Terrifying warning over North Sea energy jobs is tantamount to a national emergency
Report warns that up to 50 per cent of North Sea oil and gas job could be lost in the next five years
It is a curious twist of fate that Scotland’s oil and gas reserves are declining just as climate change creates a need to move towards low-carbon sources of energy. And it is a hugely serendipitous one that Scotland is so well placed to become a global leader in renewable energy.
However, a new report by Future Economy Scotland spells out just how poorly this country has been capitalising on its good fortune. For, while 18,000 direct and indirect jobs in oil and gas have been lost since 2014, only 6,000 have been created in clean energy.
Juan-Pedro Castro, an economist at the think tank, said: “The North Sea is a maturing basin – reserves are running out, and extraction is increasingly uneconomic. While critics like to blame net zero for the industry’s decline, the reality has more to do with geology and economics. Like it or not, Scotland must now prepare for life beyond fossil fuels.”
Missed opportunities will be snapped up
The report warns oil and gas jobs could decline by anything from 20 per cent to a staggering 50 per cent by 2030. If correct, this is the kind of situation that should be regarded as close to a national emergency.
The Scottish and UK governments should be urgently working with both each other and the energy industry to find ways to ensure the loss of oil jobs is slowed and the growth of green energy jobs is dramatically increased. If the overall rate of decline across both sectors continues, the wider economic consequences will be severe, particularly for the North East, and overseas competitors will snap up our missed opportunities.
However, according to the report, there are reasons to be optimistic. It estimates that a well-managed industrial transition could create up to 40,000 more energy jobs than are lost over the next five years. This must be our goal.
There has been much talk about a ‘just transition’ for oil and gas workers, so that they can move to well-paid jobs in renewables and avoid the fate of 1980s coal miners. But all too often it has been ‘just talk’. Now is the time for action.
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