Hansard

I warmly welcome the cabinet secretary and the minister to their new roles, and I look forward to our joint work ahead, particularly on the forthcoming climate plan.

It is clear that no Government anywhere in the world has responded to the climate emergency with the scale or the speed that is needed to keep to the 1.5°C promise. Our current climate plan in Scotland is not on course to meet the 2030 targets, so the next plan must bring in fresh thinking, especially on delivery.

As a former convener of the Environment and Rural Development Committee, Sarah Boyack will remember the conclusions of the Parliament’s first-ever climate change inquiry back in 2005. The committee recommended in its report that

“a radical response on a huge, almost unprecedented, scale must start”

to be entrenched in policy now.

It also recommended actions that included a call on ministers to develop and introduce road user charging by 2015 at the very latest. There was unanimous cross-party support. Some members of the committee went on to join the Government; others were spokespeople for their parties in the years that followed. However, the Parliament’s inability to lead a consensus on necessary measures such as road user charging really saddens me.

As soon as even moderate measures such as workplace parking levies—or a deposit return scheme—are proposed, they are kicked around as political footballs. Where did that cross-party desire go for a radical response on a huge, almost unprecedented scale? It always gets lost in the short-term gain of political calculus. Opposition from any quarter is seen as creating an insurmountable crisis; calls are then made for policies to be abandoned or watered down, and then ministers have to be moved on. That then chills the political ambition for the new, progressive ideas that are desperately needed to tackle this crisis.

This Parliament—the Parliament that brought in the smoking ban, the plastic bag tax and even the abolition of section 2A of the Local Government Act 1988—is in danger of becoming cautious and kowtowing. As Edwin Morgan said at the opening of this very building, a “nest of fearties” is not what the people want; nor do they want a “symposium of procrastinators”.

I am saddened, because if Governments in Scotland and the UK had acted together with the scale of ambition that was outlined in that 2005 report, we would be in a very different position today. Instead, in 2023, we must pick up the pace dramatically to make up for nearly two decades of lost ground. Step changes are needed, which means breaking with policies that were damaging the climate in 2005 and have continued to do so in the years that have followed.

If we prioritise road-building projects and increase vehicle mileage, it will break our climate targets while emptying our transport budgets; if we allow air miles to increase, it will wipe out the climate gains that are being made by reducing the cost of public transport or by increasing cycling; if farming upland management and fishing are not radically reformed, we will continue to release thousands of tons of carbon from our soil and sea beds every year; and if we push on with maximum economic recovery of oil and gas, it will delay the just transition and result in a dangerous and unmanaged collapse of jobs in the years ahead.

However, I think that the pathways to energy transition are getting clearer by the day. Commissioned as a result of the Bute house agreement, the independent just transition review of the Scottish energy sector is a genuinely groundbreaking and extensive study by world-leading experts. It informs the energy strategy and is a rare example of an oil and gas-rich nation recognising both the challenges and the opportunities of transition rather than pretending that business as usual is a viable option.

I recommend that members look at that study because it examines in depth how North Sea oil and gas production will decline regardless of Government policy and how undeveloped reserves will become increasingly hard to exploit. There is simply no return to the oil and gas boom, no matter how hard some members may wish for it.

The study shows us that there is a viable route to meeting our Paris commitment and to protecting jobs. However, that will not happen by itself. It requires brave, bold and early investment and policy intervention to power the transition. Perhaps it on that point that I sense from all the contributions that there is a consensus in the Parliament on the need to get that specificity and to get those investment plans ready.

This is about harnessing the opportunities that we have in Scotland in wind, renewable hydrogen and supply chains for electrification, creating jobs that are lasting, secure and fulfilling for generations to come. This is about a green transition that is also rooted in justice—trade unions and workers need to be at the heart of discussions about a just transition—and we need to aspire to have better conditions for all, not just for more of the same. This is, rightly, about bringing communities with us, so although I am optimistic that the new energy strategy can set the right level of ambition, what is needed on the back of it are those detailed, grounded plans for transition that are rooted in communities.