Ahead of the Scottish Parliament debate on The Need for An Offshore Training Passport, Platform and Friends of the Earth Scotland shared case studies from offshore workers about their experiences with training in the energy sector, the enormous personal expense in time and money as well as the barriers this represents to efforts to transition to alternative industries.
Tackling the climate crisis requires a rapid transition away from fossil fuels and into renewable energy. However, the workers who are already facing the effects of industry decline are not seeing any firm plan for a managed transition that would create opportunities and remove barriers to entering renewable energy industries.
The skills and experiences of offshore workers are essential to deliver a rapid transition but the current training regime is a barrier to transferring across the energy sector and these case studies reveal the scale of the issue.