Scotland’s political consensus on climate is perhaps more fragile than it has ever been

When Richard Tice, deputy leader of Reform UK, visited a Glasgow chippy last month, his message on climate change was clear. “Net stupid zero” policies pursued by multiple governments were damaging the UK, he said, and the pledge from his party as it seeks a breakthrough at the Holyrood election is to “drill, Scotland, drill”.

Tice’s trip would be overshadowed by his inability to name the two councillors who had defected from the Scottish Conservatives to Reform in a clip that went viral on social media, but it is the implications of his party’s position on climate which might have a much longer-lasting impact.

Inside the chip shop, Tice became embroiled in a discussion about climate science. He would be told that money is being spent on a “non-existent problem”, that CO2 is “not a danger” and the general public is being “misled”. Notably, Tice neither voiced agreement nor opposition to those statements.

It’s a careful tightrope the party is trying to walk, seeking to set out ‘concerns’ without outright denial of climate change. Indeed, ahead of the general election last year it changed the wording of a policy document, removing a claim that “climate change has happened for millions of years, before man-made CO2 emissions” and instead pledged to scrap net zero targets to “save the public sector some £20bn per year”.

Counter narratives are rising, and not just from vested interests like oil and gas companies... but also from political parties

Yet while the party appears to be rolling back some of its more extreme climate statements – perhaps a tacit acknowledgement that it is not a vote winner – it is making all the right noises for those who are more sceptical. And by continuing to question the cost and value of net zero, the party hopes to turn the tide on public opinion by the time of the next general election and make it a major battleground on which it has a distinct voice.

When asked what his party would do to tackle climate change if it wasn’t aiming for net zero, Tice dodged the question. He said: “We’re the only developed nation that has the incredible luxury of huge amounts of energy treasure under our feet and we’re being stupid enough not to use it. We’re calling out this nonsense and net zero is going to be the key thing within the next general election.

“We plan to win it because I think the good people of Scotland are realising that they’re being conned, they’re being lied to, they’re being misled and it’s an outrage, and we’re going to take them on. That’s why [John] Swinney and co are so absolutely terrified, because they know that we’ve got the momentum.”

And it does seem like the momentum is with this disruptor party. Support has grown since last July and, while down from its peak, it continues to poll well. Reform is a particular danger to the Tories, occupying much of the same ground, but concern about their influence goes beyond the political right.

Mitigation is a non-starter, therefore we’re only left with adaptation

Speaking in a fringe session at Scottish Labour’s conference in February, head of Oxfam Scotland and Stop Climate Chaos Scotland board member Jamie Livingstone warned that the consensus around climate change was being “fragmented”.

“Right now, Scotland’s political consensus on climate is perhaps more fragile than it has been since the 2009 [Climate Change] Act, when we saw real consensus in the Scottish Parliament. Counter narratives are rising, and not just from vested interests like oil and gas companies and their paid lobbyists, but also from political parties – both new and within established political parties,” he told delegates.

He said there was a “real risk new parties coming into the space are going to drag the established parties into a direction that is going to undermine climate action”. But he urged those present not to be “misled by the vocal minority”, pointing to various polls which indicate Scots continue to support climate action.

YouGov’s climate change tracker has found the UK public remain generally united on the topic. Since the pollster started asking about climate beliefs in 2019, the proportion agreeing that “the world’s climate is changing as a result of human activity” has remained stable at around 70 per cent, while those that agree that it is changing but not as a result of human activity is somewhere around 15 per cent. Even fewer people deny climate change is happening at all.

Richard Tice visited Glasgow earlier this year | Alamy

But a closer look at how that breaks down by party is revealing. Reform UK voters are substantially less likely to agree climate change is man-made, instead seeing it as a natural phenomenon unrelated to human activity (35 per cent agree the former, 41 per cent the latter).

This is reflected in the view of David Stark, the chair of Reform UK’s Scottish branch and the man in charge of shaping the party’s climate policy ahead of 2026. “Climate science is at an early stage,” he tells Holyrood. “We know for sure that there are historic climate changes, and we’ve got loads of evidence about that. The part that humans play, particularly greenhouse gases, is speculative. We don’t know. But we know that any time the United Nations has made a prediction, it’s exaggerated what has actually happened.”

He argues that instead of pursuing net zero – because “nobody can afford mitigation, even if it worked” – the UK should instead be investing in measures to adapt to the impacts of climate change. “Mitigation is a non-starter, therefore we’re only left with adaptation and we know we’re good at that because since the 1930s the number of people who die because of extreme weather events has dropped by over 95 per cent, despite the global population tripling.”

Climate scientists and environmentalists argue that while the cost of net zero is substantial, it will be far outweighed by the cost of unmitigated climate change. But Stark says he’s never seen a “cost/benefit analysis”. “It’s speculation about the worst possible situation that might happen in the future based on dodgy science. And it’s speculation designed to make us afraid, so that the politicians can seem to be the people that are saving us,” he insists.

Politicians who have competed to set ambitious, far-off targets have been forced to confront voter concern about upfront costs

Reform remains the only party avowedly against net zero in its entirety – but there have been changes in policy among others, most obviously within the Conservatives. Leader Kemi Badenoch signalled last month that her party would scrap the legal target to reach net zero by 2050 – a target set by the Conservative government in 2019 – on the grounds of cost, though it is not doing away with ambitions to get to net zero completely. Then last week, Scottish leader Russell Findlay followed suit by calling for the “just transition to be scrapped – in favour of an affordable transition”.

But the pushback against the green agenda did not start with Badenoch. Former prime minister Rishi Sunak started to roll back on some pledges during his time in office, particularly in the wake of the Uxbridge and South Ruislip byelection in 2023 – caused by his predecessor Boris Johnson’s resignation from the Commons – which saw the Conservatives hold onto that seat against the odds. Steve Tuckwell, the winning candidate, claimed in his victory speech that his party won because of the “damaging and costly Ulez policy”.

The row over London’s ultra-low emission zones, while not a net zero policy, proved the dangers of pushing environmental policies without public support. Writing for the Institute for Government blog shortly after that by-election, Jill Rutter, a former senior civil servant, said parties ought to take note. “The wide consensus on the need to act on the environment, and in particular climate change, cannot be assumed simply to translate into public willingness to pay the price,” she said. “Politicians who have competed to set ambitious, far-off targets have been forced to confront voter concern about upfront costs. The painful truth for both parties is that setting ambitious targets is easy – taking the measures to deliver them is much harder.”

That’s a point echoed by Maurice Golden, a backbench Tory MSP who has become increasingly uncomfortable with the direction his party is taking. He has since confirmed he will not contest the 2026 election, taking a sideswipe at the party’s net zero stance in his announcement.

We won the battle before, we’ve got to do that again

On the wider discussion of climate change, Golden says it “feels like we’ve gone back 15 years”, having to rehash arguments that many environmentalists thought had been won. He blames a lack of delivery for this and believes the Scottish Government has wasted the political consensus it had.

“There was a lot of good work [after the 2009 Act], but actually when you look at delivery from the Scottish Government – the same government throughout that period of time – it’s pretty awful. You look at some of the major interventions into climate change – low emission zones, banning plastic straws – seriously? It’s not going to shift the dial. I’m not saying it won’t make any difference at all, but in terms of the challenge ahead, it’s almost like a diversionary tactic,” he says.

And while a majority of voters remain of the view that net zero is the right approach, he is concerned that narratives pushed by Reform will begin to be reflected in the public mood. The antidote, he says, is making the link to economic growth.

“We won the battle before, we’ve got to do that again and make the case that economic growth and climate change go hand in hand.

John Swinney addressing climate stakeholders in Glasgow | Alamy

“We’ve got evidence of that. The single biggest thing we’ve done in Scotland or the UK to tackle climate change is decarbonising the electricity grid. We’re now seeing lots of companies invest literally billions of pounds, providing hopefully thousands of jobs, both in construction but also in manufacturing and even decommissioning. That is economic growth, but it’s also helping to meet our climate goals.”

Proving climate action can deliver benefits will keep voters on side when they are asked to do more, he adds. “Some of the changes required are going to involve the public changing the way they do things. That’s where we have to make the case and re-win the battle to keep the public on side. The majority are on side but I wouldn’t want to be complacent and think that that remains static, particularly if they increasingly have a vehicle [to push back].”

Dr Dominic Hinde, a sociology expert who specialises in climate change communication, agrees. He says there is no “huge groundswell of opposition to net zero” at the moment, but that could change if people continue to only be told what it is costing them.

He says it is important to shift the narrative to focus on benefits. “For most of the population, categorically life will get better when you look at all the projections for the type of social change we need from these innovations,” Hinde says. “It means improvements to housing. It means improvements to public transport. It means improvements to public spaces as well.”

“Stronger leadership” is what is needed to create that narrative, he says, but that is missing from the Scottish political landscape. He blames this partly on politicians being overly focused on opinion polling. “We need have a political leadership that knows what it’s trying to communicate rather than constantly trying to respond to whatever it’s being told voters are interested in… I want to know what the Green Party actually thinks about what a modern, zero-carbon Scotland looks like. I don’t think they know, and this is a big problem because for a party that claims to be leading that transformation, there’s very little there, and even less coming from Scottish Labour, even less coming from the SNP. We have a real vacuum of ideas.”

The voices for climate inaction are getting louder. So, we must speak too, loud and clear

In that vacuum it becomes far easier for bad faith actors to point at the costs and question whether it is worth pursuing, particularly since both Scotland and the UK are small countries on the global stage and so reducing our emissions will make little difference in those terms. But, Hinde says, what Scotland can do is “prove that a developed European society with a relatively complex infrastructure can make these changes and come out the better”.

But it’s an increasingly small window of opportunity. “Scotland’s opportunity to be that major player is vanishing very quickly. It’s being very quickly overtaken by other places. And I think that’s entirely down to leadership and an inability to understand that we are at an inflexion point, socially and economically, in terms of what needs to be done. There’s a very real danger Scotland goes from being a green leader to being a backwater that just follows everybody else, and I don’t think the consequences of that have really been addressed yet.”

All these difficulties are, at least, beginning to be recognised by those in government. In a speech at the start of the year in Glasgow’s Botanic Gardens, First Minister John Swinney acknowledged “ever-stronger pushback against the very idea of a climate crisis, against the very need to act”. He called for political parties and wider society to “unite” and make a “renewed case” for action – part of which will be painting a better picture of a net zero society. “If we are to persuade people to accept the pain associated with some climate friendly initiatives, then that must be matched and more by the gains that flow from others,” he said.

“My guarantee to you is that I will provide the leadership, because I take this seriously. A Scotland bowed down and buckled by the effects of climate change is not a Scotland I want to see, especially given the opportunities for transformational change that do exist… The voices for climate inaction are getting louder. So, we must speak too, loud and clear, making a case for climate action that does bring benefits for Scotland and for the planet as a whole.”