By Jamie Livingstone
After years of devastating drought, when the rains finally came to Hadija Jillo’s town in Northern Kenya, they were relentless and unforgiving. Floodwaters tore through the streets, sweeping away her home, the school where her children learned and played and the hospital that cared for her neighbours.
As the waters rose, Hadija fled with her family while the village’s elderly people were jolted from their beds and carried to safety on the backs of donkeys. Not everyone made it.
Thousands of miles away in Edinburgh, the Scottish Government’s decision to rewrite its own climate rule book and abandon the legal goal of cutting emissions by 75% by 2030 hasn‘t just led to the collapse of the power sharing agreement between the SNP and Scottish Greens, it has raised uncomfortable questions about the Government’s commitment to those, like Hadija, on the frontlines of climate devastation.
It’s easy to see why. Axing the 2030 target isn’t the ‘very minor legislative change’ the Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero claims it is; it’s conceding defeat on a landmark climate target six years early, substantially weakening trust with the Scottish people while seriously tarnishing Scotland’s global reputation.
The stark reality is that inadequate climate action by rich, polluting nations like Scotland isn’t merely shameful, it’s lethal.
Scotland’s global emissions footprint may seem relatively modest compared to the world’s biggest polluters, but each fraction of a degree of warming matters.
And history shows that small nations can be powerful agents of change.
A global climate leader?
Two and a half years ago, at COP26 in Glasgow, the Scottish Government was hailed for its pioneering commitment to loss and damage funding. One prominent global activist described Nicola Sturgeon as the ‘true leader’ of the talks. The momentum was palpable when a new global Loss and Damage Fund emerged last November.
Since then, the Scottish Government continues to boost understanding about how the new global Fund can deliver tangible benefits across low-income and climate vulnerable nations.
Oxfam is proud to have received funding to work with communities like Hadija’s in northern Kenya, where repeat droughts and floods have damaged infrastructure, destroyed livelihoods, and fuelled conflict.
In a speech last September during New York Climate Week, First Minister Humza Yousaf, pledged to continue this “moral leadership” while making Scotland “the net zero capital of the world”.
But a failure to clean up Scotland’s own act quickly enough, means the echoes of these promises now ring rather hollow.
Helping communities to recover while failing to slash emissions at speed is like repeatedly throwing a brick through someone’s window and then offering money to replace the glass. It’s indispensable, but incoherent.
A target too far?
The Climate Change Committee always warned Scotland’s 2030 climate target was stretching, but it was an important statement of political intent designed to drive sustained and deep action that simply hasn’t materialised.
There have been some major distractions, like Covid-19. But you can’t press snooze on the climate crisis.
Even when the warning lights were flashing, with eight out of 12 of Scotland’s annual emissions reduction targets missed, this trajectory was too often downplayed.
If we had strained every sinew to reduce emissions and still fallen short of the 2030 target, then we could at least have said that we’d tried our best. But we haven’t, so we can’t.
Aside from the major progress to decarbonise electricity production in Scotland, the bleak truth is that this is a mess of the Scottish Government’s own making; they’ve dilly dallied on the wider actions needed.
But no party at Holyrood can escape criticism. Too often they’ve acted to hinder rather than hasten progress: supporting the long-term goal but opposing the means of delivering it.
Politicians at Westminster also cast a long shadow, with the Chief Executive of the Climate Change Committee criticising Prime Minister Rishi Sunak for overseeing dwindling climate ambition and “setting us back” on climate change. The Labour Party has also back-pedalled on green investment plans.
A climate crossroads
Despite the political fall-out in Scotland, public concern for climate change is undeniable, with a clear majority of people in Scotland supporting the drive towards a net zero future and a cross party approach to climate policy.
Ditching the legal 75% target will not mean that climate action in Scotland will suddenly shudder to a grinding halt. Cutting emissions by more than 70% by 2030 is still feasible, and essential.But the public isn’t daft. The ‘ambitious new package’ of climate measures set out by the Scottish Government falls significantly short of the common-sense changes needed. Containing few new ideas, and instead crammed with promises of route-maps and recycled commitments, the package is a reminder of Government inaction to date.
Yet despite the First Minister’s pledge not to budge ‘by a single month, a week or even a day’ from achieving net zero emissions by 2045, the Climate Change Committee’s endorsement of that target hinges on immediate action. Otherwise, we risk hearing the same excuses a decade from now.
Time to show us the money
There’s no denying that accelerating the transition carries a hefty upfront price tag, but it will make the economy more productive and cut the costs of climate clean ups, like Storm Babet in Brechin.
Smart spending on energy efficient homes, improved and cheaper public transport, and active travel aren’t just eco-friendly choices; they’re economic and health no brainers.
Maximising the impact of existing public funds is essential, but not enough. We need additional resources.
The tax system must be leveraged to fairly fund the necessary investment, shield the vulnerable, and encourage polluters to clean up their acts.
Oxfam has shown how a series of UK-wide fair taxes on the biggest polluters – including fossil fuel firms – and the wealthiest, could have raised up to £23 billion last year, a share of which would have come to Scotland.
The money is there, but is the political will?
The Scottish Government must use it own upcoming new tax strategy to make its climate ambitions meaningful and tackle blatant climate injustices, such as private jet usage. So far, it’s planned Air Departure Tax has yet to push back from the terminal far less be readied for take-off.
Tepid wider commitments to ‘consult’ on taxing landowners who fail to reduce emissions from their land and to ‘consider’ incentivising greener businesses through Non-Domestic Rates aren’t enough.
As the First Minister said himself: “The time for talking is over; what we need now is action.”
Whoever holds power in Scotland, will be judged not just by targets met or missed, but by the lives like Hadija’s, saved or shattered along the way.
This article originally appeared in the Sunday Post