The Just Transition Commission is deeply concerned by the situation at Mossmorran. We call on Scottish and UK Governments to work together with industry urgently to co-ordinate a response that:

• makes targeted and measurable interventions to support workers affected (both those directly employed and contractors) and the surrounding community during this critical and uncertain phase, to ensure employment levels and economic activity within the area are protected, and workers facing redundancy are supported into new roles.
• applies just transition conditionalities to secure economic, social and environmental returns on public investment in sustainable industry for the region, further developing the approach that has been taken for Grangemouth.

Mossmorran represents another major disorderly and unjust industrial closure following the closure of the Grangemouth oil refinery in April. A transition to a low carbon economy achieved by deindustrialising Scotland can never be just. The closure at Mossmorran is a profound challenge to the credibility of the just transition approach for the workers, communities and businesses across Scotland who are relying on its success to secure their livelihoods.

The closures at Grangemouth and Mossmorran are clearly foreseeable events in the context of our transition to a low carbon economy. We are concerned that the response from government again appears to be reactive, with key decisions on the sequencing and speed of industrial change taken solely by multinational companies. This reactive approach is as unsustainable for the people affected as it is for the stretched public finances that will now be used to mitigate the crisis.

On 16 April 2024, the Commission provided advice as follows:

The Grangemouth plan must be the first in a rapidly developed series of just transition plans for Scotland’s highest emitting sites – The Scottish Government should set out clear fair work and community involvement provisions for the closure of high carbon assets (clearly foreseeable given long term trends) and scale up of clean energy. A sign of the just transition is anticipating the inevitable phase out of fossil fuels in ways that involve workers and communities so that closure and greening is shaped in a socially positive way. The Scottish Government should now ensure that those with responsibility for each of the top 20 industrial emission sites in Scotland, including operations at Peterhead, Mossmorran, Dunbar, St Fergus, Markinch, Lockerbie, Shetland, Irvine, Alloa, Dalkeith, Stirling and Girvan, are required to consult, negotiate and publish a just transition plan to show how the social dimension of transition will be managed. This process should begin as a matter of urgency.

This developed a recommendation of the first Just Transition Commission published on 23 March 2021:

Just Transition plans for high-emitting industrial sectors of the Scottish economy must be created at the earliest possible date with clearly measurable milestones and decision points that align with the Climate Change Plan out to 2045.