‘Hollow’ Programme for Goverment risks greenwashing carbon capture plans

Climate campaigners have said today’s Programme for Government risks “greenwashing” fossil fuels after the First Minister pledged more than £80million to the struggling Acorn carbon capture project.  

Early this week, campaigners released a list of 10 major climate policies that have been “scrapped or vanished” in the last 12 months under John Swinney as First Minister.

These included dropping the targets to cut car use, weakening plans to phase out fossil fuel heating and the disappearance of the Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan.   

Friends of the Earth Scotland head of campaigns Caroline Rance said,  

“Scottish Government Ministers have been guilty of paying lip service to climate action for too long, and this hollow Programme contained very little to suggest that they will deliver the transformative change needed to improve lives and cut pollution.  

“Climate solutions are the same as the solutions to the cost-of-living crisis – cheaper energy in warmer homes, affordable public transport and secure jobs building the green infrastructure we need. Whilst it is welcome to see Ministers committing to ending peak rail fares once and for all, far more is needed to give public and active transport the priority they deserve.  

“Tens of millions of pounds of public money should not be going to subsidise the carbon capture greenwash of big oil companies. Decades of evidence of carbon capture failures should not be outweighed by the demands of oil lobbyists who are using it to try and obscure their climate-destroying fossil fuel burning plans.”