Skip to main content
The Morning Star Shop
Sturgeon refuses to commit to ban of North Sea oil and gas exploration

NICOLA STURGEON has refused to commit the Scottish government to a ban on North Sea oil and gas exploration despite suggestions Boris Johnson’s Tory administration are considering such a move. 

The First Minister was forced to defend her government’s environmental record in Holyrood today after claims that ministers were undermining efforts to tackle the climate emergency. 

Scottish Greens challenged Ms Sturgeon to commit to the ban but she refused, despite concerns about Scotland’s environmental credentials ahead of the UN’s climate summit in Glasgow this year.

Green co-leader Patrick Harvie said it was embarrassing that the SNP was being outflanked by the Tories in “standing up for the fossil fuel industry.”

He said: “We don’t have time for governments to be putting this off. We need to act like our future depends on it.”

Ms Sturgeon said that any move towards renewable energy must be a just transition, with many powers reserved to Westminster.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
Scottish Health Secretary Humza Yousaf
Britain / 9 January 2022
9 January 2022
It is ‘unfathomable’ that staff are having to keep doors and windows open and ask pupils to layer up for a second winter, Scottish Teachers for Positive Change and Wellbeing says