Meeting of the Parliament 06 December 2022
Despite COP27 having taken some modest steps forward on loss and damage support for countries that are vulnerable to climate change, we did not see the transformative leap that we urgently needed. The UN tells us that the new pledges agreed in Egypt will take just 1 per cent off global emissions in 2030. Far from keeping 1.5 alive, we are heading for a catastrophic 2.8°. Our planet is hotter than it has been for 125,000 years, yet our leaders are fiddling while the world burns. Despite the admirable efforts of COP26 president Alok Sharma, there was little leadership from Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, whose most memorable act was to eventually decide to turn up.
Just as we needed leadership abroad at COP27, we need leadership here at home more than ever. Whether it is because of the devastating floods in Pakistan or Britain’s first 40° days, the accelerating climate crisis affects every one of us, abroad and here at home. I have no doubt that the Scottish Government has chosen to have the debate before tomorrow, when the Climate Change Committee will publish its assessment of our progress towards net zero here in Scotland. That tells its own story about what the Government knows that that report card is likely to say—it is likely to be a combination of fails and “could do better”.
Let us take the three big emitters, starting with the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. Transport is responsible for a third of our emissions, with levels barely below those of 1990. We met our emissions target in 2020 only because the pandemic prevented us all from travelling, yet as we face the post-pandemic rebound back to car use, the Scottish Government’s response has been to axe 240 train services per day, which makes a total of 90,000 per year. It has also still not given councils the powers that I secured in the bill that became the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019 and, more importantly, the resources that councils need to set up and run their own local bus services at a time when our bus service network is being dismantled route by route and bus fares are rising and rising. Bus passenger numbers have fallen by 25 per cent since 2007-08, which means 121 million fewer passenger journeys. Fares have risen by nearly 19 per cent in the past five years alone.
On electric vehicles, the Climate Change Committee estimates that we will need at least 30,000 public charging points in Scotland by 2030, yet the Scottish Government’s own target is just over 4,000 in the next few years. Where is the leadership on transport at home?