Humza Yousaf could never realise Sturgeon’s fantasy climate plans

It was Cop26 in Glasgow and Nicola Sturgeon was in her element, posing for selfies with Greta Thunberg, David Attenborough and assorted world leaders. The then first minister was desperate to upstage Boris Johnson who had very much put his mark on the global climate shindig. ‘It’s one minute to midnight on the Doomsday clock,’ the prime minister warned the assembled green lobbyists and corporate CEOs, ‘and we need to act now’. He promised to cut UK greenhouse gas emissions by 68 per cent of 1990 levels by 2030 and to achieve net zero by 2050.

Nicola Sturgeon just had to go one better. Scotland would cut emissions by 75 per cent she promised, and would make this ‘legally binding’ so there could be no backsliding on what she called ‘the most stretching climate targets in the world’. 

It was a stretch too far however – an exercise in fantasy policy making of the kind this SNP has made its own.