MSP supports commitment to north-east carbon capture project
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Aberdeenshire East MSP Gillian Martin has backed a commitment by the Scottish Government to ensure a north-east Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) project gets the green light from the UK Government to go ahead.
In October last year the project, based in St Fergus, lost out on a total of £1 billion of funding from the UK government to sites in England.
This was despite a confirmation in 2014 that the north-east would be the site of the carbon capture facility which the Conservatives costed at £1 billion in their 2015 manifesto.
Experts also said the north-east would be the obvious location for a carbon capture project given it is the home of the UK’s offshore industry.
Speaking at the time, Sir Ian Wood said of the failure to meet that eight-year-old promise: “This makes little economic or environmental sense and is a real blow to Scotland.”
The project would have created as many as 26,000 jobs over the next decade in the north-east and significantly contributed to the Scottish Government’s work in justly transitioning thousands of jobs from the oil and gas sector to climate friendly carbon capture.
Ms Martin raised the issue during a ministerial statement from Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero, Energy and Transport Michael Matheson, on greenhouse gas emissions statistics from 2020.
The Cabinet Secretary said the issue had been “repeatedly” raised to the UK Government with further pressure being placed for assurances.
Mr Matheson said: “I assure the member that I will continue to press the UK Government on that issue, particularly as it moves towards track 2, to get clarity about the timescale and process for the Acorn project in order to ensure that there is every possibility of it succeeding in achieving track 1 status.
“Negative emissions technologies such as CCUS are critical to meeting our climate change targets. That is why we must ensure that progress is being made.
“The Scottish Government is fully behind the Acorn project. That it is why I have agreed to make £80 million available to support delivery of the project at a faster pace.
“We now need to see the UK Government giving the green light to allow the project to move forward so that we can reap not only the environmental but the economic and social benefits that will come from it.”
Ms Martin said: “The UK Government continues to drag its heels despite the Scottish Government stepping in, in January with £80 million for the project to realise its full potential. But we still need the UK Government to invest.
“Scotland has set ambitious targets and has put in place world-leading action to achieve net zero.
“The UK Government cannot be allowed to do anything that hampers that progress. I welcome the Cabinet Secretary’s continued work to push his UK counterparts to commit to this project which is an essential contribution if we are to meet our commitment to net zero targets.”
