Chamber and committees

That is good to hear, because we must begin this session of the Scottish Parliament with a degree of consensus. The point that I am making is that the fact that the media are effectively driving climate change denial is a real concern, because there is really strong public support for the solutions that work.

There is a real risk that political caution will leave us more vulnerable to climate change while failing to secure the benefits of action for people and for the economy. The Holyrood Government really needs to listen to what the electorate told it during the elections, when those who are aged under 30 voted overwhelmingly for the Scottish Green Party—a party that puts climate action first. That is why there is a record number of Green MSPs, why the former First Minister’s constituency is now a Green seat and why, for the first time, there is Green representation in every region of Scotland.

That generation is the future of Scotland and of our politics, and it is a generation that cares about what is coming in 2050. If political parties also want to have a future, they need to listen, because the members of that generation see the worsening extremes of weather, the displacement of people around the world and the wars that are coming due to shortages of water, food and oil, and they are anxious about what kind of world they will raise their own children in. They are also hungry for the opportunities and new jobs that can come from engineering a better future and from having a wellbeing economy that reinvests wealth in community, caring and nature. That generation of young people is also the first whose prospects look worse than those of the generation that came before, so it is no wonder that they are angry and disheartened. They have heard so many promises, but they have been let down time and time again. They deserve so much better.

I have stood here countless times and reminded the Government of the challenges that we face. I have said that we are behind on delivering climate action and will face a desperate race to catch up in the decades ahead. I have said that hitching our hopes to unproven technology such as carbon capture and storage is a huge gamble because, if those technologies do not materialise, sectors such as land use and transport will face more pressure to reduce emissions even faster. I have also said that ignoring simple programmes to make homes cosier and cheaper or to radically improve our public transport represents a real missed opportunity. We have made some progress, but the Government must show that it is ready for the challenges of 2050, rather than for those of 2007.

If that does not happen, failure will come at a high cost. We cannot cut ourselves off from the impacts of global climate change, as Reform would want us to do, just as we cannot opt out of global action by pretending that Scotland does not have huge advantages over other countries when it comes to reducing emissions. In a world where every country will face challenges, it is no advantage at all for Scotland to be in the slow lane, but there is every advantage in being among the first movers.

I welcome the cabinet secretary’s focus on delivery in this session, because we have spent too long debating targets without taking action. The climate change plan sets out a pathway, but it does not commit to detailed programmes that can be felt positively by everybody. Success or failure will come down to the political will of the whole Government to lead and to support sectors to deliver. It will need every cabinet secretary not just to mention climate change from time to time in speeches but to climate proof every budget and programme, to prioritise long-term thinking and to take risks.

If the Government does that, it will have a majority for climate action here in the Parliament, along with the Scottish Greens. If it does not, it will be letting down future generations and they will suffer the consequences.

I move amendment S7M-00434.3, to insert at end:

“; recognises that, despite a media backlash, a majority of the public continues to back strong climate action, especially young people; further recognises that local communities and workers must have a meaningful participatory role in developing and implementing local climate action, with the costs spread fairly across society; recognises that the latest Scottish Greenhouse Gas statistics indicate that progress to reduce emissions has flatlined in key sectors including agriculture, buildings and transport; believes that there must be no drilling of new fossil fuels reserves, in line with advice from the International Energy Agency; considers the Scottish Government’s Climate Change Plan to be undermined by a significant reliance on as-yet unproven technological solutions, including carbon capture and storage, and that the Scottish Government must develop an alternative pathway to meeting its net zero targets.”

16:19

Climate change is the biggest crisis—and the biggest opportunity—that we have now and in the future. To be honest, having listened to the previous speech, I do not want to get drawn into a scientifically illiterate debate about whether climate change is real. We had that debate 25 years ago. The question now is about how we move forward and how we act to protect the economy, people and the environment.

Will the minister take an intervention?

I am enjoying much of what the cabinet secretary is laying out in her speech. However, she has not mentioned the industrial decline in Scotland and the need to get a just transition for workers in Mossmorran and at other sites, such as Dunbar and Grangemouth, where we need to see an industrial future but also to take investors and workers with us. Can she say more about what the Government is doing to lead on the just transition, rather than leaving it to markets and corporates to determine the future, which often means that they just leave Scotland?

No.

The first half of our journey to net zero in Scotland has brought big benefits, with a revolution in renewable energy that has stripped fossil fuels out of our electricity supply and brought a strong degree of energy security. However, there have also been challenges. Transition has often been unplanned, and economic and community benefits have not reached their full potential. The next half of the journey must be better and fairer: workers and communities must be taken on the journey, and we must protect people from cost of living shocks while delivering benefits for our health and our environment that make sense in their own right.

There has certainly been a right-wing media tirade against climate action, with 70 per cent of recent articles on climate framed negatively, but it would be wrong to assume that public opinion has turned against climate action. A study that was commissioned by the Institute for Public Policy Research a couple of months ago showed that 62 per cent of the UK public back strong climate action, and individual policies such as traffic reduction measures, frequent flyer taxes and low-carbon home heating remain popular. The same study showed that 54 per cent of people believe that the best way to secure energy security is to expand renewable energy, not to double down on oil and gas production.

Despite what some politicians might dream of, we cannot wind the clock back to the 1970s. The trajectory, with or without new fields such as Rosebank, is decline. Transition must accelerate to protect jobs from a cliff edge and to protect our energy security.

There is clearly a gulf between what politicians believe is public opinion and what it really is. I was slightly taken aback by Claire Baker’s comment at the beginning of her speech, when she seemed to make the point that the consensus among the public for climate action has gone away. I do not think that it has. It is political caution that will leave us more vulnerable to climate change.

The science shows that even modest improvements in air quality result in significant improvements in health, particularly in disadvantaged communities. Will the Scottish Government be revising the current out-of-date air quality standards that we have in Scotland to reflect the better, more up-to-date, more science-based World Health Organization standards, which will start to put some ambition back into our air quality strategy? I know that the cabinet secretary will be revising that strategy, but will the standards reflect the better, more up-to-date WHO standards?

This is a new and rapidly evolving situation. I hope that the minister recognises that, because there have been huge concerns raised about the proposed data centre at Auchtertool in Fife in relation to its size, its proximity to the village, the energy and water demand and the fact that Fife Council has not requested that an environmental impact assessment be conducted.

I hear what the minister says about time, but, given the lack of specific guidance and the inconsistencies that we are seeing across local planning authorities in Scotland, will she commit to urgently reviewing and updating planning guidance to ensure that the full impact of the AI data centres is considered? We are talking about a problem that exists now, not in the future. Planning authorities need to make proper decisions now.

To ask the Scottish Government whether planning authorities have adequate guidance on how to assess proposed hyperscale artificial intelligence data centres. (S7O-00034)

I welcome the cabinet secretary to her role. Members on our benches look forward to working with her. However, today is not a day for celebration. Overall, our carbon footprint in Scotland is going up, not down, and it should be going down, faster. The Greens have continually pointed out the huge reliance in the climate change plan on technologies that do not yet exist, such as in Acorn with CCUS. I heard what Alan Brown suggested, but we could spend £200 million on carbon capture and storage and still not have a viable technology that delivers carbon reduction. When will the cabinet secretary come up with a plan B—if CCUS does not happen—that will lead to steeper reductions in emissions in transport, home heating and agriculture but also benefit jobs, the economy and the people of Scotland?

This is not the first time that Clackmannanshire residents have been evacuated at short notice. The reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete evacuations were handled badly by the council; houses were boarded up and personal possessions were left to rot for months on end. I hope that lessons were learned from that incident about the need to address the evacuees’ trauma while, at the same time, protecting their personal safety. What reassurances has the cabinet secretary had that the evacuation will be handled more sensitively than the previous one?