Meeting of the Parliament 06 December 2022
I am pleased to speak for the Scottish Liberal Democrats in this important debate, and I thank Màiri McAllan and the Scottish Government for securing time for it in the chamber.
In referring to the environment, the late South African bishop and theologian Desmond Tutu once said:
“Twenty-five years ago people could be excused for not knowing much, or doing much, about climate change. Today we have no excuse.”
In 2022, the year in which he passed, those words ring very true. It should go without saying that the climate crisis is perhaps the most pressing issue of our time, so it is right that leaders from around the world come together through COP to put the collective shoulder to the wheel.
To be sure, as other members have noted, there is much to be praised in the outcome of the latest conference. That includes plans to cut global methane emissions by 30 per cent by 2030 and the establishment of a global loss and damage fund to support the countries that are set to be worst affected by climate change—we have heard much about that in the debate so far.
However, the promised actions still fall short of what is needed if we are to effectively combat the global climate challenge. As the Scottish Government’s motion rightly notes, it is disappointing that agreement could not be reached on extending promises on the phasing down of coal use. That in itself was an unhappy compromise at the last COP of the ideal of the phasing out of coal and other fossil fuel types.
Calls for cutting back on fossil fuel use have of course been hindered by events in the world around us, and particularly by the conflict in Ukraine, although that only underlines the need to move away from our dependence on oil and gas—our energy security depends on that. It now seems increasingly likely that the dream of keeping 1.5 alive is, sadly, dead on arrival; estimates indicate that to achieve that, we would need to halve global emissions by 2030, which is well beyond the aspirations of the largest emitting nations, and beyond the practical reality of many others besides.
However, that does not mean that all hope is lost or that we should give up now. Every fraction of a degree of warming that we can avoid results in a better outcome for humanity and our planet. Before COP began, I said that Scotland needed new hope when it comes to tackling the climate emergency. We need decisive and tangible actions—not just promises, but radical credible policies that will drive down Scotland’s emissions.
It must be said that there is much to welcome in the attitude of the Scottish Government and Parliament to climate policy, and the reach of their ambitions. We should be proud of the ambitious target to reduce emissions by 75 per cent by 2030 that was passed into law through the work in part of the Scottish Liberal Democrats. I welcome the attention that is already given to areas such as biodiversity, renewables, energy production and heating, but there remains a considerable value-action gap between the Scottish Government’s rhetoric, the promises that have been made and its world-leading targets, and the reality of its actions.
Scotland met its emissions reductions for the first and, so far, only time in 2020, in the context of a national lockdown when everybody was at home, leaving the distinct impression that Covid has done more to curb emissions than the Scottish Government has managed so far. [Alex Cole-Hamilton has corrected this contribution. See end of report.] Last year, the Climate Change Committee assessed that most of the key policy levers are now in the hands of the Scottish Government but that promises have not yet turned to action. The committee’s latest Scottish progress report comes out tomorrow, and I fear that the review will not be much improved.
The Government’s aims for retrofitting buildings are admirable and could, in theory, drive down emissions while improving ordinary people’s quality of life, stimulate the economy and create new work opportunities, but there is still no answer to the question of how Scotland is to meet the £31 billion gap between the heat and buildings strategy’s expected cost and the promised funding. It may be unsurprising, then, that the retrofitting roll-out has so far been woeful. Scottish Liberal Democrat research indicates that, at the current rate, insulating the homes of Scotland’s fuel-poor households alone could take 300 years.
The ScotWind offshore leasing deals, as Colin Smyth rightly mentioned, were heralded by the Scottish Government as revolutionising Scotland’s energy sector, but they have resulted in Scotland’s natural resources being sold off on the cheap while underdelivering on supply chain promises. With no phasing, there will be insufficient capacity in the Scottish sector to deliver on those projects, and the Scottish Government should not have applied the cap, as we have previously discussed. Meanwhile, even though we know that it will add some 600,000 tonnes of CO2 to Scotland’s carbon footprint, the Scottish Government continues to doggedly support the Heathrow airport expansion deal.
All that leaves the inescapable feeling that the environmentalism of the SNP-Green Government is half-hearted, distracted and comes a distant second to its goal of driving forward with independence. More than ever, we need to urgently address Scotland’s role in climate change. If we are to meaningfully achieve a just transition, this moment calls for focused attention and dramatic action, not promises and platitudes.