Dave Moxham, deputy general secretary of the Scottish Trades Union Congress, criticised the scale of the UK-wide plans while giving evidence to the Scottish Affairs Committee this week. He described the government’s climate plan as “10 times too unambitious”.
The plan, which was published in November 2020, lays out 10 points to support a “green industrial revolution” in the UK. It aims to expand sectors such as hydrogen, offshore wind, EVs, and carbon capture and storage technology through the mobilisation of £12bn in funding. However, the Labour Party at the time noted that just £4bn of the proposed money was actually new and that the funding does not “remotely” meet the scale of what is necessary to tackle climate change and unemployment.
“I’m just going to stick it out there; it’s 10 times too unambitious,” Moxham said. “We have put forward research from Transition Economics that suggests that sort of level of investment would do for Scotland alone...