Campaigners in Scotland believe a series of imminent decisions could force the SNP government to come off the fence on fracking.
This week SNP MPs will have an opportunity to vote on an amendment to the infrastructure bill, a proposed moratorium on fracking, which Friends of the Earth Scotland argues will be a crucial test of intent. And in the next few weeks, the only active application in Scotland – for coal-bed methane extraction at Airth, near Falkirk – will land on Scottish government ministers’ desks for a final decision.
Last week, the UK government agreed to exclude Scotland from the bill, which removes the rights of householders to object to drilling under their homes, following cross-party opposition from Scottish parties. This was done in the expectation that publication later this week of draft clauses of the new Scotland bill will include Smith Commission recommendations to devolve onshore licensing and mineral access rights, which Scottish Labour believes should be fast-tracked before the general election.
While it may be politically convenient for the SNP to fall back on the argument that they are waiting for the Smith recommendations to come into force, which could take another year or two, green campaigners argue that by then another round of licences and applications will be in train, making it much harder for the Scottish government to take a strong anti-fracking position.
Mary Church, head of campaigns for Friends of the Earth Scotland, argues: "While the Scottish government has been more cautious in its approach to unconventional gas to date than its UK counterpart, the goal posts have shifted in recent months with Ineos’s plans to frack large parts of the central belt, and Cluff’s ambition to set coal seams under the Forth alight. Ministers must act now using existing powers to stop the unconventional gas industry before it becomes entrenched.”
The threat of unconventional gas extraction in Scotland gained a high profile during last summer’s independence referendum campaign, and since then momentum has not abated, with local opposition groups forming in particular around the central belt where chemical giant Ineos recently acquired 729 square miles of fracking exploration licences.
Green campaigners point out that, while it suited the SNP during the referendum debate to cast fracking as a Westminster imposition, the Scottish government already has the planning and environmental regulatory powers to effectively eliminate the practice north of the border.
(www.theguardian.com)
