sea – has already attracted more than 70 prospective entries from around the world.
We will continue to use all of our resources to make Scotland the green energy capital of Europe.
With nuclear power already proven as costly, dangerous – and with our vast natural resources, ultimately unnecessary – we are building a balanced energy policy.
We are currently consulting on our approach to approving new thermal power stations. A final decision has not yet been taken on the way in which we will achieve emissions reductions from any such new plant and require carbon capture and storage (CCS).
Any decision on new power stations must be in the context of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, which sets a legally binding framework for emissions reduction across the EU. Phase 3 of the ETS from 2012 will mean a tightening cap on emissions that is consistent with this legally binding reduction framework. And a combination of full-auctioning of allowances for the power generation sector from 2013, and the expected resulting rise in the carbon price, it's clear any new power plants will have to reduce their emissions, driving coal-fired power generation to capture emissions via CCS.
CCS offers Scotland opportunities to become a world leader. We have the technical expertise in carbon capture, a willingness on the part of our power generators, and unrivalled storage capacity in the North Sea to realise this vision. The immediate need is for a programme of CCS demonstration projects covering the range of pre- and post-combustion technologies and storage solutions available, so that full commercial scale capture, aided by a rising carbon price can occur as quickly as possible. We have constantly supported calls for the rapid development of such demonstration projects.
I will continue to take the bold and ambitious decisions necessary to ensure we remain world leaders in tackling climate change and in moving our economy down the low-carbon pathway. The agreed legal frameworks at Scottish, UK and EU levels assure this, and I am confident that they will lead to the scale of emissions reductions that are essential to prevent dangerous climate change.
Climate change demands action – and we will be judged by our actions.
Jim Mather is Scottish energy minister