Briefing – Addressing the Climate Emergency debate June 2021

Summary

This next five years is going to be absolutely crucial in both the local and the global fight against climate change and Scotland must take a central role with COP26 coming to Glasgow.

• Scotland’s climate targets are not strong enough to deliver the Paris Agreement’s target of keeping the global temperature rise below 1.5C.
• the Scottish Government’s Climate Change Plan update lacks credibility and fails to set out how the targets will be met
• last month the International Energy Agency said there should be an immediate end to new fossil fuel projects
• there is already far more oil and gas extraction planned in existing fields to breach anything which could be considered a fair share of remaining fossil fuel production.
• oil and gas extraction in Scottish waters should end in a maximum of 10 years. Nearly two-third of Scots support a planned phase out.
• the right policies could create 3x more green jobs than are at risk in oil and gas.
• the workers and the communities most affected by the end of oil and gas need to be at the heart of planning a fair and rapid  Just Transition.
•  Carbon Capture and Storage and hydrogen from gas are expensive, inefficient and cannot provide a meaningful impact in this crucial decade of climate emergency to be considered even part of the solution.
• a Circular Economy would save Scotland 11 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. The Circular Economy Bill should be one of the first that the new Parliament considers and set targets for a smaller material footprint.
• the review of incineration must be accompanied by a moratorium on building new incinerators or it will be too late.