Industry experts have warned the scrapping of a billion-pound funding competition for carbon capture and storage development will “double” the cost of the UK meeting its climate change targets.
Plans to build a ground-breaking CCS plant at Peterhead ground to a halt following the move, announced on the Stock Exchange on the same day as Chancellor George Osborne’s spending review last year.
Now, the Committee on Climate Change has warned Energy Secretary Amber Rudd to “urgently” develop a “new approach” to deliver the technology.
Their letter to the senior minister has been welcomed by SNP MSP Stewart Stevenson, who said it confirmed the “total betrayal” of the north-east by the Conservative government.
The Banffshire and Buchan Coast member said: “The Committee on Climate Change is the latest in a series of industry experts and business leaders to condemn the decision of the Tory government to scrap the £1billion CCS investment in Peterhead.
“Not only is it a total betrayal of the north-east of Scotland, at the cost of 600 jobs for the local community, but it’s going to prove a costly move – doubling the price tag of meeting our global obligations on carbon reduction.
“The committee is right to call for a ‘rapid’ rethink on CCS – the decision to scrap the promised investment in Peterhead has been exposed as rash and reckless accounting from the Tory government, which will cost all of us.”
The committee claims the costs of delivering the ambitious climate change targets agreed at a Paris summit in December would be “twice as high” without the CCS scheme.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change said: “We are determined to meet our climate change commitments in the most cost-effective way so we can keep bills as low as possible, and have already reduced our emissions by 30% since 1990.
“We are considering the committee’s advice and will set the fifth carbon budget in law by the end of June this year.”