Editor’s view: why Scotland is banking on more than just green energy
Louise Bateman, Editor, GreenWise
6th April 2011
It’s almost two years since Scotland passed the strongest legislation to tackle climate change in the world and its ambition to become the new "energy powerhouse of Europe" appears to have not wavered since.
The Climate Change Bill
Scotland passed in June 2009 means it must cut its CO2 emissions by 42 per cent by 2020 (and 80 per cent by 2050) and, since, it seems a week’s barely passed without some development in Scotland's bid to cut its emissions and source the majority of its electricity from
renewables within the next decade.
Last month, Energy and Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne described Scotland as "mission critical" to meeting not just its own, but the UK’s climate change targets. The statement coincided with the greenlight of the world’s largest tidal array, a 10-turbine farm off Scotland’s west coast. But it follows countless other announcements highlighting the increasing role Scotland is and wants to play in renewable energy and low carbon technologies.
Banking woes
While these sectors have been helping to revive Scotland’s economy following one of the sharpest recessions in modern times, the same can’t be said for the country’s beleaguered financial services sector, mostly centred in Edinburgh.
The Scottish capital is the UK’s largest financial centre outside London but it has slid sixteen places down the Global Financial Centres Index to 31 since the financial crisis, the biggest drop of any other Western European centre with the exception of Dublin.
Green Investment Bank
In a move that could help change that, last week a delegation from Edinburgh visited Westminster to lobby ministers to locate the Green
Investment Bank (GIB) in the Scottish capital. Funding for the GIB increased to £3 billion in last month’s Budget and the Government confirmed that it would be able to start borrowing from 2015. The Scottish delegation was making the business case that Edinburgh was the best place for the GIB to be located because of the capital’s expertise in financial services and Scotland’s growing position in renewable energy and low carbon technologies.
The lobby group, which comprised representatives from the accountancy and banking sectors and had cross-party support, argued that unlike in London, the GIB would represent "a strong and visible commitment" to the UK’s low carbon economy as a whole were it to be located in Edinburgh.
Whether the bid will be successful remains to be seen. Business Secretary Vince Cable has indicated that the choice of location will need to maximise the GIB’s effectiveness. But there can be no question that a bank whose role is to help green the UK economy would be a great fillip to any financial centre still trying to recover its standing following the 2007 banking crisis.
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