In Europe’s oil and gas “capital”, Aberdeen, voters are apprehensive about Labour’s plans for combatting climate change if the opposition party wins next month’s UK general election as expected.
Labour scaled back its green investment pledges under pressure from the ruling Conservatives about how it would fund them, but still promises to make Britain a “clean energy superpower”.
The speed of the transition from fossil fuels to renewables is on the minds of many residents of Aberdeen on Scotland’s northeast coast, where tens of thousands of people work in energy.
“A carefully managed transition will ensure that workers can be deployed in lower carbon sectors as the race to net-zero gathers pace,” Michael Love of OPITO, an Aberdeen-based non-profit body promoting skills for the energy industry, told AFP.
Labour plans to end new drilling licences for oil and gas and raise the existing windfall tax on fossil fuel producers by three points to 78 percent.
It will also scrap a tax relief avenue for oil and gas producers.
Industry groups and opposition parties have warned that the policies put up to 100,000 jobs at risk across the UK, a claim that Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar described as “scaremongering”.
“Expecting North Sea workers to vote for Labour at this time is like asking the forest to vote for the axe,” said Viaro Energy chief executive Francesco Mazzagatti, recalling the words of a colleague recently.
– ‘Next generation’ –
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s ruling Conservatives, who have watered down several climate goals and are tipped to suffer a heavy defeat to Labour on July 4, have committed to new exploration licenses.
Stephen Flynn, of the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP), told AFP that in the constituency of Aberdeen South, where he is seeking re-election, voters are “deeply concerned” about what a Labour government might mean for their livelihoods.
Labour insists its so-called Green Prosperity Plan will create 650,000 jobs across Britain by 2030 and put the country on track to meet its target of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Experts have warned of “worryingly slow” recent progress by the UK on reducing greenhouse gases and suggested the country could miss its future targets.
At the heart of Labour’s energy pitch is a publicly owned investment vehicle called Great British Energy, to be headquartered in Scotland and backed by £8.3 billion ($10.5 billion) of government money.
Labour says the body will invest in clean domestic power sources, securing energy supplies and lowering electricity and gas prices that rocketed after key producer Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
It will also invest in wind, solar and other projects, bidding to make Scotland a world leader in new technologies such as floating offshore wind, hydrogen, and carbon capture and storage.
“Clean power is the best opportunity we’ve had in a generation for the next generation of jobs,” Labour leader Keir Starmer said in Scotland last month.
Starmer endured flak earlier this year for drastically slashing his party’s flagship pledge to spend £28 billion a year on green infrastructure.
Instead, it now plans to spend £23.7 billion over the entire five years of the next parliament, blaming fiscal constraints.
Labour also has the ambitious aim of decarbonising the UK’s electricity grid by 2030 and says it will reverse the Conservatives’ move to push back a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030 to 2035.
– Rebranding –
Many in Aberdeen recognise that North Sea oil is running out and agree that the future of the planet rests with renewable energy, with attempts under way to rebrand it Europe’s “net zero capital”.
Unemployed 44-year-old Chris Murray, who intends to vote for the SNP, said a future Labour government should be planning to invest more in the energy transition.
“It used to be quite easy for someone to get an apprenticeship on a rig,” he told AFP.
“That’s all coming to an end, so how about apprenticeships for wind turbines, wave energy?”
In a statement following Labour’s manifesto launch this month, Friends of the Earth called for Britain’s main political parties “to stop treating climate and nature as a side issue.”
“Economic prudence may be Labour’s guiding principle, but there’s nothing prudent about failing to invest in the measures that will safeguard our future,” said Mike Childs of the environmental group.
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