Climate

crisis jobs crisis crisis of democracy: time for action

For all the rhetoric of COP21 Camerons government is increasing support for carbon based energy supply and
pushing back the limited progress that has been made on renewables.
To restrict global temperature rise to less than 2 degrees Centigrade requires action now.
In Scotland we have a very particular energy crisis. The low oil price means that the big energy companies are
pulling out of the North Sea. 70,000 jobs have gone since January 2015 on Monday 8th February it was
announced that 150 rigs are scheduled for decommissioning. Its worth noting that the job losses in the energy
sector are on top of 40,000 plus that are going through across Scotland as a result of latest round of local
authority cuts. This combined scale of job losses in Scotland is massive bigger than the pit closures and its
going through under the radar at the moment.
Government subsidies of up to half a billion are going to the big energy companies none of this is going to the
workforce. Many of the workers have moved to the North East to be near to the work now they are out of a
job and trapped in the area with high mortgage payments as house prices go way down. The only growth
industry in Aberdeen is food banks.
Theres a huge onslaught on wages and conditions. Some of the people who are laid off are offered
reemployment on a two-week contract. At the end of the two weeks if your face doesnt fit your papers can be
stamped NRB (not required back). New contracts reduce the hourly rate from 25 an hour to 9 an hour for 15hour days.
The companies should pay for decommissioning; but it looks likely that as they bail out they will push the costs
and responsibility on the public purse. The total cost of decommissioning is likely to be around 34 billion.
The signs are that the big companies are leaving the North Sea for good. But this isnt an environmental
decision based on leaving hydrocarbons in the ground. The clear intention is that when the oil price rises theyll
focus on fracking and underground coal gasification. This is why they are lobbying the SNP so hard.
All of this is happening now and it requires a response now. Without a response we will have a huge increase
in unemployment, wages and conditions driven down and the loss of a workforce whos skills could be (and
were up to a couple of years ago) adapted to working on sustainable sources of energy.
Here are some suggestions for what these policies could include:

Active support for the Furies and any other group of energy sector workers who organize in defense of
their jobs and conditions

Nationalization of the offshore industry and downstream processing and manufacturing

Creation of a sovereign wealth fund that would underpin a Green Bank (hydrocarbons to be treated as
precious high value resource that has to be used in ways that guarantee long-term sustainability the
Norwegian approach is closer to this)

Major investment in renewables and creation of 100,000 climate jobs as part of a long-term strategy
for switching from carbon to no-carbon

Establishment of a Scottish energy skills academy, which would support the current workforce in
shifting its skills base towards sustainability

Stop the redundancies; redeploy the workforce into retraining and sustainable energy projects

Legislate for safety ban short-term contracts ban blacklisting