Meeting of the Parliament 27 March 2019
Stewart Stevenson will be aware that more than 90 per cent of the oil and gas that we currently extract is burned. I appreciate that there are other uses for them. I thank the member for his intervention.
New fossil fuels must also be kept in the ground. We believe that Scotland needs, in primary legislation, an outright ban on fracking. It is frustrating that the Scottish Government is dragging its feet on setting out its preferred policy position. I note Claudia Beamish’s efforts in pursuing that matter outside of Government. Greens have fought fracking from the start, having lodged the first parliamentary motion on the subject in 2011. It is a serious risk to people’s health and environments that also drives up greenhouse gas emissions.
In 2014, I led the first full debate in the chamber on fracking. After all the arguments and pressure in the five years since then, I am disappointed that we have not moved forward in developing primary legislation that would set a watertight ban on fracking in Scotland. The climate emergency will not abate if we recklessly pursue that new source of greenhouse gas emissions.
Every Government must now consider a raft of policies to prevent climate breakdown. Policies could include provision of better buses and reliable rail options that are publicly funded and affordable; a green energy transition, so that our homes can be heated from renewable energy sources; divestment of all public money from the fossil fuel industry—