Labour have been accused of “writing off” the north-east oil and gas industry with a proposal to slash carbon emissions to zero by 2030.
The party are today set to commit to a radical set of plans which would see the complete decarbonisation of Britain over the next 10 years if Jeremy Corbyn were to win the next general election.
Shadow energy secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey told a fringe event at the party’s conference in Brighton yesterday that she would be backing the plan – despite one of Labour’s biggest union backers, GMB, having concerns.
The unions have argued that the 2030 target, which is sooner than even high-profile proponents of the plan in the US such as Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez have called for, will harm the interests of their members.
Scotland Office minister Colin Clark said the plan was “reckless”.
“The oil and gas industry have done more to reduce carbon emissions by converting from coal to gas than all the renewables added together and we need to recognise that,” he said.
“The Labour Party get very politically engaged when it’s the steel industry but when it’s the oil and gas industry that supports 280,000 jobs of which 120,000 are highly paid and in Scotland they’re willing to write-off the entire industry to burnish their green credentials.”
The Gordon MP said those advocating decarbonisation needed to realise how important the oil and gas sector are in achieving that goal.
He added: “They have the engineers, the technology and the capital to invest in the green economy.
“If its grassroots organisations want to genuinely reduce carbon emissions they have to recognise that would largely be market driven. A private sector driven solution.
“This idea that the state in some sort of Stalinist Marxist model is going to take over the means of production to make us a green economy is completely for the birds.”
The Conservatives have promised to hit net zero by 2050, but Labour for a Green New Deal say the 2030 target would “give Labour one of the most radical climate policies in the global north’.
Lauren Townsend, a trade unionist and spokesperson for the group, said: “On Tuesday, delegates will have a historic opportunity to pass a radical Green New Deal, with a 2030 decarbonisation target, harness the energy of the global climate strike and make Labour the party of climate.
“We hope they take it.”
Banff and Buchan MP David Duguid, who has a background in the industry, said: “The Committee for Climate Change’s own ambitious targets of 2050 for the UK and 2045 for Scotland are what informed the UK Government’s legislation to meet that target.
“Bringing forward net-zero targets to 2030 is merely virtue-signalling from a party that clearly has no realistic intention of being in Government any time soon.”
