Scotland is in danger of missing out on the chance to lead the world on carbon capture and storage to reduce emissions unless its oil and gas industry is allowed to thrive, according to MSP Fergus Ewing.
The SNP's former energy minister, who now chairs Holyrood's cross-party group on oil and gas, said most commentators agreed that capture and storage (CCS) was essential if climate targets are to be met - and that the science, skills and technology required are possessed by oil and gas workers.
The Sunday Times reports that, amid climate-change concerns, SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon has recently adopted a hostile approach to North Sea oil and gas exploration which until recently underpinned the economic case for Scottish independence.
Writing in the newspaper, Mr Ewing warned: "In Scotland, we have experience and expertise of world-class standard.
"That includes areas such as seismic surveying, offshore drilling and reservoir management.
"Unless we maintain the base of Scottish and UK production of oil and gas and further exploration, we will simply not be able to deliver carbon capture storage.
"For, unless we have a thriving sector that continues both production and exploration, we will, over the next vital decades, lose these skills.
"The people will simply go elsewhere in the world where their skills are valued - and it will take these next decades to build a CCS industry here."
Mr Ewing said a greener way forward could be to place a legal mandate on all future projects to recapture and store a tonne of carbon for every tonne of fossil carbon extracted "allowing an old industry to support the birth of a new industry".
A Scottish government spokeswoman told the Sunday Times that "unlimited extraction of fossil fuels is not consistent with our climate obligations".
She called on the UK to urgently reassess all approved oil licences, where drilling has not yet commenced, against climate commitments.