IN ONLY a few months Glasgow will host the COP26 climate talks. They represent what will likely be the last chance for the global community to come together and agree an effective, urgent, plan for tackling climate change.

Despite the fact this climate vital summit is taking place within its borders, the UK Government is considering giving approval for a vast new oil field in the North Sea.

You couldn't ask for a better example of the Tory's hypocrisy when it comes to climate.

As we approach COP26, Boris Johnson and his ministers have been keen to present the UK as a climate leader, willing to take the action needed to really get to grips with the environmental crisis.

That's always been little more than words, but these current discussions around the Cambo oil field shows how flimsy their commitment really is.

If approved, the field will operate until 2050, years after Scotland aims to hit net-zero emissions and significantly past the point at which it will be too late to rescue the environment.

The first phase alone will extract oil which will produce over 70m tonnes of carbon dioxide when burnt.

The fact that the Tories are even contemplating granting approval for such an obviously self-destructive plan proves they simply can't be trusted on climate.

Even the International Energy Agency, not an organisation which has been historically radical on climate issues, accepts that if we're to keep temperature increases to 1.5c, which would avert catastrophe but still have serious consequences, then it's vital that no new oil and gas fields come online.

It's a position shared by countless climate scientists the world over.

So, the experts oppose Cambo, and it's no surprise that tens of thousands of people have signed a Friends of the Earth petition calling on the UK Government to reject these proposals.

Scotland has had a close relationship with oil but it's now time for us to move on. It's far too late to replicate the Sovereign Wealth Fund model used to great effect by nations like Norway and we've seen the consequences of too closely hitching our economic security to the vagaries of the international oil market. Indeed, Norway is currently in the process of divesting from fossil fuels.

This is why the Scottish Green Party has been leading the calls for a just transition away from fossil fuels and towards renewables.

Far from expanding production we need to begin winding it down, but that involves making sure no worker is left behind as these changes take place.

The oil and gas industry's advocates in the Tory party do a massive disservice to workers when they argue that things can continue as they are.

A head-in-the-sand approach will leave the industry completely unprepared for the necessary changes to come.

The oil companies' executives will continue to make profit until they can't anymore at which point their front-line staff will be tossed on the scrapheap.

If the Tories do permit Cambo to go ahead then the UK may as well not send a delegation to COP26. It will be telling the world that it's not interested in meaningful change, that its commitments are worthless.

Scotland deserves better.