Crisis, what crisis? Beset by domestic problems of their own making, the SNP government at Holyrood now has to face a difficult international climate too, amid rising tensions abroad and economic troubles around the globe. So, what better time for the country’s embattled First Minister to duck questions on ferries and sleaze by jetting off to Washington to rub shoulders with some of America’s more pliable politicians.
Unfortunately it seems that a change of scenery still hasn’t cured Nicola Sturgeon’s habit of tampering with the truth. Delivering a grandly-titled speech on ‘Scotland’s place in the world’, the Glasgow MSP told the Brookings Institute that ‘renewable energy currently accounts for almost 100 per cent of Scotland’s gross electricity consumption – which is around a third of our overall energy demand.’
A great claim – but is it backed up by the evidence? When the Scottish Government was asked to show its working in a Freedom of Information request, it included a crucial caveat that ‘in 2020, renewable electricity generated in Scotland was equivalent to 95.9 per cent of gross electricity consumption.’ This caveat is important; suggesting that near 100 per cent of electricity used in Scotland is from renewable sources would be true if Scotland used all its renewable electricity and only exported non-renewable.
But that’s not how electricity systems work, as Full Fact has pointed out. Scotland produces renewable electricity equivalent to its annual consumption, but some of this is exported, meaning it uses significant amounts of non-renewable electricity as well. In fact, the Scottish Government estimates that, in 2020, 56 per cent of the electricity consumed in Scotland came from renewable sources, 30 per cent from nuclear and 13 per cent from fossil fuels.
Elsewhere in the same speech, Sturgeon told her audience that membership of Nato would be ‘the principal way in which an independent Scotland, in an interdependent world, would contribute to the collective security of our neighbours and allies.’ Yet for all their pro-Nato posturing, the SNP was still committed to leaving the defence alliance less than 10 years ago and stated in the 2013 white paper ‘Scotland’s Future’ that they would remove nuclear weapons from UK bases in Scotland, including the Trident nuclear program, if the country votes for independence.
Sturgeon herself believes that nuclear weapons are ‘immoral, ineffective and a waste of money’ yet remains happy for her country to shelter under America’s nuclear umbrella in Nato. Questions for her to answer perhaps when she returns home from her sojourn abroad.
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