John Swinney Is Acting Like a Climate Denier
John Swinney is actively lobbying for oil companies to get a tax cut so that they can make more money. This makes him more extreme on oil subsidies than vocal climate denier Donald Trump.
There was a time when Scotland was proud of its climate credentials. The first national government in the world to declare a Climate Emergency, followed by many of its local councils. Setting ambitious, legally binding targets to reach Net Zero well ahead of the promises being made by peer countries. Even being the first nation in the world to officially admit that the Global North had a responsibility to repair and compensate Global South nations because of the damage we had and were causing to them.
I will grant you that Common Weal has been rightly critical of the actions that proceeded from these words. You should always watch what a politician does rather than what they say.
Scotland declared a Climate Emergency, then tried to avoid changing policies to match the severity of the problem – like someone who response to their home having a Roof Fire Emergency by turning off the gas stove then going back to bed.
The legally binding targets were legally bound but with no clear policy pathway to meeting them. The climate promises made, if added together, would not have created a Net Zero Scotland and we all knew that promises would be broken along the way so that the actual additive impact of actions would fall short by even further.
And while Scotland did put some cash into the fund for Global climate loss and damage, the amount was well short of the actual damage Scotland has caused. Scotland’s bill for our share of global climate emissions amount to something like £2.5 billion per year, every year until we reach Net Zero. Scotland promised a total of £100 million for the fund across just two pledges.
Still. Contrast those lofty promised followed by half-hearted actions with the current Government. This month, John Swinney has been campaigning hard on giving a massive tax bung to oil and gas companies. The same companies that have profited to the tune of trillions of pounds while setting the world on fire. The same companies that have actively lobbied to halt and prevent measures to stop them doing this. The same companies that even as they take more cash to help them make more profits are simultaneously shedding old assets in the same North Sea so that they don’t need to pay to decommission them.
It’s hard to show just how much of a U-turn this is for the Scottish Government but there is one thing that illustrates this.
Donald Trump – a man who vocally denies climate change and erroneously thinks that ‘windmills’ make people poorer and don’t exist in China, while actively waging illegal oil wars in the Middle East and Latin America – also believes that oil companies are making too much money. Right now, John Swinney is more extreme on oil subsidies than Donald Trump.
We can therefore safely assume – in the absence of actions to the contrary – that despite John Swinney serving in the Governments that made those previous commitments, he is himself is acting like a climate denier. He is looking at the Roof Fire Emergency and is actively turning all of the gas hobs to full burn before going back to bed.
I know that Trump isn’t claiming that oil companies are making too much money because he’s secretly a ‘nationalise all assets’ communist who has a strong moral conviction in public good. It’s because he wants the money for himself because if he isn’t personally benefiting from any ‘deal’ then he thinks he’s being taken advantage of and the last thing he wants to be is a ‘loser’.
“Our Common Home Plan remains the most comprehensive blueprint for a Scottish Green New Deal.”
Swinney doesn’t have this excuse though. He should know better. Actions speak far louder than words though and right now we’re seeing the actions of a man calling for oil companies to be able to make even more obscene profits at the expense of the planet at the same time that wildfires are raging through the Cairngorms and heatwaves have killed thousands of people in Britain this summer alone (never mind the thousands more across Europe and even more globally).
I know he still claims to cling to the policy that he’d only approve of new oil and gas extraction if it met certain “climate criteria” but he is yet to lay out what he thinks those criteria would be and whether he thinks any new extraction would pass it. What, precisely, does he think a “Net Zero” oil well would look like?
If I’m wrong and John Swinney is not a climate denier, if he does, in fact, still believe that we’re living in Climate Emergency and that emergency has only gotten worse since his government declared it, then I expect to see another set of actions. I expect him to endorse Monica Lennon’s proposed Ecocide Bill when it returns to Parliament and then to start aggressively prosecuting people who are committing ecocide. I expect him to align all public policy with what the science says Scotland must do to meet our obligations under the climate emergency.
Common Weal has already shown what he can do. Our Common Home Plan remains the most comprehensive blueprint for a Scottish Green New Deal. Following it through to its conclusion would lead us to a world where oil barons no longer have the power to lobby politicians for their own profit because that world simply won’t contain oil barons. This is, of course, why those oil barons continue to try to make sure politicians don’t take those actions.
Right now, John Swinney is taking the actions of a climate denier on behalf of those oil barons. If he wants his political legacy to be something other than that, he knows what he needs to do.
