Scottish Greens criticise SNP candidate’s green credentials
The Scottish Greens have criticised SNP candidate Tom Wills’ green credentials following his zero-carbon plan open letter to Shetlanders.
In the letter published on Monday, Mr Wills put forward his plan to “help create a greener future” and “maximise the level of community involvement and benefits from future renewable energy projects” in Shetland.
Scottish Greens say this plan contradicts a statement in a recent interview with Energy Voice, where he said: “As long as oil and gas extraction is continuing then I want to see the benefits to Shetland maximised.”
Scottish Greens co-leader Lorna Slater said: “The SNP are all over the place on the climate emergency. Tom wants a just transition, but maximum extraction of fossil fuels is simply incompatible with keeping the global temperature down to a level that is safe.
“Tom talks about transitioning jobs, but to secure and grow green jobs like the ones he and I have, we need to start that transition from oil and gas now.
“The climate emergency requires us to look at the science and be responsible about this. That doesn’t mean suddenly turning off the oil supply, but it does mean we need to start building for the future now, not waiting until we’ve extracted every last drop of oil.”
Scottish Green candidate Debra Nicolson said she was “pleased Tom Wills recognises the climate emergency, but Shetland needs to start building a sustainable future and create new jobs, not rely on a dwindling resource that is damaging the planet.
“The SNP can talk about a just transition, but they need to back it up with action. Whatever his personal values, as an SNP backbencher Tom will be whipped to vote for maximum fossil fuel extraction and continuous growth in high-carbon transport.
“If elected, I’ll push for a Scottish Green New Deal that will secure our future.”
John Tulloch
OMG! Greens are jolly cross! Tom Wills “climate emergency” isn’t “emergency” enough?
Yet the SNP’s “2045 net zero” policy is only five years behind ‘Extinction Rebellion’, the ‘far-Green’, extremist group dedicated to replacing Parliament with a “National Assembly of Citizens”, selected by a team of “professionals”.
Presumably then, Debra Nicolson and the Greens’ policy is in line with Extinction Rebellion’s (“net zero in two decades”)?
Extinction Rebellion’s goals and methods are explained in leader Roger Hallam’s booklet “Common Sense for the 21st Century”, free, online:
(Hallam, recalling 1963): “After failing to make an impression with Martin Luther King going to jail ….. the idea was hatched to involve the city’s children and young people in an ongoing escalation …(It)….involved thousands of pupils and students leaving school to illegally march through the centre of the city.”
“Decades of segregation policies were overturned in a week. This is the power of mass civil disobedience”.
And there was me thinking the school strikes and children’s marches were the brainchild of little Greta Thunberg.
Meanwhile, no thought spared for the 53 percent of Shetland’s electorate suffering fuel poverty.