Today the Scottish Energy Minister Paul Wheelhouse announced to MSPs the Scottish Government's decision to ban fracking. Here RSPB Scotland's climate and energy senior policy officer Alexa Morrison outlines why we welcome this and what it means for wildlife and climate.
The Scottish Government ruling out fracking is a win for climate and wildlife – and for the precautionary principle
Last year, the SNP's manifesto for the Scottish election said there would be no unconventional gas extraction in Scotland "unless it can be proven beyond doubt that there is no risk to health, communities or the environment". This set a very high bar for any unconventional gas extraction to take place under the current Scottish Government, with strong concerns from communities and NGOs about risks to air and water quality, climate targets and wildlife to allay.
Today, after a lengthy process of research and consultation, the Scottish Government has announced its intention to effectively ban fracking and unconventional gas extraction, enforced through the planning system. Last year, it published a series of commissioned reports on the potential impacts of fracking. These were clear that the present regulatory regime is not sufficient, and failed to demonstrate that fracking could be done without harming wildlife or without risking our crucial climate targets.
Given continued uncertainties about impacts – the announcement should be warmly welcomed as a win for the climate and for wildlife. We know that in order to avoid dangerous climate change, the vast majority of remaining fossil fuel reserves are ‘unburnable’. In 2016, the Committee on Climate Change also published a report concluding that fracking is not compatible with Scotland’s climate targets unless robust new regulation is introduced, for example to strictly limit methane leakage.
We also know from experience that winding up a fossil fuel industry is far from easy – the collapse of open cast coal in Scotland in 2013 highlighted this, with the sudden closure of multiple mines leaving a trail of destruction of unrestored sites and job losses. It is difficult to see how it is possible to open up a ‘new frontier’ of fossil fuels in 2017, and manage it so it is wound down painlessly – with the knowledge that our economy needs to be zero carbon well within the next few decades. We urgently need an exit strategy from our fossil fuel dependence, and this clear statement that fracking will not happen in Scotland is a big step towards a low carbon future.
Three years ago, the RSPB published its ‘Fit to Frack’ report on the risks of fracking to wildlife in the UK, showing that fracking could lead to significant habitat loss and fragmentation if not strictly regulated. Each well requires 2-3 hectares, site operations are noisy, require thousands of heavy goods vehicle journeys, and can cause light pollution: all of which could disturb sensitive species. The use of chemicals and significant amounts of water could also put local watercourses at risk of pollution or over-abstraction.
Because of this uncertainty, we are pleased to see the Scottish Government respecting the precautionary principle, which means that threats to health or the environment are taken into account, even in the absence of full scientific certainty. It is a vital part of our armoury in the fight to protect nature, and crucial that it remains at the centre of environmental decision making. The precautionary principle is one of the key foundations of environmental law and is embedded in EU treaties and the UN Rio Declaration. The RSPB is very concerned however that, at present, this fundamental principle is not “carried over” into domestic law by the Withdrawal Bill, which needs to be urgently addressed.
With moratoriums in place in Wales and Northern Ireland, England is the only UK country where this industry can now progress. The RSPB in England is continuing to call for regulations to be improved to safeguard both wildlife and the climate. Nonetheless, wells are already being drilled under an insufficient regulatory regime. As an energy strategy, there are much cleaner, renewable energy alternatives to fracking that can deliver meaningful emissions cuts, and we know from our ‘RSPB’s 2050 Energy Vision’ that through careful spatial planning a high renewable energy future can be achieved at low risk to wildlife.
We hope the UK government will take note of this decision by the Scottish Government, and reassess its strategy to move towards a low carbon future, in harmony with nature.
You can read our response to the Scottish Government's announcement here.