Storm Amy disruption ‘illustration of climate problem’ – Swinney

John Swinney has said storms like Storm Amy are an “illustration of the climate problem” which show the need for action.

Scotland was battered by high winds and rain on Friday and into the weekend, as the first named storm of the season brought travel disruption and power cuts.

The west and north of the country were the worst affected by the outages, as engineers worked over the weekend to reconnect 80,000 homes.

However, several thousand remained disconnected on Monday morning.

Mr Swinney opened Scottish Power’s new offices in Edinburgh on Monday morning, as the company announced it would invest £10 billion in Scotland to rewire the electricity grid.

With thousands of homes in Scotland still without power on Monday, the First Minister was asked if he was concerned about the frequency of storms and the ability to cope with them.

He told the PA news agency: “The fact that we’re having storms of this nature, and we’re experiencing the degree of disruption that we are facing, is a practical demonstration of the effects of climate change.

“These storms are happening more frequently. They are disrupting power supply, they are disrupting people’s lives as a consequence.”

He said he “fundamentally” disagreed with those who said climate change is not a problem.

Mr Swinney added: “These storms are an illustration of the climate problem, and we’ve got to take action to address that.”

He said investments like the one announced by Scottish Power were important to decarbonise the electricity network.