The Scottish Labour party has pledged to generate half of the country’s electricity, heat and transport demand from renewables by 2030 as part of its manifesto for this week’s Scottish Parliament election.
Launched a week after Nicola Sturgeon outlined her party’s re-election pledges, Kezia Dugdale’s party said the goal of 50% clean energy use underlined Scottish Labour’s “ambition to green our energy use”.
The manifesto also committed the party to pursue a major drive for energy efficiency and remove the carbon from Scotland’s electricity needs.
However, unlike the SNP’s manifesto which contained specific goals for Scotland’s renewable energy programme, the opposition party failed to outline much policy detail aside from delivering a target of 100,000 jobs working in Scotland’s green sector.
Instead the party delivered a vision of a ‘civic energy’ future, incorporating local schemes to produce green energy, and heat for local use. The manifesto promises that a Scottish Labour government would pursue community, co-operative and public ownership models and support citizens and businesses to reduce their energy demand.
“We need to use our powers to ensure future generations will be able to produce the energy that creates jobs, renews communities and protects Scotland’s rich environment,” the manifesto states.
“We are fortunate because Scotland is well placed to generate electricity from clean sources. Within a generation we will find the ways to green the heating of our homes and offices, to green our transport systems, both private and public, and support manufacturing to a green transition.”
The party has also promised to make investment in carbon capture & storage a priority and ensure that the Scottish government’s budgets, regulations and legislative programme are compatible with Scotland’s Climate Change Act.