It is disappointing that the current draft energy strategy does little to to get Scotland on track towards its climate targets.
It is disappointing therefore that the current draft energy strategy does little to achieve this and is not much more than a collection of previously announced or initiated policies with little in the way of new, more intensive work or, indeed, much sense of strategic development of the policies to understand how the policies interact with each other (e.g. how heat insulation programmes will impact energy demand and thus the need for more energy supply or other infrastructure).
We are particularly disappointed that the scope of the Scottish Government’s “Just Transition” strategy has been reduced to an annex at the end of this consultation with even less in the way of new policy material included or thought as to how the success or failure to achieve a Just Transition for workers will impact delivery of the other objectives within the energy strategy.
The Scottish Government should begin to take its obligations and responsibilities towards the climate emergency as seriously as the science demands. We expect that when the Government comes back with its final energy strategy that it will have performed a complete evaluation of all proposed policies to ensure that the sum total of them actually meets climate objective or, when it is found that they do not, the strategy is revised to include additional strategies to correct that shortfall.