Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 07 December 2021
We know that the clock is ticking if we are to prevent the climate emergency from becoming a climate catastrophe. We also know that COP26 barely kept 1.5° alive, and if Governments do not turn their warm words in the agreement into practical actions on the ground, it will be the death knell for an ambition that is already disastrous for many islands.
Here in Scotland, we may have challenging targets, but we still do not have a clear plan that comes close to delivering net zero by 2045 or—this is arguably more challenging—a 75 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030. Scotland continues to consistently miss our emission reduction targets despite significant de-industrialisation in recent years, and the longer we take to put in place a proper plan to meet those targets, the less likely it is that any transition will be a just one.
Labour therefore welcomes the commitment to a longer-term just transition commission, although we believe that it should have statutory backing. We commend the work of the previous commission, but the Government’s response to its recommendations was too timid. It has become the norm that the rhetoric is not matched by the reality. There is still no plan to prevent the weight of climate change from landing on the shoulders of the poor.
Transport remains the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, being responsible for more than a third of those, with levels barely below those of 1990, yet the Green-SNP coalition is hiking up rail fares in a few weeks and axing 300 trains a day from May—that is 100,000 a year, in comparison with pre-pandemic levels. In addition, the Government has still not given councils the powers that I secured in the Transport (Scotland) Bill to run their own local bus services, at a time when our bus network is being dismantled, route by route, and fares rise and rise again—they have risen by 50 per cent under this Government. That is not a just transition.
On agriculture, it is five years since the Brexit vote and there are just three years until the end of the transition period for a sector that, by definition, needs time to plan. Its emissions are still flatlining, yet there are no details from the Government on how future farm and rural payments will deliver any managed transition, never mind a just one.
On heating and buildings, the minister referred to an investment of £1.8 billion, but we know that the bill is £33 billion—£5 billion alone for councils to refit council homes; it is not clear that the cost of that will not land on the backs of rent payers.
When it comes to jobs, we all remember Alex Salmond promising that Scotland would be the “Saudi Arabia of renewables”. However, a decade on from the SNP pledge of 130,000 green jobs by 2020, the number of those who are directly employed in the low-carbon and renewables economy is just 21,400—the lowest it has been since 2014.