A View from the Green Side: Friends of the Earth Scotland
With the referendum vote on a Scottish independence around the corner, environmental and energy issues are climbing the agenda of the public. As those topics form part of the campaign in favour of the independence, green groups are likely to play a significant indirect role in the coming vote. Natural Gas Europe had the pleasure to speak with Mary Church, who is the Head Of Campaigns for Friends of the Earth Scotland, an organisation that looks to raise awareness of environmental issues in Scotland. Mary was a speaker at the ‘We Need to talk about Fracking’ in Glasgow, a few days before the local government introduced measures to strengthen planning policy in relation to unconventional oil and gas development.
How did you to get involved with Talk Fracking event? Was it they who contacted you first or did you get in touch with them? How often do you do events like this which talk within the community?
Talk Fracking got in touch with us, as Friends of the Earth Scotland have been campaigning on this issue for several years now, and of course we were really happy to take part in the event. It’s a different kind of event from those that we usually take part in. There's a level of celebrity clout and funding behind it and it had a very specific aim - to have the two sides of the debate come together with an undecided audience taking part in the discussion. So this is quite an unusual event in that context. We do lots of talks to community groups, and community councils, many of whom are absolutely unaware that their area has been licensed for unconventional gas.
Do you think that is one of the main issues with this? Obviously, we have seen the audience tonight and it was majority anti-fracking. Do you feel that sometimes the debate is connecting with people who already know about the issues and then there is a large amount of the population that are unaware?
There's always a difficulty with that, if you're promoting events for example to your own members they are likely to be in tune with roughly what you are saying about it. But I think it's incredibly important to do events like this, I think it's an enormous shame that the industry wouldn't come along and answer its critics tonight and I suspect you would have seen a broader spread in the audience as well had they been prepared to face the music. Friends of the Earth have made a point of going out to community councils and communities currently under license in Scotland who don't know about this and because they don't know about this they don't necessarily have an opinion on it yet, unless they perhaps have seen it on the news and think it's happening somewhere far away.
Also in your three-minute pitch, you said that Scotland 'has the best climate change act in the world'. Do you feel that the government is acting on this? Is that now in the process to happen and how important is that to Scotland's future?
The Scottish Government make a big deal about climate justice, and to some extent put their money where their mouth is in that, for example, we have a climate justice fund, even though international development is a reserved matter. However, we are not taking strong enough action to meet our climate targets is clear, as we've missed the first three legally binding annual targets in the Act. So we need to see much more funding and resources going towards for example, modal shifts in transport, as this is one of the key problem areas in terms of climate change emissions. We need to not just produce renewable energy but stop burning fossil fuels as well. We produce seven times more hydrocarbons than we consume in Scotland. They are going to have to start staying in the ground if we're going to have any chance of meeting our climate change targets. We've got ambitious renewable energy targets – 100 per cent of renewable electricity by 2020 – and we are well on course to meet that target but the problem is this is currently not backed up by a phasing out of fossil fuels so that needs to happen too.
You said to people that fracking should become a point for them in the referendum, have you found with people that are involved with your organisation that they have either been switched on their opinion on the referendum or that this is influencing their opinion on which way they will vote on the referendum in September?
I think the debate has been building up over the last eighteen months and people are becoming more and more switched on to the referendum and what it means for them, so is it just a constitutional issue for people or is it about the party in power and the decisions that they're going to make in an independent Scotland or a Scotland with further devolution, or whatever we end up with. So it's really hard to say and I think that's why it's absolutely critical to push the parties and the campaigns to commit to strong action on fracking and the climate before we go to the ballot. It's quite clear that the Scottish Government are not using all of the devolved powers they have to do the right things for climate change in terms of energy efficiency or in terms of keeping fossil fuels in the ground. There are things they could do that they're not doing at the moment.
The Scottish Government said they were going to introduce a 'buffer zone' system. Recently, speaking to a Falkirk Councillor, he said that the buffer zones are going to be self-regulated by the energy companies.
It's just outrageous. It's just like letting the bankers write their own rules. It also contravenes European guidelines on unconventional gas. The Commission have been humming and hawing about whether to legislate for shale gas and in January it published guidelines including a requirement for member states to implement clear minimum distances between unconventional gas operations and communities and water protection areas. The Commission is going to review member states implementation of these guidelines next summer and could act to legislate if members haven’t done enough. So there’s an EU requirement for a minimum distance buffer zone to protect communities and that is not what is currently being proposed by the Scottish Government. That could be pretty tricky for a Scottish Government wanting to negotiate entry in to the European Union post-referendum, should the vote go the way they want it go.
With the 14th round of licensing coming up, do you see a situation where there are increased protests across Scotland, perhaps similar as we have seen down south in areas such as Barton Moss?
I think it's possible. What is going to happen over the summer is that the British Geological Survey is going to publish an assessment of the shale gas potential of the Scottish central belt, DECC are going to launch the 14th onshore licensing round in which the entire central belt is potentially available and the decision about whether Dart Energy’s proposal for commercial CBM extraction at Airth has planning permission is going to be announced. We're not sure exactly when that decision will be announced, it could be pretty close to the Referendum, and its not going to be popular either way. So a whole string of things happening that means the issue is getting bigger and people are getting informed. So yes it is entirely possible.
Matthew Dunne-Miles