Since 2016, Nicola Sturgeon has accumulated enough flight miles to visit space.
The First Minister has travelled almost as far as a flight halfway to the Moon, which is 239,000 miles away from Earth, covering 110,833 miles in only six years.
The numbers, which were made public in response to a Freedom of Information request, revealed that most of the trips were inside the UK.
The most common travel was from Scotland to Cardiff, Manchester, Bristol, and London.
Announcing a “climate emergency” in 2019, Sturgeon said that Scotland will “live up to our responsibility to tackle it” and “lead by example.”
But since making the comment, she has flown about 30,000 miles.
110,833 air miles are equal to the yearly energy usage of 2,300 houses and contribute around 25 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide to the environment.
The data takes into account the pandemic-induced stop in international travel from 2020 to 2021, therefore Sturgeon’s travel was much less than usual.
Additionally, the data do not include the 5,000-mile round-trip travel to Egypt for the COP27 meeting last year.
The Scottish Government previously stated in response to criticism of her frequent travels that “international engagement plays a vital role in the economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic and Scotland’s net zero transition, and is even more necessary to reduce the damage caused by the UK Government’s hard Brexit.”
The energy situation, according to the First Minister earlier this month, shows the UK has to move faster toward net zero.
RELATED NEWS
We need to put Scotland on the road to an energy system that can meet the demands of being a net-zero country by 2045, that provides safe, secure, and cheap energy for everyone, and that creates economic opportunity via a fair transition.
