SCOTLAND

Swinney to become SNP leader after rival drops out

BBC

SNP leadership front-runner John Swinney is expected to succeed Humza Yousaf unopposed after a potential challenger withdrew his bid at the 11th hour.

Earlier it emerged that veteran SNP activist Graeme McCormick, who has been openly critical of the Scottish government, had secured a nomination.

However he then announced that although he had met the threshold of support needed to secure a nomination, he had decided not to proceed and would back Mr Swinney instead.

This came after a “lengthy and fruitful conversation” with Mr Swinney in which Mr McCormick said they had "agreed the challenges" which the SNP, the government and the people faced.

Swinney warns of SNP rebuild delay if leader bid challenged

Who is John Swinney, the sole candidate for first minister?

How will Scotland's next first minister be chosen?

This means Mr Swinney is expected to be elected leader of the SNP after nominations close at midday on Monday.

Mr Yousaf resigned after just over a year in the role following the fallout from the decision to terminate a power-sharing deal with the Scottish Greens.

Mr Swinney announced he was putting his name forward as he gave a speech at an event in Edinburgh last week.

Mr Swinney, 60, previously led the SNP between 2000 and 2004 and said he would not be "interim leader" or a “caretaker,” adding he intended to see out a full term.

On Sunday he suggested that rebuilding the SNP could be delayed if another candidate were to enter the leadership race - though said he would engage with internal party democracy.

His preference, he said, was to "get on with things" as the party had not been as cohesive as it should have been in recent years.

Leadership candidates are required to get 100 nominations from at least 20 local SNP branches before standing in the race.

Mr McCormick is a retired lawyer and stood against Mike Russell to become party president in 2023, losing by 599 votes to 79.

He previously argued for abolishing tax and replacing it with an annual rent on land, and that the route to Scottish independence lay through international treaties, with Scotland dissolving the union immediately if the SNP returned the most MPs in Scotland at a general election.

In a speech at the party conference in October last year, he described the SNP government as being like “flatulence in a trance”.

Late on Sunday, Mr McCormick released a statement saying he and Mr Swinney had "explored new thinking on a range of issues" that would "inspire activists" within the SNP and in the wider independence movement.

Confirming he was backing Mr Swinney, he said: "This is a fresh start for our members and our politicians, and I’m sure that John’s determination to deliver Independence will be rewarded at the forthcoming general election."

SNP  Graeme McCormick speaking at the SNP Conference in October

Former SNP leadership candidate Kate Forbes confirmed earlier she was not standing and backed Mr Swinney, having been promised a "significant" cabinet role if he becomes first minister.

If no other candidate meets the nomination deadline, Mr Swinney would be free to seek parliamentary approval to become first minister.

Mr Yousaf has decided to stay on in the role until a replacement is selected.

Once his resignation has been accepted by the King, parliament has 28 days to select a replacement.

There will then be a vote in the chamber to decide the new first minister, which is passed by a simple majority.

The SNP has 63 seats in the parliament, which means it does not have a majority, but the vote is likely to pass regardless.

The parliament's presiding officer then recommends to the King that the winner be appointed as the new first minister.

A swearing-in ceremony at the Court of Session in Edinburgh could take place as early as Wednesday.

At that point, Mr Swinney would officially become first minister.
Greens deal collapse

Mr Yousaf announced his intention to step down from the role last Monday.

He had ended the Bute House Agreement with the Scottish Greens, leaving him short of support for the minority SNP government at Holyrood.

He would have faced two votes of no confidence in his leadership last week had he not stood down.

Yousaf says he 'paid price' for upsetting Greens

Humza Yousaf quits as Scotland's first minister

Who is Humza Yousaf? The rise and fall of a first minister

The Scottish Conservatives dropped their motion after his departure was confirmed, while Scottish Labour's - which was a vote of confidence in the entire government - was defeated with backing from the Greens.

His resignation came 13 months after defeating Ms Forbes and Ash Regan, who has since defected to the Alba Party, in the race to replace Nicola Sturgeon.

He became the first ethnic minority leader of a devolved government in the UK and the first Muslim to lead a major UK party.

In his resignation speech, he said he had “clearly underestimated” the hurt he had caused the Greens by ending the agreement and said his replacement would be tasked with "repairing our relationship across the political divide".

SNP to retain just 15 seats with Labour set to overtake in Scotland, poll says

John Swinney indicates his SNP Government will reach out to unionists to pass laws and budgets

John Swinney has admitted the SNP must “change how it talks to people” from across the political divide as he suggested he will reach out to unionist opponents to pass legislations and budgets

By David Bol

THE SCOTSMAN
Published 5th May 2024

John Swinney has warned opposition unionist parties they have a “responsibility and an obligation” to help an SNP minority government pass budgets as he eyes up becoming Scotland’s next first minister.

In an apparent dig at his predecessor Humza Yousaf, Mr Swinney has admitted the SNP must “change how it talks to people” on the other side of the political divide to make progress as a minority government.

Mr Swinney is set to become the next SNP leader, despite an apparent last-minute bid for attention by an outspoken party activist who claims to have enough support to challenge Mr Swinney.


J

ohn Swinney is expected to become the next first minister and SNP leader. Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images


The former deputy first minister suggested he would move the SNP back to the centre-ground of politics after the Bute House Agreement with the Greens was ripped up.


Read MoreGreens could refuse to prop up Swinney government if he shifts SNP to centre gro...

But a Greens source had told Scotland on Sunday that “if the SNP moves too far to the right, they would need to look elsewhere to get their policies and budgets passed”, adding “we are not here to simply endorse an SNP minority government”.

Now Mr Swinney has signalled he will reach out to unionist parties such as Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives in order to pass legislation and budgets as he draws up his plans to push ahead with a minority SNP government at Holyrood.

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar (Photo: Andrew Milligan/PA Wire)

Mr Swinney said he would build a consensus with other parties by “engaging in respectful and courteous dialogue within the Parliament”, insisting “I believe in mainstream politics”.

He told the BBC’s Sunday Show: “I believe the SNP should pursue a moderate left-of-centre policy programme – that is where I come from politically. I want to make sure that is successful. We will bring these proposals forward to Parliament and work with others to advance those proposals.”

Asked if a minority government under his leadership could be propped up by anyone other than the Scottish Greens, Mr Swinney said: “I think we probably can do.”

He pointed to recent legislation on keeping the ‘Promise’ to care-experienced young people where SNP minister Natalie Don was able to “reach agreements with Labour and Liberal Democrat members about amendments to that Bill”.

John Swinney wants to reach out to opposition leaders (Picture: Andy Buchanan/AFP via Getty Images)

But pressed over whether his unionist opponents would help pass a budget, given the hostile stand-off with the SNP over the constitution and other key issues, Mr Swinney said: “I don’t think we should rule that out.”

He added: “In the past I have had Liberal Democrat, Labour, Conservative, Green support for budgets.” The Perthshire North MSP said that if opposition parties would block his budgets on principle against an SNP government, “that’s their problem”.

“That won’t pay teachers, it won’t pay nurses,” he said. “It won’t make sure we can get operations done in our hospitals. If you don’t pass a budget, you can’t fund your public services. There becomes a responsibility on all of us.

“If we go back to 2009 when one of my budgets didn’t go through Parliament on the first time of asking, within a couple of weeks, the budget was passed – virtually in its entirety from what I had originally proposed. The opposition parties were challenged about how hospitals were going to be funded or schools were going to be funded or councils were going to be funded and they didn’t have any answers.”

Mr Swinney said: “A budget process puts a responsibility and an obligation on everybody, not just the Government. I accept the Government’s got to act differently to try to get people on board. The Government’s got to change how it talks to people.”

However, unionist party leaders have not indicated they would work more openly with an SNP Government headed by Mr Swinney.

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar told the BBC “there is still a deeply chaotic and divided political party that I think has broken its trust with the Scottish people”.

“All of this is about managing his [Swinney’s] political party rather than running the country,” Mr Sarwar said. "I didn’t hear anything from John Swinney around any new direction around fixing our NHS, around getting our education system back on track.”

Labour national campaign co-ordinator Pat McFadden said his party was “not planning alliances” with the SNP “or anyone”.

Mr McFadden said a change in SNP leader “doesn’t make much difference”, in the wake of Mr Yousaf announcing his resignation as First Minister a week ago.

Asked if he “could imagine” Labour and the SNP working together if his party does not win a majority at a general election, Mr McFadden told Sky News’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips “no”.

He said: “Our aim is to win a majority, to govern, to meet the mood for change, and we’re not planning any alliances or pacts with anyone.”

Scottish Conservative chairman Craig Hoy insisted “John Swinney is the ultimate continuity leader”.

He said: “He was joined at the hip to the disgraced Nicola Sturgeon and central to the cynical cover-ups and policy failures that characterised her government – especially as education secretary when Scotland fell sharply in the international rankings.”

Nominations for the SNP leadership close at noon on Monday. But one fly in the ointment of a coronation for Mr Swinney could be a suggestion that party activist Graeme McCormick used the independence march in Glasgow on Saturday to drum up support for his candidacy.

It is understood Mr McCormick believes he is very likely to receive the 100 nominations from at least 20 SNP branches before the Monday deadline, but no proof has yet been provided.

Should Mr McCormick receive the required nominations, a three-week leadership contest will be triggered, with ballots opening on Monday, May 13 and closing on May 27.

Mr McCormick has previously been critical of the SNP-led Scottish Government, using last year’s party conference to criticise its independence strategy.

Amid the speculation that a leadership contest would delay him becoming first minister, Mr Swinney said he would like to get on with that job “as quickly as possible”.

The former deputy first minister said he would respect the “democratic process” if there was a contest. But he added: “I think the SNP has got a chance to start rebuilding from the difficult period that we have had, under my leadership, and bluntly, I’d just like to get on with that as quickly as I possible can do, because every day that we spend in an internal contest, which I think we all probably know the outcome of, we delay the possibility for the SNP to start its rebuilding.”

SNP to retain just 15 seats with Labour set to overtake in Scotland, poll says

It also says John Swinney is the popular choice as next first minister for Scotland.

PA Media

MSP John Swinney at the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, after he became the first candidate to declare his bid to become the new leader of the SNP and Scotland’s next first minister.

The SNP will retain just 15 of its current 43 seats at the forthcoming general election, according to a new poll for the Sunday Times.

The forecast comes as Humza Yousaf announced his resignation as First Minister on Monday after he abruptly ended the Bute House Agreement with the Scottish Green Party.

The Sunday Times poll, by Norstat – formerly known as Panelbase, is one of the first of its kind since Mr Yousaf announced his resignation, and looked at voting intentions for both Westminster and Holyrood.

It found that while support for independence remains largely unchanged, Labour is set to overtake the SNP at both Westminster and Holyrood, bringing an end to the SNP’s streak of four consecutive election victories.

The survey comes as John Swinney is now expected to become first minister on Tuesday, provided no other challengers enter the race.

When asked who would make the best first minister from a list of SNP candidates, Mr Swinney and Kate Forbes were neck and neck with the public on 23%, although Ms Forbes has said she will not be standing.
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Stephen Flynn, the SNP leader at Westminster, was backed by 7%, and Jenny Gilruth, the Scottish education secretary, scored just 2%.

The SNP vote share in a Westminster election would fall to its lowest level since the 2014 independence referendum, the poll says.

The party would hold just 15 of its 43 seats with Scottish Labour winning 28 – a dramatic increase from its current two.

According to the Sunday Times poll, the SNP would attract votes from 29% of the electorate – a fall of three points in a month, while Labour’s share increased by two points to 34%.

This would return 15 SNP MPs and amount to a significant reversal in electoral performance.

Under Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP became the third largest party at Westminster, winning 56 of 59 Scottish seats in 2015.

There are currently 43 SNP MPs at Westminster.

The Scottish Conservatives, whose vote share remained at 16% in the poll, would add three seats to return nine MPs – while the Liberal Democrats, on 8%, would boost their yield by one to five MPs.

Support for independence remains evenly balanced, with 48% in favour of Scotland leaving the UK and 52% backing the Union.
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Voting intentions at Holyrood show the SNP remains a point ahead of Labour in the constituency vote at 34%.

The Conservatives would pick up 14% of the vote, the Lib Dems 9% and the Greens 5% – with the remaining 5% to other parties.

But Scottish Labour has edged a point ahead of the SNP on the more proportional regional list vote with the nationalists’ return of 27%.

The Tories would win 17% of regional votes, the Greens 9%, Lib Dems 8%, Reform UK 6% and Alex Salmond’s Alba Party 4%.

An analysis by polling expert Sir John Curtice for the Sunday Times found that this result would leave Labour as the largest party at Holyrood with 40 seats.

The remainder of the chamber would be 38 for the SNP, 24 Conservatives, 10 Greens, nine Lib Dems and eight Reform parliamentarians.

This would mark a historic breakthrough for Nigel Farage’s party in Scotland as it at least partially replicates its gains in England by attracting some older, Brexit-supporting Tories north of the border.

Sir John, professor of politics at Strathclyde University – who compiled the seat projections, said the “question that now arises is whether the coronation of John Swinney will enable the SNP to turn the page”.

He added: “Even among those who said they would vote Yes in another independence referendum, only 56% said they were now willing to back the SNP for Westminster, as would only two-thirds who voted for the party in 2019.”

Norstat interviewed 1,086 people aged 16 or over in Scotland between April 30 and May 3.
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SNP depute leader Keith Brown commented: “After 14 years of cruel Tory governments inflicting endless damage on Scotland and Keir Starmer’s Labour offering no meaningful alternative, it’s clear only the SNP and independence offers a better future for our country.

“The SNP is the only party standing up for the priorities of people across Scotland and offering a positive vision for the future where decisions about Scotland are made in Scotland.

“At the general election Scottish voters have the chance to reject the cosy status quo of a broken Westminster system that is failing them and vote to elect SNP MPs who will always stand up for their interests”.

Scotland's Humza Yousaf quits as ruling-SNP first minister

04/29/2024April 29, 2024

Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf has resigned ahead of two no-confidence votes that could bring down his Scottish National Party-led government. The move comes after he ended a cooperation agreement with the Greens.

Scottish leader Humza Yousaf on Monday announced his resignation as the possibility he might scrape a win in two no-confidence votes appeared to wane.

Yousaf's leadership was plunged into trouble last week when he ended a cooperation agreement between his Scottish National Party (SNP) and Scotland's Green Party.
What did the SNP leader say?

The first minister said he had not realized how much upset ending the deal, known as the Bute House Agreement, would generate. He said he needed to step aside so that bridges could be rebuilt.

"My hope was to continue working with the Greens in a less formal arrangement as the SNP moved into a new phase of minority government. Unfortunately, in ending the Bute House Agreement in the manner that I did, I clearly underestimated the level of hurt and upset that caused Green colleagues.

"For a minority government to be able to govern effectively and efficiently, trust with working with the opposition is clearly fundamental."

"I have concluded that repairing our relationship across the political divide can only be done with someone else at the helm," Yousaf said.

Yousaf said he would remain as first minister until the SNP elected a successor as its leader.

"As a young boy, born and raised in Scotland, I could never have dreamt that one day I would have the privilege of leading my country," Yousaf said in his resignation speech. "People like me were not in positions of political influence, let alone leading governments when I was younger."

"We now live in a UK that has a British Hindu prime minister, a Muslim mayor of London, a Black Welsh first minister and, for a little while longer, a Scots Asian first minister."

How did things go wrong?

The rift with the Greens came after a dispute over climate change, with Yousef having ditched Scotland's goal of cutting carbon emissions by 75% by 2030.

While Yousaf had hoped to lead a minority government, opposition parties moved quickly to say they would not support him.

The SNP-Green deal, known as the Bute House Agreement after Yousaf's official residence in Edinburgh, was signed in 2021.

It put the Green Party into government for the first time anywhere in the UK, where devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have limited powers. Areas of competence include environment, health, transport, and social policy.

The SNP has struggled in the wake of the resignation last year of party leader Nicola Sturgeon. The party elected 39-year-old Yousaf as her successor but his political honeymoon was short.

A campaign finance scandal surfaced that was rooted in Sturgeon's time in office, and the party has been dogged by infighting over how progressive it should be on issues such as transgender rights.

rc/wd (AFP, Reuters, dpa)

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez says he will not resign

April 29, 2024

The announcement comes after Sanchez had canceled appointments last week amid corruption allegations against his wife. He has vowed to end "toxic" politics.


Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced on Monday that he planned to stay in his role, despite allegations against his wife Begona Gomez.

The news came after five days of silence that began when a court said it was investigating his wife for corruption and other charges.
What the Spanish prime minister said

"I have decided to continue with even more strength, if possible, at the helm of the government of Spain," Sanchez said in a televised speech.

The premier said an apparent campaign against him and his wife was serious, but that it was not the most important thing.

Sanchez said a mass show of public support and the backing of his own party had helped make his decision.

"For too long we've let this filth corrupt our political and public life with toxic methods that were unimaginable just a few years ago... Do we really want this for Spain?" he asked.

"I have acted out of a clear conviction: either we say 'enough is enough' or this degradation of public life will define our future and condemn us as a country."

Sanchez had said last Wednesday that he was considering stepping down, in a surprise move.

The leader of Spain's socialist PSOE party had then canceled all appointments and said he would announce his decision on Monday.

Why was Sanchez considering quitting?

The allegations against Gomez, who does not hold public office, came from the right-wing Manos Limpias (Clean Hands) organization, which accused her of peddling influence and corruption in business.

Sanchez had posted a letter on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, saying he needed to think about whether it was worthwhile continuing in his role.

He blamed the investigation on online news sites politically aligned with the leading opposition center-right Popular Party (PP) and the far-right Vox party.

Sanchez accused opposition leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo of the PP and Vox leader Santiago Abascal of "trying to dehumanize and delegitimize the political adversary through actions that are as scandalous as they are false."

The 52-year-old Sanchez, in office since 2018, was reappointed to another term in November.

Thousands took to the streets in Madrid and other cities on the weekend to demonstrate in favor of Sanchez remaining in office.

Demonstrators carried placards with messages such as "Sanchez, yes, keep going" or "Don't give up."

rc/wd (dpa, Reuters, AFP)

Scottish independence supporters seek to inject life into faltering campaign

Stuart GRAHAM
Sat, 20 April 2024

Support for independence has fallen to between 41 and 43 percent, according to opinion polls (ANDY BUCHANAN)

Scottish independence campaigners will march in Glasgow on Saturday as they try to reignite flagging support for self-rule before a UK general election due this year that is expected to deal a blow to their cause.

A series of setbacks, including a fraud scandal involving Scotland's former first minister Nicola Sturgeon, have left the independence movement at arguably its lowest ebb in recent memory.

The march comes after Sturgeon's husband, Peter Murrell, was charged on Thursday for the embezzlement of £600,000 in donations meant for independence campaigning.

Murrell, the 59-year-old former chief executive of the ruling pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP), was charged more than a year after he was first arrested.

Sturgeon, who resigned as the devolved UK administration's first minister and SNP leader in February 2023, was arrested in June last year, but released without charge.

On Friday, she described her husband's situation as "incredibly difficult," with current First Minister Humza Yousaf calling it a "really serious matter indeed".

- Independence figurehead -

Sturgeon had established herself as one of the figureheads of the independence movement alongside then Scottish first minister Alex Salmond ahead of an independence referendum in 2014.

Scotland voted against independence, with 55 percent of electors choosing "No", but Sturgeon, 53, put the matter back on the table in 2016 after the UK voted to leave the European Union.

She argued Scotland was being forced out of bloc against its will as Scots had voted overwhelmingly to remain in Europe.

Sturgeon's self-assured leadership and excellent communication skills during the Covid-19 pandemic -- in contrast to the perceived chaos under former prime minister Boris Johnson's Westminster government -- saw support for Scottish independence climb above 50 percent in 2021.

After being refused another referendum by successive prime ministers, Sturgeon took the issue to the UK's top court.

But in November 2022, judges ruled against the Scottish government, saying that the power to grant a referendum was a "reserved" matter for the UK government.

For Westminster, the Supreme Court's ruling was the final word on another Scottish independence referendum.

Sturgeon, who was accused of overplaying her hand, resigned soon after.

Support for independence has since fallen to between 41 and 43 percent, according to three opinion polls taken in April.

- Mandate -

Current SNP leader Yousaf has vowed to continue the push for independence at the UK general election, which is expected to be held in October or November.

He says the SNP will claim "a mandate for independence negotiations" with the British government if it wins at least 29 of the 57 seats up for grabs in Scotland.

The party currently has 43 MPs in Scotland but is expected to lose several to a resurgent Labour Party, which is tipped to form the next government.

The SNP has a seven-point lead over Labour in voting intentions, according to the polling agency Ipsos, but that is down from 12 points a year ago.

"At the next election, page one, line one of our manifesto will say 'vote SNP for Scotland to become an independent country,'" Yousaf told cheering delegates at an SNP conference in Aberdeen in October last year.

Yousaf has also vowed to rejoin the EU as fast as possible, but that won't happen anytime soon with independence not currently on the horizon.

Political observers believe the SNP is fixated on independence and is not focused enough on the cost-of-living crisis that has hit Scotland and the UK.

An editorial in Scotland's Herald newspaper said Yousaf and his team were trying to have conversations with the electorate that few voters want to engage with right now.

"It's dangerous disengagement, and the reason the SNP is sliding towards defeat at the general election," the newspaper said.

John Curtice, a professor of politics at Strathclyde University, said the SNP is facing a chastening Westminster election, with Labour likely to inflict severe damage.

"The party is slowly sinking into an electoral quagmire and is struggling to escape," he wrote in The Times newspaper.

srg/pdh/imm

U$A

Red state coal towns still power the West Coast. We can't just let them die

Sammy Roth

 Los Angeles Times
Tue, April 16, 2024 

The Colstrip coal plant lights up the night, generating power mostly for Oregon and Washington. 

LONG READ

In the early mornng light, it's easy to mistake the towering gray mounds for an odd-looking mountain range — pale and dull and devoid of life, some pine trees and shrublands in the foreground with lazy blue skies extending up beyond the peaks.

But the mounds aren't mountains.

They're enormous piles of dirt, torn from the ground by crane-like machines called draglines to open paths to the rich coal seams beneath. And even though we're in rural southeastern Montana, more than 800 miles from the Pacific Ocean, West Coast cities are largely to blame for the destruction of this landscape.


Workers at the Rosebud Mine load coal onto a conveyor belt, which carries the planet-wrecking fuel to a power plant in the small town next door. Plant operators in Colstrip burn the coal to produce electricity, much of which is shipped by power line to homes and businesses in the Portland and Seattle areas. It's been that way for decades.

"The West Coast markets are what created this," Anne Hedges says, as we watch a dragline move dirt.

An aerial view of the coal mine outside Colstrip that feeds the town's power plant. 

She sounds frustrated, and with good reason.

Hedges and her fellow Montana environmentalists were happy when Oregon and Washington passed laws requiring 100% clean energy in the next two decades. But they're furious that electric utilities in those states are planning to stick with coal for as long as the laws allow, and in some cases making deals to give away their Colstrip shares to co-owners who seem determined to keep the plant running long into the future.

"Coal is not dead yet," Hedges says. "It's still alive and well."

That's an uncomfortable reality for West Coasters critical of red-state environmental policies but not in the habit of urging their politicians to work across state lines to change them — especially when doing so might involve compromise with Republicans.

One example: California lawmakers have refused to pass bills that would make it easier to share clean electricity across the West, passing up the chance to spur renewable energy development in windy red states such as Montana and Wyoming — and to show them it's possible to create construction jobs and tax revenues with renewable energy, not just fossil fuels.

Instead, California has prioritized in-state wind and solar farms, bowing to the will of labor unions that want those jobs.

It's hard to blame Golden State politicians, and voters, for taking the easy path.

But global warming is a global problem — and whether we like it or not, the electric grid is a giant, interconnected machine. Coal plants in conservative states help fuel the ever-deadlier heat waves, fires and storms battering California and other progressive bastions. The electrons generated by those plants flow into a network of wires that keep the lights on across the American West.

Also important: Montana and other sparsely populated conservative states control two U.S. Senate seats each, and at least three electoral votes apiece in presidential elections. Additional federal support for clean energy rests partly in their hands.

Those are the practical considerations. Then there are the ethical ones.

For years, the West's biggest cities exported their emissions, building distant coal generators to fuel their explosive growth. Los Angeles looked to Delta, Utah. Phoenix turned to the Navajo Nation. Albuquerque turned to the Four Corners region.

That wave of coal plants — some still standing, some demolished — created well-paying jobs, lots of tax payments and a thriving way of life for rural towns and Native American tribes. All are now struggling to map out a future without fossil fuels.

Mule deer roam through the town of Colstrip, not far from the power plant.

What do big cities owe those towns and tribes for producing our power and living with our air and water pollution? Can we get climate change under control without putting them out of business? What's their role in the clean energy transition?

If they refuse to join the transition, how should we respond?

A team of Los Angeles Times journalists spent a week in Montana trying to answer those questions.

We explored the town of Colstrip, hearing from residents about how the coal plant and mine have made their prosperous lives possible. We talked with environmental activists who detailed the damage coal has caused, and with a fourth-generation rancher whose father fought in vain to stop the power plant from getting built — and wrote poems about his struggle.

Coal is going to die, sooner or later. For the sake of myself and other young people, I hope it's sooner.

And for the sake of places like Colstrip, I hope it's the beginning of a new chapter, not the end of the story.

Coal pays the bills. For now

For a community of 2,000 people, Colstrip doesn't lack for nice things.

The city is home to 32 public parks and a gorgeous community center, complete with child care, gym, spin classes, tanning booth and water slide. The spacious health clinic employs three nurses and two physical therapists, with a doctor coming to visit once a week. There's an artificial lake filled with Yellowstone River water and circled by a three-mile walking and biking trail.

Everybody knows where the good fortune comes from.

The high school pays homage to the source of Colstrip's wealth with the hashtag #MTCOAL emblazoned on the basketball court's sparkling floor. A sign over the entrance to campus celebrates the town's 2023 centennial: "100 Years of Colstrip. Powered by Coal, Strengthened by People."

"We have nothing to hide," Jim Atchison tells me. "We just hope that you give us a fair shake."

Jim Atchison steps out of his office in Colstrip. 

I couldn't have asked for a better tour guide than Atchison, who for 22 years has lived in Colstrip and led the Southeast Montana Economic Development Corp. He's soft-spoken and meticulous, with a detailed itinerary for our day and a less ironclad allegiance to coal than many of the locals we'll meet.

They include Bill Neumiller, a former environmental engineer at the power plant. We start our day with him, watching the sun rise over the smokestacks across the lake. He moved to Colstrip 40 years ago, when the coal plant was being built. He enjoys fishing in the well-stocked lake and teaching kids about its history, in his role as president of the parks district.

The plant, he says, pays the vast majority of the city's property taxes.

"It's been a great place to raise a family," he says.

So many people have similar stories — the general manager of a local electrical contractor, the administrator of the health clinic. I especially enjoy chatting with Amber and Gary Ramsey, who have run a Subway sandwich shop here for 30 years.

"It takes us two to three hours to get through the grocery store, because you know everybody," Gary says.

He didn't plan to spend his life here. Sitting at a table at Subway, he tells us he grew up in South Dakota and went to college in North Dakota before taking a job teaching math and coaching wrestling in Colstrip. He planned to stay for a year or two.

Then he met Amber, who was working part-time as a bartender and doing payroll at the coal plant.

"Forty years later, I'm still here," he says. "We raised our kids here."

The power plant's smokestacks are visible from miles away in the town of Colstrip. 

John Williams was one of the first Montana Power Co. employees to move to Colstrip, as planning for the plant's construction got started. Today he's the mayor. He's well-versed in local history, from the first coal mining in the 1920s — which supplied railroads that later switched to diesel — to the economic revitalization when the Portland and Seattle areas came calling.

Unlike many of the other Colstrip lifers who share their stories, several of Williams' kids have left town. But one of his sons lives in a part of Washington where some of the electricity comes from Colstrip. Same for another son who lives in Idaho.

It's hard for Williams to imagine a viable future for his home without the power plant.

"I believe they are intimately tied together," he says.

And what about climate change, I ask?

Nearly everyone in Colstrip has a version of the same answer: Even if it's real, it's not nearly as bad as liberals claim. And without coal power, blackouts will reign. West Coast city-dwellers don't understand how badly they need us here in Montana.

Atchison is an exception.

Yes, he's dubious about climate science. And yes, he wants to save the mine and power plant. His office is plastered with pro-coal messages — a sign that says, "Coal Pays the Bills," a magnet reading, "Prove you're against coal mining: Turn off your electricity."

But he knows the market for coal is shrinking as the nation's most populous cities and most profitable companies increasingly demand climate-friendly energy. So he's preparing for a future in which Colstrip has no choice but to start providing it.

"We have one horse in the barn now," Atchison says. "We need to add two or three more horses to the barn."

A conveyor belts carries coal from the Rosebud Mine to the Colstrip power plant. 

Ever since President Obama started trying to tighten regulations on coal power, Atchison has been developing and implementing an economic diversification strategy for Colstrip. It involves expanding broadband capacity, building a business innovation center and broadening the local energy economy beyond coal. The transmission lines connecting Colstrip with the Pacific Northwest are an especially valuable asset, capable of sending huge amounts of clean electricity to the Pacific coast.

"Colstrip is evolving from a coal community into an energy community," Atchison says. "We're changing. We're not closing."

Already, Montana's biggest wind farm is shipping electricity west via the Colstrip lines. A Houston company is planning another power line that would run from Colstrip to North Dakota. Federal researchers are studying whether Colstrip's coal units could be replaced with advanced nuclear reactors, or with a gas-fired power plant capable of capturing and storing its climate pollution.

West Coast voters and politicians could speed up the evolution, for Colstrip and other coal towns. Instead of just congratulating themselves for getting out of coal, they could fund training programs and invest in clean energy projects in those towns.

They'll never fully replace the ample jobs, salaries and tax revenues currently provided by coal. But nothing lasts forever. One hundred years is a pretty good run.

Some inconvenient truths

"Great God, how we're doin'! We're rolling in dough,

As they tear and they ravage The Earth.

And nobody knows...or nobody cares...

About things of intrinsic worth."

—Wally McRae, "Things of Intrinsic Worth" (1989)

Growing up outside Colstrip in the 1970s could lead to strange moments for Clint McRae, the son of a cowboy poet.

He was a teenager then, and Montana Power Co. was working to build public support for Units 3 and 4 of the coal plant. One day his eighth-grade teacher instructed everyone who supported the new coal-fired generators to stand on one side of the classroom. Everyone opposed should stand on the other side.

McRae was the only student opposed.

"And then [the teacher] gave a lecture about how important the construction of these plants was and handed out bumper stickers that said, 'Support Colstrip Units 3 and 4,'" McRae tells me, shaking his head. "It was terribly uncomfortable."

Rancher Clint McRae was raised outside Colstrip and has followed in his father's footsteps. 

Later, his mom was doing laundry and found a pro-coal bumper sticker in his pants pocket. She showed it to his cattle rancher father, Wally, "and I guess he went over there [to the school] and kicked ass and took names," McRae says with a laugh.

Fifty years later, he's carrying on his dad's legacy.

We spend a morning in the Colstrip area on McRae's sprawling ranch, admiring sandstone rock formations and herds of black angus cows. The scenery is harsh but elegant, rolling hills and pale green grasses and pink-streaked horizon lines.

"This country has a sharp edge to it," McRae says, quoting a photographer who visited the property years ago.

The land has been in his family since the 1880s, when his great-grandfather immigrated from Scotland. He hopes his youngest daughter — who recently moved back home with her husband — will be the fifth generation to raise cattle here.

"And we just had a grandchild seven months ago, and she's the sixth," he says.

Rancher Clint McRae contemplates the environmental threats facing his family's land. 

McRae wears a cowboy hat and drives a pickup truck. He tells me right away that he's "not the kind of person who participates in government programs unless I absolutely have to." He's certainly got no qualms about making a living selling beef.

But McRae and his forebears defy stereotypes.

His father, Wally, not only raised cows but was also a celebrated poet, appointed by President Clinton to the National Council on the Arts. In the 1970s, he joined with other ranchers to help found Northern Plains Resource Council, an advocacy group. They were moved to act by a utility industry plan for nearly two dozen coal plants between Colstrip and Gillette, Wyo.

"I and others like me will not allow our land to be destroyed merely because it is convenient for the coal company to tear it up," Wally McRae said, as quoted in a 50th-anniversary book published by Northern Plains.

Now in his late 80s and retired from the ranch, Wally's got every reason to be proud of his son.

Clint has fought to limit pollution from the coal plant his dad couldn't stop — and to ensure the cleanup of dangerous chemicals already emitted by the plant and mine. He's written articles calling for stronger regulation of coal waste, and slamming laws that critics say would let coal companies pollute water with impunity. Like his father, he's a member of Northern Plains.

McRae wants me to know that even though he and his dad "damn sure have a difference of opinion" with many of the people who live in town, "it was never personal." The coal-plant employees are friends of his. He doesn't want them to lose their jobs.

"Our kids went to school together, played sports together," he says.

Rancher Clint McRae opens a gate on his family's land outside Colstrip.

But even though McRae believes "we can have it both ways" — coal generation coupled with environmental protection — he's not optimistic. And history suggests he's right to be skeptical. Various analyses have found rampant groundwater contamination from coal plants, including Colstrip. Air pollution is another deadly concern. A peer-reviewed study last year estimated that fine-particle emissions from coal plants killed 460,000 Americans between 1999 and 2020.

Then there's the climate crisis.

McRae doesn't want to talk about global warming — "that's not my bag," he says. But he's seen firsthand what it can look like.

In August 2021, the Richard Spring fire tore across 171,000 acres, devastating much of his ranch and nearly torching both of his family's houses. He was on the front lines of the fast-moving blaze as part of the local volunteer firefighting crew. Temperatures topped 100 degrees, adding to the strain of dry conditions and fierce winds. McRae had never seen anything like it.

Two and a half years later, he's still building back up his cattle numbers and letting the grass regrow.

"It burned all of our hay. It was awful," he says.

McRae has a strong sense of history. As we drive toward the Tongue River, which forms a boundary of his ranch, he points out where members of the Arapaho, Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne tribes camped before the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, a few years ahead of his great-grandfather's arrival in Montana. A few minutes later he stops to show off a series of tipi rings — artifacts of Indigenous life that he's promised local tribes he'll protect.

McRae is acutely aware that this wasn't always ranchland — and that it probably won't be forever.

"It's gonna change," he says. "Whether we embrace it or not."

The wind and the water

Sturgeon. Bubbles. Salamander. Jimmy Neutron.

Those are "call signs" for some of the 13 employees at the Clearwater wind farm, where 131 turbines are spread across 94 square miles of Montana ranchland a few hours north of Colstrip. The nicknames are scrawled on a whiteboard in the trailer office.

Raptor. Goose. Sandman.

Clearly, they have fun here. And it's an industry where you can make good money.

Turbines spin at sundown at NextEra Energy's Clearwater wind farm, which sends power from Montana to Oregon and Washington.

Clearwater's operator, Florida-based NextEra Energy, won't disclose a salary range. But as of 2022, the median annual wage for a U.S. wind turbine technician working in electric power was $59,890, compared with $46,310 for all occupations nationally.

"If someone wants to stay close to home and still have a good career, we provide them that opportunity," Alex Vineyard says.

Vineyard lives in nearby Miles City and manages Clearwater for NextEra, America's largest renewable energy company. Clad in a hard hat, sweater vest and orange work gloves, he drives to a nearby turbine and walks up a staircase to show us the machinery inside. The tower is 374 feet high, meaning the tips of the blades reach 582 feet into the air.

Not far from here, hundreds of construction laborers are finishing the next two phases of the Clearwater project.

Alex Vineyard manages the Clearwater wind farm for NextEra, America's largest renewable energy company.

"You can see where we build wind sites. It's not downtown L.A.," Vineyard says, the sunset casting a brilliant orange glow behind him. "Generally it's rural areas — and there are limited opportunities for kids in those areas. Not a lot of great careers."

Wind will never replace coal. The construction jobs are temporary, the permanent jobs far fewer.

But they're better than nothing. A lot better.

As much as West Coast megacities owe it to coal towns like Colstrip to bring them along for the clean energy ride, coal towns like Colstrip owe it to themselves to take what they can get — and not let stubbornness or politics condemn them to oblivion.

Fortunately, they've got the power grid on their side.

In today's highly regulated, thoroughly litigated world, long-distance power lines are incredibly hard to build. They can take years if not decades to secure all the necessary approvals — if they can get those approvals at all. As a result, wind and solar developers prize existing transmission lines, like those built to carry power from Colstrip and other coal plants to big cities.

The Clearwater wind farm offers a telling case study.

Two of Colstrip's four coal units shut down in 2020 due to poor economics, opening up precious space on the plant's power lines. That open space made it easier for NextEra to sign contracts to sell hundreds of megawatts of wind power to two of Colstrip's co-owners, Portland General Electric and Puget Sound Energy — and thus get Clearwater built.

An electrical substation flanks the Colstrip power plant. 

Montana wind is especially useful for Oregon and Washington because it blows strongest during winter, when those states need lots of energy to stay warm. On that front, Clearwater has been a huge success. During its first winter, it had a capacity factor of 60%, meaning it produced 60% of all the power it could possibly produce, if there were enough wind 24/7.

Sixty percent is a lot — "like a home run," Puget Sound Energy executive Ron Roberts says.

He and his colleagues want more. Puget Sound plans to build more Montana wind turbines to serve its Washington customers — again taking advantage of the Colstrip power lines.

West Coast states need to keep investing in exactly this type of project if they hope to persuade their conservative neighbors to stop fighting to save coal. The more they can bring the benefits of wind and solar power to the rest of the West, the better.

And what about those low-wind, cloudy days when wind turbines and solar panels aren't enough to avoid blackouts?

Carl Borgquist has a plan for that.

I meet up with him near Gordon Butte — a flat-topped landmass that juts up 1,025 feet from the floor of Montana's Musselshell River valley, four hours west of Colstrip but just over five miles from the coal plant's power lines. There are already wind turbines atop the butte, built by the landowning Galt family with Borgquist's help.

Borgquist assures me as we drive to the top that I'll soon understand why this steep butte is perfect for energy storage.

"It will intuitively make sense, the elegance and simplicity of gravity as a storage medium," he says.

Carl Borgquist admires the views from atop Gordon Butte, where he's got plans for a pumped storage project to augment Montana wind power. 

There will be two reservoirs — one up on the butte, another 1,000 feet below. They'll be filled with water from a nearby creek.

During times of day when there's extra power on the Western electric grid — maybe temperatures are moderate in Portland and Seattle, but Montana winds are blowing strong — the Gordon Butte project will use that extra juice to pump water uphill, from the lower reservoir to the upper reservoir. During times of day when the grid needs more power — maybe there's a record heat wave, and not enough wind to go around — Gordon Butte will let water flow downhill, generating electricity.

It's called pumped storage, and it's not a new concept. But compared with other proposals across the parched West, this one is almost miraculously noncontroversial. No environmentalists making hay over water use. No nearby residents crying foul.

Borgquist still needs to sign up a utility customer, or he would have already flipped Gordon Butte to a developer better suited to build the $1.5-billion project, which will employ 300 to 500 people during construction. But Borgquist is confident that before too long, one or two of the Pacific Northwest electric utilities preparing to ditch Colstrip will see the light.

"I've been waiting for the market to catch up to me," he says.

Let's hope it catches up soon. Because even though pumped storage won't keep us heated and cooled and well-lit every hour of every day, neither will wind, or solar, or batteries, or anything else. No one technology will solve all our climate problems.

The sooner we learn that lesson, the sooner we can move on to the hard part.

The Colstrip power lines run near Gordon Butte, carrying coal-fired electricity — and increasingly wind energy — from Montana to Oregon and Washington.

The art of the deal

I find myself wandering the halls of the state Capitol in Helena. Christmas is a few weeks away, and there's a spectacular tree beneath the massive dome, flanked by murals of white settlers and Indigenous Americans.

On a whim, I step into Gov. Greg Gianforte's office and ask if he's in. Gianforte has fought to keep the Colstrip plant open, and I want to ask him about it. I'm also curious to meet a man who easily won election despite having assaulted a journalist.

One of his representatives takes down my contact info. I never get an interview.

Despite the state's deep-red turn in recent years, Montanans have a history of environmental consciousness, owing to their love of fishing, hunting and the great outdoors (as seen in the film "A River Runs Through It"). They approved a new state constitution in 1972 that enshrined the right to a "clean and healthful environment in Montana for present and future generations."

To the frustration of Gianforte and his supporters, that right may include a stable climate.

This time last year, a Montana judge revoked the permit for a gas-fired power plant being built by the state's largest electric utility, NorthWestern Energy, along the banks of the Yellowstone River. The judge ruled that the state agency charged with approving the gas plant had failed to consider how the facility's heat-trapping carbon emissions would contribute to the climate crisis.

NorthWestern Energy says this gas-fired power plant on the Yellowstone River is needed to help keep the lights on for homes and businesses. 

Legislators responded by rushing to pass a law that barred state agencies from considering climate impacts.

The Yellowstone River gas plant moved forward, but the law didn't last long. A few months after it passed, another judge ruled in favor of 16 young people suing the state over global warming, agreeing that the legislation violated their constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment.

"This is such a solvable problem," says Hedges, the Montana environmentalist critical of coal mining. "It's just that nobody wants to solve it."

Hedges is a leader of the Montana Environmental Information Center, where she's spent three decades battling for clean air, clean water and a healthy climate. It was her advocacy group, along with the Sierra Club, that sued Montana over the state's approval of the Yellowstone River gas plant, setting off the chain of increasingly consequential court rulings.

But as mad as she is at Gianforte — and at the local utility company executives who insist they need coal to keep the lights on in Montana — Hedges is at her most caustic when discussing the Pacific Northwest environmentalists who, in her view, have failed to do everything they can to get the Colstrip power plant shut down.

That includes the Sierra Club, which, Hedges says, has shifted its focus too quickly from shutting down coal plants to blocking the construction of new gas plants — even in places such as Montana, where coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, isn't dead yet.

Hedges' frustration also includes the Washington state lawmakers who passed a much-lauded bill, signed by Gov. Jay Inslee, requiring electric utilities to stop buying coal power by 2025 — only to sit idly by as some of those utilities then made arrangements to give away their shares in the Colstrip plant to coal-friendly co-owners rather than negotiate agreements to shut the coal units.

"So they're not actually decreasing carbon dioxide emissions even a little tiny bit. They are allowing this plant to continue, instead of using their vote to close this source of pollution. It's maddening," Hedges says.

A lone tumbleweed blows through piles of coal at the Rosebud Mine outside Colstrip, a few miles from the power plant. Coal is prepped for transport at the mine. Coal is transferred to a truck at the mine. 

Washington officials say they tried to get Colstrip shut down but were stymied by the plant's complicated six-company ownership structure, and by the Montana Legislature's staunch support for coal. Sierra Club activists, meanwhile, say they're still pushing for Colstrip's closure, and for coal shutdowns across the country — even as they also oppose the construction of gas plants.

"From a climate perspective, gas is just as bad as coal," says Laurie Williams, director of the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign.

To avoid a future of ever-more-dangerous fires, floods and heat, we need to ditch both fossil fuels — fast.

This is the hard part. This is the part that will require compromise — for conservatives who believe anything smacking of climate change is woke liberal propaganda, and for liberals who want nothing to do with conservatives spouting that belief.

So how do we do it? How do we stop clashing and start cooperating?

First off, West Coasters need to engage in good faith with the people who have supplied their power for decades — and strike deals that might persuade those red staters to move on from coal. Deals like building more wind farms in Montana and not as many back home, even if that means fewer union jobs and lower tax revenues for California, Oregon and Washington.

It's great that the coastal states are targeting 100% clean energy, but it's not enough. They must bring the rest of the West along for the ride, or it won't matter. Every solar farm in California is undermined by every ton of coal burned at Colstrip.

The lesson for folks who live in Colstrip and other Western coal towns, might be even more difficult to swallow.

L.A. and Phoenix and Portland have funded your comfortable lifestyles a long time. Now they want something different.


If Colstrip wants to stick around, it needs to start offering something different.

Climate activist Anne Hedges stands in a public park near the Colstrip power plant. 

It's easy to see why that's a scary prospect. After we finish exploring the coal mine with Hedges, we drive into town and stop at one of the immaculately maintained public parks. The power plant's two active smokestacks aren't far, looming 692 feet over a swing set and red-and-blue bench with the letters "USA" carved into the backing.

"The climate doesn't care who owns the power plant," Hedges says, as steam and carbon and soot spew from the stacks.

The climate won't care any more when Houston-based Talen Energy — which operates the plant, and which didn't respond to requests for a tour or interview — becomes the facility's largest owner next year, acquiring Puget Sound Energy's shares.

Our ability to solve this problem doesn't depend on which company is profiting off all that coal.

What it does depend on is our willingness to make hard choices, ranchers and miners and activists setting aside their differences and writing the West's next chapter together, rather than fighting so long and so hard that the tale ends badly for everyone.

Change is scary. But it's inevitable. Cowboy poet Wally McRae learned that the hard way.

Maybe 50 years from now, his great-grandchildren will wax poetic about the beauty of Colstrip without coal.

The early-morning sky glows red over the town of Colstrip. 

(PHOTOS: Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Scotland to ditch key climate change target

Kevin Keane - BBC Scotland's environment correspondent
Wed, April 17, 2024 

Scotland was aiming to cut emissions by 75% by the end of the decade [PA Media

The Scottish government is to ditch its flagship target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 75% by 2030.

The final goal of reaching "net-zero" by 2045 will remain, but BBC Scotland News understands the government's annual climate targets could also go.

Ministers have missed eight of the last 12 annual targets and have been told that reaching the 75% milestone by the end of the decade is unachievable.


A statement is expected at Holyrood on Thursday afternoon.

The Climate Change Committee (CCC) - which provides independent advice to ministers - warned back in 2022 that Scotland had lost its lead over the rest of the UK in tackling the issue.

Last year ministers failed to publish a plan it promised - required under the act - detailing how they were going to meet the targets.

Scottish government climate targets unachievable, says watchdog


Scotland's climate 'changing faster than expected'


Scotland loses climate change lead, advisers warn

Then in March of this year the CCC said for the first time that the 2030 target was unreachable.

Former first minister Nicola Sturgeon saw her SNP administration as world leaders on climate change when the targets were introduced in 2019, often asserting that Scotland had the "most stretching targets in the world."

Hers was the first government in the world to declare a climate emergency and Glasgow hosted the COP26 climate summit in 2021, yet environmentalists believe the emergency response never came.

So scrapping the targets will be seen as an embarrassing retreat for the SNP and the Scottish Greens, their partners in the Scottish government.

Scotland's emissions reduction target for 2030 was tougher than for the UK as a whole, which was for a reduction of 68% by the same date.
Where did the targets come from?

There was a febrile atmosphere around back in 2019 when the Scottish Parliament passed its landmark legislation to speed up the rate of decarbonisation

It was the height of the school climate strikes and just a few days earlier thousands had taken to the streets in support of Greta Thunberg's calls for more action.

Nicola Sturgeon - pictured here with Greta Thunberg and climate activist Vanessa Nakate - portrayed her government as being climate leaders at COP26 in Glasgow

 [PA Media]

At Holyrood, parties were trying to outbid each other on how quickly the country could go, eventually settling on a pace far beyond what experts had planned for.

The Scottish Greens - who are now in government with the SNP - proposed aiming to cut emissions by a whopping 80% compared with the baseline year of 1990.

But parliament settled on 75% - still 5% more than recommended - and the Climate Change Bill was agreed by all parties except the Greens, who abstained.

One former minister told me there was a "lack of realism" at the time.
What went wrong?

The new legislation required ministers to set annual targets for reducing emissions.

In a sense it was a hostage to fortune with the yearly totals heavily influenced by the winter weather which determines how much gas we use to heat up our homes.

But the trend was clear as eight out of 12 of the targets were missed.

Protestors marched to a rally in Holyrood Park in Edinburgh in the days before the climate targets were set [Getty Images]

With the closure of Scotland's last coal-fired power station at Longannet in 2016, politicians conceded that the low-hanging fruit had all been picked and any future progress would require big changes to how we live our lives.

But the Greens believe the current system has fundamentally failed with too much emphasis placed on targets rather than policies.

That might be how the Greens try to convince their voters that scrapping the targets will be the right decision.

Scottish Greens climate spokesman Mark Ruskell said the party was "absolutely determined to accelerate the urgent and substantial action needed to tackle the climate crisis as laid out by the CCC recently, and fully expect the Scottish government to respond to that challenge".

Have emissions been falling?

The short answer is yes, but not by enough.

By 2021 greenhouse gas emissions had fallen by 49.2% compared with the baseline level in 1990.

That's a massive half of our planet warming gases which have already been eradicated from the economy.

But the law required a 51.1% fall by that date to keep on track.

Some industries have seen huge changes that have driven down emissions like the energy and waste sectors.

Others have remained stubbornly unmoved such as transport and agriculture.
What would scrapping the targets mean?

It is likely the Scottish government would replicate the system of "carbon budgets" used by both the UK and Welsh governments.

Rather than annual targets, ministers would be told how much greenhouse gas could "safely" be emitted during a parliamentary term and have to come up with a plan to achieve that.

It would mean an end to the legal requirement of successive environment secretaries having to explain to parliament why the targets have been missed.

There is an argument that the annual targets are a distraction because emissions are influenced by many factors including the weather and that the overall trend is more important.

Having been the first government in the world to declare a climate emergency, scrapping targets will be an embarrassing retreat.
What will the Scottish government do now?

Ministers have a conundrum; they are legally required to produce a "climate change plan" which details how they will achieve their targets.

That plan is now long delayed and the Climate Change Committee confirmed last month that the flagship 2030 target was now beyond reach.

So, it is just not possible to produce that plan any more.

An option would be to set new targets within the existing legislation and then produce a plan.

But one official described those annual targets as nothing more meaningful than a straight line on a graph.

So abolishing them altogether - and perhaps setting a lower 2030 target - seems the most likely course of action available.


Yousaf ‘will ditch Sturgeon’s pledge to cut Scotland’s greenhouse gases’

Simon Johnson
Wed, April 17, 2024 

Humza Yousaf and his Government were accused of over-promising and under-delivering - Michael McGurk


Humza Yousaf will dump Nicola Sturgeon’s flagship pledge of cutting Scotland’s greenhouse gases by 75 per cent by the end of the decade, it has been reported.

Ms Sturgeon said her SNP administration was a global leader on climate change when the target was introduced in 2019, calling it the “most stretching” in the world.

But in an embarrassing climbdown, Mr Yousaf’s SNP-Green government is expected to use a ministerial statement at Holyrood on Thursday to confirm that the 2030 target has been ditched. Harmful emissions were supposed to have been cut by three-quarters compared to 1990 levels.

BBC Scotland reported that a final goal of Scotland being net zero by 2045 – five years ahead of the rest of the UK – would remain, but that annual climate targets covering emissions from sectors such as transport and heating could also be scrapped.
‘Succession of missed targets’

The expected announcement comes after the UK’s official climate watchdog said last month that the current rate of progress in cutting greenhouse gases would have to be increased by a factor of nine for the 2030 target to be met.

In a damning report, the Climate Change Committee said this level of increase was “beyond what is credible” and was double the most ambitious scenario it had modelled if stringent measures were introduced.

The assessment found that Scotland’s annual target for cutting emissions was missed again in 2021 – for the eighth time in the last 12 years – after greenhouse gas levels rose by 2.4 per cent as the economy rebounded from the Covid pandemic.

The Tories said ditching the 2030 target would be an “abject humiliation” for the SNP and its Green coalition partners.

Douglas Lumsden, the Scottish Tories’ shadow net zero secretary, said: “For all the boasting about their supposed environmental credentials, the reality is a succession of missed targets – and being forced to throw in the towel on this flagship pledge represents the biggest failure of the lot.

“This climbdown is not a surprise, given the damning report from the Climate Change Committee, but it is symptomatic of a nationalist coalition that routinely over-promises and under-delivers.”
‘Scotland deserves better’

Michael Shanks, a Scottish Labour MP, wrote on X, formerly Twitter: “Defending the profits of oil and gas giants, now binning their key climate target. Clearly the Greens are having a strong influence in government. Scotland deserves better than this lot.”

The Scottish Government refused to confirm or deny whether the 2030 report would be scrapped, saying the details would be announced in the statement by Mairi McAllan, the SNP’s Net Zero Secretary.

The Climate Change Committee is an independent statutory body that advises the UK Government and devolved administrations on their emissions targets.

Just over 6,000 heat pumps were installed in Scottish homes last year, it said in last month’s report, but this “needs to increase to more than 80,000 per year by the end of the decade”.

The committee also noted that publication of the Scottish Government’s new draft climate change plan, which was supposed to have happened late last year, had been delayed. This meant there was “no comprehensive delivery strategy for meeting future emissions targets and actions continue to fall far short of what is legally required”.