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Meeting of the Parliament 14 January 2014

14 Jan 2014 · S4 · Meeting of the Parliament

Item of business

Draft Climate Change Adaptation Programme

Harvie, Patrick Green Glasgow Watch on SPTV

It is probably fair to say that climate change adaptation often plays second fiddle to the mitigation agenda and the urgent need to reduce our emissions. That is true in relation to public perception, media coverage, political debate and institutional knowledge. To be fair, it is even true in relation to the environment movement and the issues that people campaign on.

Although I am sure that all the contributors to the debate understand the difference between climate and weather, when we see—either at first hand or on our television screens—images depicting the impact of extreme weather events, flooding, wind and rain, drought and heat wave, and when we experience those things in our lives, it is an opportunity to consider both sides of the coin: adaptation and mitigation.

There is some overlap between the two. Changing land use patterns are raised by both agendas. There is overlap in issues of infrastructure and a just transition. That particularly applies to Scotland, where, as the minister said, a great deal of our economy is reliant on issues to do with land use, whether that is agriculture for domestic consumption or export, tourism or other uses.

I would echo some of the points that have been made, such as Sarah Boyack’s argument on the need to consider flood management in every single planning decision that is made, or Alex Fergusson’s argument that a longer-term approach needs to be taken to these issues rather than just a five-year cycle. I think that the latter point was echoed in Scottish Environment LINK’s briefing to members.

The area that I want to focus on is one in which I feel that more work needs to be done. It was not until page 53 of the draft programme that we started to hear about the impact that climate change will have on the wider world and Scotland’s need to adapt to that. Scotland adapting to climate change is not just about adapting to the extreme weather impacts that climate change will bring in Scotland; it is about adapting to a wider world.

On page 53, the draft programme says:

“The Scottish economy may be affected by the impacts of climate change overseas. These effects may be considerable, and possibly larger than the immediate impacts of climate change in Scotland.”

It does not unpack that argument and the range of scenarios that we may encounter in any great detail. I can see very little in the list of actions that relate to that. The programme goes on to say:

“At a global scale, the impacts of climate change could also lead to restrictions on food supply—leading to higher prices and lower availability in Scotland. This would exacerbate food-related health and social inequalities in Scotland.”

That is true, but it is only really the beginning of an attempt to engage with that argument.

In continuing to develop the strategy, and as it moves from a draft into a final document, I would strongly encourage the Government to do more work on that aspect. We are living in such a globalised world that there is no one in this room who cannot immediately lay their hands on products that arrived on these shores in a shipping container. If the projections about sea level rise that we are hearing come true, every piece of port infrastructure in this globalised world is at risk.

What happens when that infrastructure starts to fail? What happens to crops in a globalised world? We have seen in the recent meat crisis just how complex and convoluted our food supply chains are. What happens when crops fail in developing countries? What happens when Governments fail and when conflict arises over access to land and water? What happens when populations migrate? I urge the Government to give greater consideration not just to the adaptation that Scotland needs to make to changing weather patterns at home but to our adaptation to a changing global climate, economically as well as in absolute climate change terms.

16:34

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Meeting of the Parliament 14 January 2014

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