Spineless politicians have failed the workers and the climate at Grangemouth

Last week, the courts ruled that the UK Government’s decision to approve the controversial Rosebank oil field was unlawful. This was a historic decision that signals the end of oil and gas exploration in the North Sea. There can be no more excuses from governments or businesses. We need to see well-funded, detailed just transition plans across the energy sector that properly support workers and communities who have powered the oil and gas industry for decades. 

Yet at one of Scotland’s most crucial industrial sites, the Scottish Government has failed on every test of a just transition. The Grangemouth oil refinery, a joint venture by INEOS and PetroChina, is set to close by this summer. The company have put workers on the scrap heap, enabled by an apathetic Scottish Government who have barely lifted a finger to create a fair or fast transition for Grangemouth.  

This week, the public consultation on the draft Scottish Government’s just transition plan for Grangemouth closed. A long-awaited document that offers absolutely nothing to the existing workforce, the community of Grangemouth, or the climate.

Scottish Government failed to plan ahead for the transition

What’s more, the Scottish Government was well aware of the potential closure plans long before November 2023. The proposals to shift the refinery to an import and export terminal were first put to Michael Matheson, then Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero, Energy, and Transport, in February 2022 – eighteen months before Petroineos unilaterally announced the plans to the workers and the public.

The never-ending delays to action around a transition in Grangemouth is indicative of a deeper failing of the Scottish Government, who have sat on their hands and let companies like Petroineos get away with climate vandalism. 

To produce something so empty at this late stage is a damning indictment of where Scotland’s energy transition is currently at. The Scottish Government cannot claim that they haven’t had fair warning of the need for a transition plan for any other high-carbon industry. Oil and gas jobs have halved over the past decade, despite hundreds of new oil exploration licenses issued during that time.  

Their inaction is particularly shameful in Grangemouth, where the need for a transition plan has been apparent for years. The refinery was again one of Scotland’s most polluting sites in 2023, yet its climate impact was not the issue at the heart of Petroineos’ decision-making. Petroineos will continue to import the same refined product, merely offshoring their immense carbon emissions. The company has only ever been concerned with how to maximise their profits, with their workforce and the climate treated as collateral damage.   

Climate pollution from Grangemouth will be offshored

There is an intentional blind spot that enables polluters in Scotland like Petroineos to shirk responsibility by importing oil and offshoring their emissions. And that problem is only increasing in size.  The pollution created by goods and services imported into Scotland has grown from 18 million tonnes of carbon to 30 million tonnes annually since 1998 – for context, our domestic emissions are 40 million tonnes per year.  

In the draft just transition plan for Grangemouth, the Scottish Government claim that “despite a shared desire to transition, companies in the Grangemouth Industrial Cluster face several challenges in doing so sustainably.” A laughable statement that obscures that Petroineos are not interested in “sustainable” options – they are interested in making their emissions somewhere else’s problem. This underlines how the decision to close the refinery, with no transition plan, is abhorrent on climate, industrial, and moral grounds.   

Petroineos still receiving public money

Damningly, the company have continued to receive public funding and grants from Scottish Enterprise, and from both the UK and Scottish Governments in the form of Project Willow. With no conditionality attached to these grants – on job creation, transition plans, or targeted retraining for Grangemouth workers, for example – Petroineos continues to receive a free pass from both the Scottish and UK Governments.  

The Scottish Government’s draft just transition plan for Grangemouth declares that they will develop a series of “Just Transition conditionalities” to be applied to future public funding for the Grangemouth industrial cluster. To say that the Scottish Government are shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted would be an understatement. If Petroineos can get away with an unjust transition in Grangemouth, it signals to other employers in high carbon industries that the government will not penalise them for putting their profits first. In fact, quite the opposite.  

Workers in Grangemouth have the skills and experience to lead the transition of their workplace, today. They cannot be left without jobs or support while private companies like Petroineos and their consultants dictate the terms of their future. Initiatives like Project Willow will do nothing to address the material reality for those who are faced to lose their jobs in less than three months, as redundancy notices went to refinery workers this week.

Unite the Union’s campaign Keep Grangemouth Working has provided the foundations for both governments and the company to build from. If they continue to be ignored, then Petroineos, the Scottish Government, and the UK Government have failed on every measure of what a meaningfully fast and fair transition from fossil fuels should be. 

The Scottish and UK governments must do everything in their power to claw back the energy transition from the whims of private companies like Petroineos, if they want to retain any sliver of credibility on climate action and with the workers and community of Grangemouth.  

The transition is a chance to improve lives

The end of fossil fuels is here and there is a choice to make. We can let Jim Ratcliffe and other billionaire bosses put profit first. Or, both governments can step in to ensure climate action does what it always could – make people’s lives better.

We could see the expertise of Grangemouth workers, on the same good terms and conditions, carve out the path to renewables. We could envision well-paid, local jobs in the manufacturing and operating of publicly-owned energy generation, that brings people’s bills down and keeps homes warm. We could see cheaper, expanded public transport that incentivises people to use it and connects communities to one another. This is what a just transition should and can look like, if our governments have the political backbone to realise it.