Letters / What the evidence shows about energy transitions
Dr Jonathan Wills’ recent ViewPoint piece argues that only an SNP majority government can effectively implement greenpolicies, and that voting Green means supporting a party that would be “bleating from the sidelines.” \
Having examined the international evidence on energy transitions – drawing on peer-reviewed research, International Energy Agency data, and academic literature rather than opinion pieces – I believe this framing misses what actually determines success.
The question isn’t which party, but whether we can build consensus.
The countries that have achieved the most successful energy transitions share a common feature that challenges Dr Wills’ premise: they succeeded through cross-party consensus, not single-party dominance.
Denmark, which generates 88 per cent of its electricity from renewables and ranks first in the EU, achieved this through what the EFI Foundation describes as “cross-party support for a generation for the idea that climate change requires a coordinated, long-term shift away from fossil fuels.”
This consensus has persisted across multiple coalition governments.
Uruguay transformed from fossil fuel dependence to 98 per cent renewable electricity in just over a decade.
Research published by the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania documents how President Mujica insisted energy policy “be accepted across the political spectrum,” resulting in what researchers call “a long-term policy, backed by the entire Uruguayan political system.”
Iceland achieved 100 per cent renewable electricity through what Oxford Academic research describes as “a policy agreed to by members of all political parties.”
The pattern is clear: durable consensus, not single-party control, characterises the most successful transitions.
Small parties drive ambition – they don’t “bleat from the sidelines”.
Dr Wills suggests Greens would have no meaningful influence outside government. The evidence from comparable countries contradicts this.
Research published in Taylor & Francis journals onNorwegian climate politics found that “much of Norway’s climate policies owes to smaller parties, because they pushed bigger coalition partners to take action.”
The Norwegian Green Party, with just 4.7 per cent of the vote, has been instrumental in advancing climate commitments.
Scotland’s own experience confirms this. The Bute House Agreement (2021-2024), while imperfect, delivered concrete outcomes: free bus travel for under-22s, record funding for wildlife and nature, the declaration that “the era of coal is over,” temporary rent protections, and a ten-year £500 million Just Transition Fund.
Even critics acknowledged, as reported in SPICe analysis, that the agreement “allowed the party to have a lot of influence on the Scottish government.”
It is notable that after the SNP ended this agreement, the 2030 climate target was scrapped as unattainable.
The jobs argument is empirically backwards
Dr Wills raises legitimate concerns about fossil fuel workers. However, the employment data does not support a jobs-versus-climate framing.
The International Energy Agency’s World Energy Employment reports document that clean energy sectors now employ approximately 35 million workers globally, compared to 32 million in fossil fuels.
Clean energy employment grew five per cent between 2019-2022 while fossil fuel employment declined four per cent.
Research compiled by Skeptical Science, drawing onmultiple peer-reviewed studies, finds that “the renewable energy sector generates more jobs than the fossil fuel-based energy sector per unit of energy delivered” – roughly twice as many jobs per megawatt.
Uruguay’s transition created over 50,000 jobs while saving more than half a billion dollars annually from the national budget, according to World Economic Forum analysis.
The IEA further notes that “an estimated half of workers in fossil fuel sectors who face redundancy risks this decade have skills demanded by growing clean energy sectors,” with many able to transition with approximately four weeks of additional training.
The question is not whether to transition, but how to manage it well for workers and communities.
What matters for Shetland
For Shetland specifically, Denmark’s community ownership model deserves attention.
The 2008 Danish Renewable Energy Act requires that local citizens be offered at least a 20 per cent share in new wind projects.
The World Resources Institute documents that nearly half of Danish wind turbines are now owned by local cooperatives, with profits flowing back to communities through dividends, jobs, and energy security.
This is the conversation we should be having: not which party can accumulate the most power, but how we ensure Shetland communities benefit from the energy transition and have genuine ownership stakes in developments affecting their islands.
What determines energy transition success is not single-party dominance but: policy stability over decades, state capacity to implement, low corruption, and cross-factional consensus.
Academic research published in journals including Political Science Quarterly and Environmental Politics finds that “regime type alone does not determine climate policy success.”
I am not arguing that voting Green is the only defensible choice. I am arguing that Dr Wills’ premise – that single-party SNP rule is the optimal path to implementing green policies – is not supported by the evidence from countries that have actually succeeded. Nor is it supported by the SNP record.
If you vote for what you believe in, you’ll have more chance of getting it.
Roderick Read
Nesbister
The research documents and sources underlying this letter are available on request.
