MORE skilled workers with experience in the renewables industry should be granted permission to work in the UK to quicken the transition away from fossil fuels, the boss of an energy giant has said.
Keith Anderson, chief executive of Scottish Power, told Times Radio that importing skilled labour needed to be part of “emergency mentality” measures required to tackle the climate change crisis and would help the UK to “go much, much faster” in replacing oil and gas with green technologies.
He called on UK ministers to relax rules on admitting specialist migrant workers who are helping other countries to outpace the UK in its energy transition.
Anderson went on to say the UK Government’s support for customers facing soaring energy bills was a “short-term fix” and radical policy change was needed to fix the crisis.
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Anderson said: “We keep saying climate change is an emergency, I still don’t see us acting as if it was an emergency in terms of the policies and the frameworks and the speed. And that’s the mentality we need to have.
“[Energy bills support] was absolutely critical and absolutely vital, but one of the big messages we were trying to give the government then was that’s a short term fix, a sticking plaster. And during that period, we need to radically change what we do and how we do it.”
Asked if that change had happened yet, he went on: “No, because in that same period, more onshore wind farms have been built in Ukraine than have been built in England.
“We need to bring more people into this country to deliver what we have to deliver, without a doubt.”
Scottish Power is making its own switch away from fossil fuels and signed a £1.3 billion deal to buy 95 wind turbines for an offshore wind farm off the coast of Norfolk in March.
Anderson added: “The future is about renewables. It’s renewables that take away from hydrocarbons, it’s renewables that bring down the cost, it’s renewables that will create the jobs, and it’s renewables that will tackle climate change.”
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