Green for forward momentum

Outgoing Dr Richard Dixon takes stock of the progress made during his time as director of Friends of the Earth Scotland

Today is my last day at Friends of the Earth Scotland, after 30 years in the Scottish environment movement.

There has been good progress in those three decades and the environment and climate change have moved from fringe concerns to mainstream issues. But we are still not doing enough.

This is my second stint at FOES, and it has been an exciting time with two climate acts, lowemission zones for air pollution in four cities, the fracking ban, seeing off new nuclear plans and a coal-fired power station proposal for Hunterston, the end of the Cambo oil proposals, and getting government to start taking a “just transition” seriously.

But all this progress has only slowed our slide towards disaster.

When I started at FOE, average carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere were 25 per cent above the levels before humanity started seriously burning fossil fuels. Today, levels are 50 per cent higher than pre-industrial levels.

Despite the Earth Summit in 1992 agreeing the first plan to stabilise and then reduce emissions, and nearly 30 UN climate meetings since then, global emissions of all climate change gases have increased by 60 per cent, because we keep burning fossil fuels.

Since 1970, the number of animals on the planet has declined by about 70 per cent, with a million species threatened with extinction. In Scotland, we rank 28th from the bottom of 240 countries and territories for the intactness of nature.

Of course, there has been some good progress.

Acid rain from industry and power stations has gone from wrecking forests across northern Europe to a minor problem today. The 1987 Montreal Protocol phased out chemicals destroying the ozone layer.

In Scotland, 30 years ago, we had two nuclear power stations, three coal-fired power stations and a gas-fired station. Now only the gas station at Peterhead and the reactors at Torness remain, with renewable electricity filling the gap.

The equivalent of 98.6 per cent of the electricity we use was generated by renewables in 2020.

The two climate acts had many strong elements, the youth climate strikes saw 25,000 people marching through Edinburgh in 2019, and 150,000 marched through a storm at the UN climate conference in Glasgow last year, the biggest climate demonstration in the UK ever.

Some 60,000 people said no to fracking, with nearly 40 protest groups across the country, resulting in a ban.

On air pollution, a low-emission zone is up and running in

The equivalent of 98.6% of the electricity we use was generated by renewables in 2020

Glasgow and three more cities will have them soon, along with other ambitious commitments on changing road transport.

The politics of the environment has changed markedly. In the 1990s, life was simple but frustrating. Scottish ministers were MPS who spent most of their time in London. Westminster announced something and the green movement rubbished it.

Now we have a Scottish Parliament and every political party says they are serious about climate change. But saying you are serious is not enough. The progress so far is welcome, but it is not enough. We need much more action if we are to head off climate disaster.

Dr Richard Dixon is director of Friends of the Earth Scotland (until the end of today)