Going green means going poor

CONGRATULATIONS to Iain Macwhirter for his excellent article (“Buckle up and get ready for Winter of Discontent 2.0”, The Herald, May 11). However, he omitted the fact that it is not just Andrew Bailey, Governor of the Bank of England, who “may have cancelled Indyref2” but also the First Minister when, in 2019, she launched her zero carbon initiative that was the forerunner to the SNP policy to implement COP26 targets by 2045.

Just check the figures. Prior to the April increase in the energy price cap consumers obtained 25 per cent of their energy from electricity (around 4,000 units at 16p/unit) and 75 per cent from gas (16,000 units at 4p/unit), resulting in an annual bill of £1,280. However, a ban on fossil fuels would result in consumers spending £6,000 a year (20,000 units of electricity at current cost of 30p/unit). In other words, the policy of the First Minister means going green will mean going poor as the additional costs of COP26 such as the £40,000 bill for a flat owner having to replace their gas boiler, the impact on GDP from a ban on shale gas to Grangemouth and the multibillion-pound price tag of a green revolution means a major hit to household budgets.

What it indicates is that COP26 and Indyref2 are two intertwined policies, hence politicians cannot debate one topic without including the impact of the second topic. Hopefully your writers will be able to analyse the impact of the updated Growth Report being produced prior to a bill being laid before Holyrood over Indyref2.

Ian Moir,

Castle Douglas.