Nicola Sturgeon slammed Rishi Sunak’s North Sea strategy unveiled in Peterhead as a “lamentable leadership failure”.
The former first minister was scathing in her criticism of the prime minister’s move to “max out” oil and gas development in the North Sea.
Mr Sunak visited Peterhead on Monday and pledged to back more than 100 new licences for oil and gas fields, attracting support from the industry.
But Ms Sturgeon joined other senior figures within her party expressing serious concerns over the impact of such a policy on the climate.
Writing for the Glasgow Times, she said the move would be a “dereliction of our duty towards the north-east and those who work in the sector and its supply chain”.
The North Sea is a declining basin and by 2050, even if new fields got the go ahead, production would be a “tiny fraction of what it was at its peak”, Ms Sturgeon said.
She added that even without a climate emergency, there is a “need to make a just transition to renewables as quickly as possible to ensure new jobs are created”.
It comes after SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn said the Tories “appear to have adopted an almost Donald-Trump like stance of ‘drill, baby, drill”.
‘Dereliction of duty’
The former first minister said: “No one is arguing that existing oil and gas ‘taps’ can or should be turned off immediately – but in the face of a climate emergency, as the planet quite literally burns, it is surely not responsible to turn more fossil fuel ‘taps’ on.”
She described Mr Sunak’s promise to ‘max out’ the North Sea as a “lamentable leadership failure” which “undermines efforts to tackle climate change”.
Ms Sturgeon added: “And it also is a dereliction of our duty towards the northeast and those who work in the sector and its supply chain.”
Speaking on Monday, Mr Sunak refused to say if he would back the controversial Rosebank oil field to the west of Shetland but hinted strongly he would.
He made the remarks during a visit to the Shell St Fergus gas plant to give his formal backing to the Acorn project, which is estimated to create more than 20,000 jobs.
It comes after years of frustration for the scheme which twice lost out on carbon capture funding from UK ministers.
He said: “My view is we should max-out the opportunities we have here in the North Sea because that’s good for our energy security, good for jobs, particularly in Scotland and it’s good for the climate because the alternative is shipping energy from half way around the world with three or four times the carbon emissions.”
On Rosebank, Ms Sturgeon said claims fields like Rosebank will improve energy security and lower costs are “deeply dubious”.
‘Central belt agenda’
Andrew Bowie, Tory MP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, said the former SNP leader had a “legacy of unkept promises”.
He added: “The time spent taking endless selfies at COP in Glasgow would have been better spent promoting the UK’s credentials as a G7 leader on carbon reduction.
“But her attitude to oil and gas, CCUS and nuclear — much like her view of the north east — has always been adversarial.
“It fits her central belt agenda to make proclamations from Glasgow that could just as easily come from Patrick Harvie.”
UK Government Scotland Office minister John Lamont said while ministers are “fully committed” to net zero, by 2050, one quarter of energy will still come from oil and gas.
He said: “Nicola Sturgeon fails to understand that it is far better to use our own resources instead of importing fuel from Russia and being held to ransom by Vladimir Putin.
“Extracting oil and gas from the North Sea makes sense – it strengthens our energy security, creates more opportunities for green technology and supports thousands of Scottish jobs.”
