Politics: Transitioning to a renewable future in the north-east
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It’s been half a century since North Sea oil came on line off the coast of Scotland.
We’ve seen hundreds of thousands of jobs grow out of it, making Aberdeenshire one of the most prosperous regions in the UK.
There won’t be one of you reading this who doesn’t know someone employed in the industry.
But energy is bigger than oil and gas and in the last 10 years Scotland has had rapid growth in wind power, and whilst oil and gas has been a mainstay in Scotland’s economy for decades, looking into the future we will eventually end our dependence on the the burning of fossil fuels to heat our homes and fuel our transport.
But what happens to all those people in oil and gas as we move to renewables?
Last week in Aberdeen I attended a summit organised by Scottish Government about the Energy Skills Passport, a digital solution that will transform how offshore energy workers transition between sectors and enable oil and gas workers to take up jobs in renewables.
The event was organised as a result of my report published earlier this year, 'A Just Transition? The Voices of Oil and Gas Workers', for which I surveyed more than 500 oil and gas workers on the just transition and put their experiences in front of the Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero, Energy and Transport.
I found out only 1 in 10 oil and gas workers felt they had enough opportunities to switch to work in renewables, and concerns they raised included the high costs associated with retraining, duplication of certificate requirements and a lack of information on job opportunities and support.
The event had an excellent turnout and was a big success as concerns around the Energy Skills Passport were hashed out and clear commitment was secured from across the sector.
I feel so strongly that the voices of ordinary people working in the north=east need to be heard by Scottish Government, and I am proud that I was able to affect real change by taking the views of nearly 600 workers and putting them at the heart of government decision making.
It’s crucial that we ensure that jobs are created in a way which doesn’t leave entire communities behind.
Without a Just Transition in place, you decimate communities for decades, as we saw with Margaret Thatcher’s government in the 1980s.
Whole swathes of industrial Scotland never recovered from shipyard, steelworks and coal mine closures.
I see it as my central role as an MSP for an area that has been at the heart of the Scottish economy for decades through oil and gas, that the north=east remains an economic powerhouse.
We can only do that if we listen to our people.
