Kristen Nicolson
Research Assistant at the University of Stirling working on the UKRI funded Forth20 Project. As part of the project, Kristen works to identify formal and informal barriers to policy change as well as to understand policy bottlenecks.
Dr Sean Kippin
Senior Lecturer at the University of Stirling working on Scottish and UK politics and public policy. His research examines the interplay devolution and local policymaking, as well as the impact of populism on public policy in a European and global perspective.
Dr Alexander Mesarovich
Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Stirling working on the UKRI funded Forth2O Project. As part of the project, Alexander works to identify formal and informal barriers to policy change as well as to understand policy bottlenecks and environmental storytelling.
Prof Paul Cairney
Professor of Politics and Public Policy at the University of Stirling. His research focuses on Scottish and UK politics and public policy, and he is the Principal Investigator of the UKRI funded Forth2O Project on water governance in the Forth Water Basin.
Scottish Election 2026
Section 1: Parties and the campaign
- How SNP and Swinney stopped the rot (Eddie Barnes)
- The Scottish green wave breaks at last (Dr Jonathan Parker)
- What went wrong for Labour (Prof Kezia Dugdale)
- The Scottish Conservatives (Dr Alan Convery)
- Reform’s courting of Scotland’s post-industrial communities (Dr Maike Dinger and Prof Darren Lilleker)
- From chatbots to the ballotbox – how voters used AI to learn about the Scottish Parliament election (Dr Louise Luxton, Dr Timea Balogh, Elise Frelin & Prof Zoe Greene)
- Online advertising in the Scottish Parliament election (Kate Dimson and Prof Cristian Vaccari)
- Boring is not a virtue: Lessons from Scottish parties’ campaigns on TikTok (Prof Ana Ines Langer, Dr Lluis de Nadal)
- When parties travel, does negativity follow? Comparing campaigns on X (Dr Aybuke Atalay, Dr Ricardo Ribeiro Ferreira)
- Minding the distance: leaders in the election manifestos (Dr Michael Higgins, Prof Angela Smith)
- “It’s the Crisis, Stupid!” – Permacrisis and the 2026 Scottish Parliament election (Dr Paul Anderson, Dr Coree Brown Swan, Dr Judith Sijstermans
- ‘Whither Scottish national identity? The Reform UK challenge to an inclusive Scotland’ (Dr Murray Leith, Dr Duncan Sim)
- Environmental politics: flooded off the agenda? (Dr Kristen Nicolson)
- A disappearing crisis? Climate debate in the 2026 Scottish election campaign (Dr William Dinan)
- The Curious Case of the Co-operative Party and Lessons for Labour (Katharine McCrossan)
Environmental issues were a low priority to most political parties during the 2026 Scottish Parliament election campaign. Instead, this election was dominated by the cost of living and public service provision. Parties campaigned on promises to reduce energy prices, build more houses, bring down costs for voters, and reduce NHS waiting times.
This lack of attention may seem odd given the important role that environmental policy has played in giving Scottish politics and policymaking some distinctiveness from Westminster. Since 1999 there has been significant focus on issues such as land reform, ambitious climate “Net Zero” targets, and significant support for renewable energy. Despite the SNP’s “It’s Scotland’s Oil” heritage, SNP governments have reduced or de-emphasised their overt support for the oil and gas industry and increased emphasis on exploiting Scotland’s potential for generating “clean” energy.
It may be tempting to think that the relative marginalisation of environmental issues in the 2026 Scottish Parliament campaign reflects a multi-party consensus between SNP, Labour, Liberal Democrats, and – of course – the Greens that this agenda is here to stay. However, the rise of Reform and the Scottish Conservatives’ tilt towards anti-Net Zero politics suggests that this consensus may be more fragile than it appears. If so, lack of attention may appear to cede ground to critics of environmental policy gains since devolution.
Within this umbrella description of “environmental” policy, we find some important variations. For example, energy policy, proved to be a strong dividing line between the parties in their manifesto policies and statements at hustings. Some policies, such as meeting Scotland’s Net Zero targets, were shared by the Liberal Democrats, the SNP, the Greens, and Labour. Reform and the Conservatives, however, pledged to scrap the targets to lower energy prices and reallocate funds to be spent elsewhere – such as building new houses. The Greens had the most pro-environmental policies, promising to empower “citizens and organisations to sue future governments if they continue to fail to meet our legally binding climate targets”.
Parties also contested the specifics of the energy mix between fossil fuels, nuclear, and renewables. The Liberal Democrats, Labour, Conservatives, and Reform disagreed with the SNP and Greens’ “ideological block” on nuclear energy, with Labour arguing that new nuclear capacity would ensure Scotland “benefits from new investment, jobs and zero-carbon energy”. Both the SNP and the Greens rejected nuclear energy as a “false solution” and emphasised major delays before new nuclear projects would come to fruition. Although beyond the remit of the Scottish Government, the Greens also proposed to end new oil and gas licenses while the Conservatives and Reform were in favour of expanding licensing to bring down energy costs.
Our FORTH2O project also examines policymakers’ attention to water, an issue that should inform a wide range of economic, social, and environmental policies. Yet, it did not receive as much political attention in comparison with other environmental issues such as climate change. While there was a general agreement among Labour, Liberal Democrats, the SNP, and the Greens on flood prevention, water policies featured most prominently in the Labour and Liberal Democrat manifestos. Labour said it would improve the accountability of Scottish Water, monitor sewage overflows, and commission a water scarcity plan. Liberal Democrat policies included the introduction of a Clean Water Act to address sewage overflows and banning the sale of wet wipes containing plastic. While less extensive, the SNP’s water policies emphasised preventing the privatisation of Scottish Water as well as exploring the idea of urban waterways in Glasgow and Edinburgh. Although water policy as a separate category did not feature in the manifestos of either Reform or the Conservatives, both parties had policies concerned more broadly with protecting Scotland’s natural environment and aiding the farming and fishing industries. The Greens situated water policy within the context of nature restoration as well as improving water quality through the Clean Water Act.
Overall, while environmental policy was not a central feature of the campaign, the parties still committed to a range of policies that will impact Scotland’s environment. Most effort was spent on Scotland’s energy mix, with a particular focus on the price of energy as an aspect of the cost of living. Multi-party support for nuclear energy may have emerged, but the Scottish Government’s anti-nuclear stance seems set to continue, following the SNP taking 58 seats and the Greens another 15. Water policies were relatively absent despite it being one of Scotland’s most important natural assets. More attention should be paid to its cross-sectoral value, and the next Government needs to address current and future challenges to Scotland’s water system.
While we expect to see a broad continuation of existing SNP Government policies, we also expect a minority SNP Government to signal its environmental ambitions in relation to the parties on which it seeks to rely. It has already ruled out any cooperation with Reform, but time will tell if it seeks to rule in the agenda of a Scottish Green Party that could provide a routine majority for SNP plans.
