DAVID Attenborough gave a stark warning to the UN this week. He told world leaders that the climate summit in Glasgow this year will be “the last opportunity to make the necessary step-change” to address the breakdown we are seeing in extreme weather events and global warming.
The change to our planet, he pointed out, is already happening, but: “If we objectively view climate change and the loss of nature as worldwide security threats – as indeed they are – then we may yet act proportionately and in time.”
We should listen. Five years ago, in the Paris Agreement, the nations of the world signed up to acknowledge the overwhelming scientific evidence that gives us now just nine years before we reach a point of no return, one that threatens life on Earth.
Nine years, yet we are going into an election where none of the other parties have this at the top of their agenda. That’s very worrying. We still hear about how governments want to wait for technology we just don’t have yet, such as carbon capture and storage, green hydrogen or electric passenger planes.
We don’t have time for that. We need radical change now, not by putting all the pressure on individuals, but by using the power of governments decisively and by controlling the excesses of big business which still profit from pursuing a war against our environment. The Scottish Greens have the solutions to the climate crisis, to create thousands of jobs in the kind of industries we need to dramatically cut emissions now, not later.
This means ending subsidies for fossil fuels and instead investing in the rapid growth of renewable energy, in public transport and in making sure everyone’s home is warm and cheap to run. This will require significant investment by the state, but we are in an emergency, and we cannot wait for the so-called free market to come up with answers.
That applies to the recovery from the Covid pandemic as well, and the impact it has had on our economy and day-to-day lives.
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I was shocked to see the UK Chancellor suggest that he might resurrect the “eat out” vouchers that helped fuel a resurgence in the virus last year. That and his reluctance to provide a basic income and secure employment as a starting point have revealed the priorities of a government which puts economic growth before everything – before our rights, before tackling hunger and before public health.
As we come out of this crisis and tackle the climate emergency, we can’t contemplate returning to an economy which left far too many people behind, which punished the poorest and most vulnerable in our society and called it austerity while allowing the already wealthy every opportunity to hoard more wealth in tax havens.
That is a system which drives inequality, traps people in poverty and destroys our planet.
As my colleague John Finnie, the Scottish Greens justice spokesperson, said in Parliament this week, through low wages and austerity which drove people to food banks, Conservative governments in the UK have created poverty – and blamed and placed no value on those left suffering the effects of poverty.
We need to turn it around and start to build a more equal and greener Scotland. That’s why our plans are about job creation, about strengthening trade union representation and about using the power of the state to rebuild the public sector so we can enjoy the kind of public services enjoyed in normal European countries.
But tackling rising levels of poverty in Scotland is an urgent, pressing concern. We’ve seen people queuing for emergency food, and there are record numbers of households in temporary accommodation.
This is why the Scottish Greens weren’t yet able to support the Scottish Budget this week and will keep working hard to make changes to it. There needs to be more ambition to boost household incomes, whether that’s by strengthening the social security safety net, cutting public transport costs, making homes warmer and more efficient or providing more free meals for children at school.
And the public sector workers who saw us through this crisis deserve a pay rise, not just a one-off bonus.
As always, we will pursue the constructive approach which has secured millions for environmental protections and public transport over the last five years, that secured £500 million for local government and which won free bus travel for under-19s, due to come into force this year.
The Scottish Government’s targets on child poverty and climate emissions were already set to be missed before the pandemic struck, but the urgency needed for action on both is clear for all to see.
At the election, the Scottish Greens stand ready to again provide a majority for independence in the Scottish Parliament, but we also have the solutions to start to build a more equal and greener Scotland now. As David Attenborough said, we need to act in time to make the change. Our future depends on it.
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Callum Baird, Editor of The National
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