A MINISTER has admitted his government is decades behind progress needed to decarbonise buildings and has insisted that independence would allow Scottish consumers to reap the economic benefits of net zero.

Patrick Harvie, the Scottish Government’s minister for zero carbon buildings, has acknowledged that ministers are decades behind their European peers in moving away from fossil fuel heating systems.

The co-leader of the Scottish Greens told The Herald that Scotland is making the switch to heating buildings without relying on fossil fuels, that will cost an estimated £33bn, “too late”.

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He said: “Scotland should have been building energy-efficient homes and things like district heating systems for decades, for generations.

“Some of the other European countries like Denmark that we're working really closely with to draw experience from their work over the last few decades – they've been doing this for a long, long time.

“Scotland should have been in that position. We should not be in the position still where huge numbers of people are living in poor energy inefficient homes and reliant on fossil fuel when we could be already moving quickly to zero emissions heating.”

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Mr Harvie added: “The whole world is behind the curve on climate.

"Scotland could and should have been doing a lot more on this for decades.

“So we're not where we should be, but we're moving forward rapidly and I think we've got a very good chance not just of ensuring that the heat in buildings programme helps Scotland meet its national climate targets, but do it in a way that is socially just that helps people out of fuel poverty.”

Edinburgh and Glasgow, with large amounts of tenement flats,have committed to become net zero by 2030 – where Mr Harvie said there was "huge potential" to develop heat networks.

In April, The Herald revealed that Nicola Sturgeon was lobbying the City of London for investment to help fund her government’s net zero strategy – with an admission that private funding will be key to paying for the priority.

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On Thursday, Ms Sturgeon announced an expert panel of investors and asset managers will advise on how Scotland can create the right conditions to attract global capital investment to develop a just transition for workers in carbon-intensive industries. But it does not include advising on the heat in buildings strategy, despite the enormous funding shortfall.

Mr Harvie said: “We we've estimated that the overall heat in buildings transition right through to 2045 has been £33 billion.

“If we get that right, it can be done it can be done affordably.

"It will involve a blend of public investment, as well as investment by private building owners.

“You need to be making sure that that private investment is supported by public investment, including through loans and grants. This is a huge job of work.

“We could have been building much more energy efficient homes for 20, 30, 40 years – we haven't been so we now have a retrofit job to do as well as raising the new build standards.”

Mr Harvie has claimed that an independent Scotland could make faster progress in reaching legal climate targets than if the country remains tied to the United Kingdom.

Scotland has pledged to cut 1990 levels of carbon emissions by 75 per cent by 2030 and end its contribution to the climate crisis in 2045 by becoming net zero.

The Greens co-leader said Scotland needs “to up the scale of ambition”.

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He added: “There are areas where we could do more with the full powers of independence.

“For example, Scotland's generating a huge amount of electricity from renewables – it's cheap, it's abundant, it's going to continue to grow and yet, Scottish consumers don't get the value of that in their electricity bills, because the UK regulates the energy market in such a way that electricity prices are effectively set according to gas prices.

“Now, that's absurd and we've argued that they need to break that artificial link between electricity and gas prices – we've argued that for years.

“They keep indicating that at some point it may happen – that's not enough.”

Mr Harvie added: “We need to act with pace and if we have the power to regulate separately in Scotland, we could stay part of an overall GB electricity market, but we could make sure that domestic consumers get the benefit of that cheap, abundant domestic renewable energy supply.