ANTI-FRACKING activists are picketing an industry conference in Edinburgh today in a bid to steer Scottish ministers away from the “risky” practice.

The capital’s Carlton Hotel will host a summit of shale-gas spivs and speculators hoping to latch on to “emerging and undiscovered potential shale gas markets” — not least suspected deposits under the Scottish countryside.

While no ministers are listed as speakers, it is understood that civil servants are set to attend.

But environmental group Friends of the Earth said yesterday a rabble of demonstrators would be ready and waiting to remind officials of public opposition to the practice.

Shale fracturing or “fracking” cracks open bedrock with high-pressure blasts of chemical solvent, releasing underground gas deposits.

But environmental experts and public health campaigners have warned the technique risks poisoned water tables, air pollution, increased greenhouse gases and even small-scale earthquakes. Coalbed methane extraction — which sucks water out of the bedrock to aid mining — is said by critics to typically pave the way for further fracking.

Friends of the Earth campaigner Paul Daly said yesterday it was common knowledge that the public “do not want or trust this industry.”

“Scotland has missed its climate-change targets for the last three years. Finding and burning more fossil fuels will only take us further along the path towards dangerous climate change.

“Scotland has abundant renewable energy sources so we really don’t need to bet on risky gas,” he said.

The industry event comes as officials in Westminster’s Department of Energy and Climate Change prepare to put onshore licences out to tender later this month — inviting energy firms to bid for drilling rights across large swathes of Scotland.