SCOTLAND’S carbon emissions must be taken seriously even though they are “genuinely tiny in global terms”, according to a top climate scientist.
Dr Michael O’Sullivan, a member of the Global Carbon Budget team, said that examination of Scotland’s role in the climate crisis must not “stop” at looking at its overall share in worldwide emissions.
At just 0.1% of the global total, Dr O’Sullivan told The National it would be “easy to conclude Scotland's contribution is trivial and that domestic policy choices like Rosebank and Jackdaw can't meaningfully matter”.
The UK Government is currently weighing up approving new drilling for oil and gas at Rosebank and Jackdaw, both in Scottish waters, and proponents have argued that Scotland’s small share in global emissions means the projects should be given the go ahead.
But Dr O’Sullivan said he would “push back” on stopping the analysis of Scotland’s role in climate change.
He said that Scotland’s emissions per head remained “meaningfully” above the global average, with Scots having a share of 6.9 tonnes CO2 per person against an international average of around 4.5-4.7 tonnes of CO2 per person.
The Exeter University academic said: “On a per-head basis, a Scot’s climate footprint is well above what an equal share of the remaining global carbon budget would allow.
“The ‘it's only 0.1%’ framing only looks generous because it divides by a huge global population that mostly emits far less than we do.”
There is also the broader argument about the cumulative historical basis for climate change, of which the UK including Scotland played a large part, even though its current emissions are now reduced, Dr O’Sullivan added.
He said that the Paris Agreement, which saw countries commit to limit “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels”, was “explicitly built on the principle that wealthy, early-industrialising countries have to move first and fastest”
Dr O’Sullivan added: “The UK is, on a cumulative historical basis, one of the largest sources of climate pollution in the world, having industrialised earliest.
“A common trope, ‘but China and India emit more in absolute terms’, is true and also beside the point – the whole reason fair-shares frameworks like the Climate Change Committee’s exist is that a simple present-day-emissions comparison lets the countries most responsible for cumulative warming off the hook.”
On Rosebank and Jackdaw, the climate scientist said that carbon budgets could give a misleading picture of their impact on the country’s contribution to climate wrecking fossil fuel emissions.
Dr O’Sullivan said: “Carbon budgets are based on where the emissions take place, hence ‘territorial’ emissions, not where they are extracted. So any extraction from Rosebank and Jackdaw does not count towards Scotland's carbon budgets.
“This is why Norway brands itself ‘green’ but is one of the largest fossil producers in the world – they just don't burn that much domestically.”
