Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 27 October 2021
It is important that we all increase our climate funding, but we cannot use that to mask cuts in international development aid, which the UK Government has done, as, indeed, have others. It is important that we welcome that funding, but we must be mindful of how that might be presented.
Yesterday, I heard from Dr Asha from Kenya Red Cross about the need to provide funding for loss and for mitigation and adaptation. Those priorities must be placed at the heart of COP26 by participants. The editors of more than 100 respected medical journals across the world have published a common editorial calling for emergency action to limit global temperature increases, restore biodiversity and protect health. The joint article points to the chilling fact that, in the past 20 years, heat-related deaths among those over 65 increased by more than 50 per cent.
A decade ago, in my previous role as a minister, I remember calling on the European Union to prepare for environmental refugees fleeing northern Africa. The displacement of millions of people because of the climate emergency will be a consequence of actions by the polluting global north. People, businesses and organisations across the country are active and ready to work towards the drive to net zero. Just last week, at the Parliament’s festival of politics, we heard from David Farquhar, chief executive officer of Intelligent Growth Solutions, who shared the global opportunities of vertical farming to support the exponential global demand for food at a time when we need to reduce farming emissions. That is a great global innovation, driven from Scotland. Innovation has to be global and it has to be shared.
The climate emergency presents us with one big challenge, but there are many solutions, and we must be conscious of and non-judgmental about how other countries with different experiences strive for change. Scotland and the wider UK, which contributed to and led the industrial revolution, must listen and embrace. Instead of judging too swiftly those who are following our past path, we should help and share experience in transitioning to greener energy and technologies.
It is true that we have one of the most ambitious pieces of climate change legislation in the world and, because of that, we have more responsibility. People around the world will be watching how we turn our goals into actions, and we must lead by example. We are going to have to move faster, quicker and over more areas, with more solutions than we thought. We are going to have to stretch our capabilities. Yes, this is a global challenge, but there is not one global solution. Justice and fairness at home and abroad must be at the heart of our ambitions. We succeed only when we all succeed. East, west, north and most definitely south—we have one world; we have one chance.
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