Hansard

That urgent action is needed on the climate emergency and its impact is something that unites us all. Rural Scotland is in a strong position to contribute, with our potential for tree planting and our large peatlands acting as carbon sinks. There is also agreement on providing public funds to incentivise action. However, private green finance is not just mooted by the Scottish Government; it is being actively encouraged to finance change. Many Scots will share a deep unease at inviting private financiers to make money exploiting Scotland’s natural heritage. We know that, where there is no private profit, there is no private finance. Therefore, is the policy rationale for using private finance for nature sound, especially if it offsets pollution elsewhere?

The most quoted reason for using private finance has been the £20 billion gap in the funding that is required for nature. However, it turns out not to be a £20 billion gap at all. Jon Hollingdale, the retired chief executive of the Community Woodlands Association, has cast significant doubt on the figure. It is now clear that the £20 billion figure that was produced by the Green Finance Institute—an organisation claiming that it is led by bankers—is grossly overestimated. NatureScot now says that it agrees in large part with Jon Hollingdale’s analysis and the Scottish Government, in parliamentary answers, has also revealed that other aspects of the Green Finance Institute’s report do not stand up to scrutiny. Even the Green Finance Institute seeks to distance itself from that figure, making it clear it always said that its data was heavily qualified.

With the £20 billion figure crumbling under scrutiny, we now see NatureScot throwing out alternative funding gap figures. For peatland restoration alone, it says that a figure of £3 billion to £4 billion is needed, against the £250 million that it has available up to 2030. However, the problem is not the lack of available investment; the real gap is in the underspend of the budgets that the Parliament has voted for.

Both tree planting and peatland targets are not being met by a substantial margin. In peatlands, less than half the annual budget is being spent. The recent programme for government set out the expectation for peatland restoration for next year as 10,700 hectares, which is less than half the annual target. At this rate, getting up to target will take the rest of the decade. To suggest that we can spend up to £4 billion of private finance on peatland restoration any time soon, when we cannot spend £10 million today, is simply not credible.

The case for needing private finance investment looks flimsy at best. We understand the reasons for the inability to spend the available budgets, which are set out in a recent Scottish Government social research paper, “Mobilising private investment in natural capital”. Key among them is landowner reluctance to commit to land use changes. Landowners will lose autonomy over their land use for up to 100 years, when they cannot see the future circumstances, the costs and how those might change. Even landowners suggest that offering more money—public or private—is probably not the answer.

There are other ways to increase tree planting and peatland restoration. Degraded peatland is emitting, not sequestering, carbon. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency and environmental health professionals are constantly acting to monitor and act on air, noise, water and wider environmental pollution. If we consider carbon emission as another form of environmental pollution, what are we doing to regulate it? Regulation could create the right incentives to fix our emitting peatlands. With continuing restoration grants, there could be no excuse not to act. However, where is the policy discussion on that and other forms of regulation that can be considered alongside whether private finance has any legitimate role?

Instead of addressing the practical challenges to ensure that our current budgets for climate investment can be spent, and instead of examining all policy options, the Government has allowed itself to be dazzled by the pitches of private financiers. I know that the United Nations climate change conference of the parties and the national strategy for economic transformation encourage consideration of private green finance, but COP does not tell us what specific actions we must take. We must consider the policy approach that is best suited to our circumstances.

We would tackle the issue very differently. Scottish Labour would not adopt the neoliberal economic preference of Green and Scottish National Party ministers for selling off our natural capital. We would set out and consult widely on a range of policy options that exist and build consensus on the best way for Scotland to move forward. That is what I urge the Scottish Government to do now.

I move,

That the Parliament reaffirms its recognition of the climate emergency and the need to achieve a net zero future; recognises that Scotland has the potential for more carbon sequestration capacity by restoring peatlands and extending tree cover; regrets that the available budgets for woodland planting and peatland restoration are underspent by significant margins, and that targets are not being met; notes that the Scottish Government has promoted the use of private green finance to fill a purported £20 billion gap in funding for nature in Scotland, but that this figure, published by the Green Finance Institute, has been called into question and is now recognised by NatureScot as an overestimate; regrets that there was a lack of due diligence carried out by the Scottish Government; agrees that investment in the climate transition is crucial, but believes that Scotland’s natural environment should not be allowed to be used for greenwashing by private corporations, and calls on the Scottish Government to carry out a full and transparent consultation on the policy options and finance mechanisms available to advance Scotland’s capacity to sequestrate carbon.