Ministers Approve New Gas Power Station at Peterhead

Developers SSE Thermal and Equinor confirm the planned facility will integrate carbon capture technology. Scottish ministers, in granting consent, declared satisfaction with the environmental impact assessments.

Katherine May called the approval of a new fossil fuel project, coinciding with the Scottish Parliament's debate on global climate leadership, a "startling act of climate hypocrisy."

May asserted, "Climate justice means showing up in the decisions we make, not just the speeches we give."

Environmental campaigners contend the consent exposes Scotland’s political leaders as "trapped in a fossil fuel fantasy where every new project is somehow sold as climate progress." Katherine May further clarified, "People aren’t fools. They know the difference between a genuine transition and another dirty development dressed up in green ribbon."

Caroline Rance labeled the approval a "catastrophic failure from the Scottish Government to protect people from both climate breakdown and the increasing burden of rocketing household bills." Rance also dismissed carbon capture as cynical greenwash from the fossil fuel industry.

Rance argued it "beggars belief that ministers would lock in decades more fossil fuel burning now after people suffered through a summer of extreme heat and are now enduring supercharged storms." She added that Scottish households will feel the decision's pain for the next 30 years or more, trapping them in reliance on volatile fossil gas.

Successive Scottish Governments and fossil fuel companies have promised carbon capture for over two decades, yet it has never materialized, according to Caroline Rance. She maintains that renewable energy offers greater affordability, reliability, and community benefits.

Maggie Chapman identified the Peterhead site as "Scotland’s largest source of climate pollution." Chapman stated, "At a time when we should be accelerating the shift to a renewables-powered, energy economy, the Scottish Government is now locking Scotland into decades more fossil fuel dependency, based on unproven, expensive carbon capture and storage schemes that simply cannot deliver the rapid emissions cuts we need."

Chapman also claimed the Scottish Greens remain the sole party in Scotland advocating for climate and energy future. She urged the Scottish Government to invest in long-term, high-value, and high-skilled green jobs, seizing renewable energy opportunities instead of expanding Scotland’s most polluting site.

Finlay McCutcheon welcomed the Scottish Government’s decision. He called it an "important milestone for a project which has the potential to provide the flexible, low-carbon electricity needed to support a renewables-led energy system while creating and sustaining good jobs in the north-east of Scotland."

McCutcheon described the project as "an important anchor project."