The National (Scotland) - Seven Days
Scotland’s climate plan is no longer credible – urgent action
THE Climate Change Committee has declared that it no longer finds the Scottish Government’s Net Zero plan to be credible. It also stated that the Government will breach its statutory duty to reduce carbon emissions by 2030 by 75% (with no catch-up plan in place to reach net zero by 2045) and that instead of there being a comprehensive strategy to reach net zero, the best we have is a series of ad hoc, disconnected announcements.
This comes off the back of the Scottish Government being found to be acting unlawfully by not publishing the expected carbon impact of its policies, in line with those statutory targets. Not to mention that “net zero” is itself insufficient as it merely promises that Scotland will continue to pollute until 2045 before stopping but makes no promise to fix the damage we’ve already caused (particularly on the Global South).
It’s looking increasingly likely that the world, including Scotland, will break its promise to limit global warming to +1.5C and we’re getting close to breaking the +2.0C absolute limit that will maintain the planet in a state even remotely resembling the one I was born into. In short, governments’ targets were too low. Their promised policies fell short of meeting those targets (if their effect was predicted at all). And the actions to enact those policies have not been good enough.
The Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change is clear that every fraction of a degree of warming averted matters but that every fraction of a degree that we fail to avert will result in even more costs in terms of mitigation – with Scotland being the pioneer of state-led loss and damage compensation to those affected by climate change, that the costs will happen “not here” isn’t an excuse.
Nor is it even true. The damage is here now. The costs are mounting. We’re all paying the price for inaction and delay that, by now, is little different from outright climate change denial.
Scotland is a little further north and a little cooler than the south of England but we’re still vulnerable. How much will need to be spent protecting