Holyrood 350 — H35O

1. Scotland’s reborn par­lia­ment is 10 years old this year. Per­haps due to youth­ful ide­al­ism, per­haps due a desire to estab­lish an autonomous iden­tity, it has passed a strong cli­mate act.  How­ever its 2020 green­house gas reduc­tion tar­get of 42% from 1990 lev­els only rep­re­sents approx­i­mately a 24% reduc­tion from cur­rent levels.  A key aim of the cur­rent SNP minor­ity gov­ern­ment is for more than 50% of elec­tric­ity to come from renew­able sources by 2020. This looks likely to be achieved at cur­rently pro­posed lev­els of investment.

2. Holy­rood 350 is a group of cli­mate con­cerned folk from around Scot­land that main­tains that despite its ambi­tion, the new act is not com­pat­i­ble with cli­mate safety as it would not (if repli­cated glob­ally) result in atmos­pheric green­house gas con­cen­tra­tions return­ing to below 350 ppm.  The group also believes that there is an oppor­tu­nity to engage the youth­ful Holy­rood par­lia­ment in a more mature dia­logue about the root causes of the present envi­ron­men­tal and eco­nomic crises namely the cur­rent model of eco­nomic growth.  In this con­nec­tion it has for­mu­lated a four point pro­posal which calls for:

- pric­ing car­bon into the econ­omy via a Cap and Share type framework

- an accel­er­ated adop­tion of renew­ables to bring about a rapid and com­plete decar­bon­i­sa­tion of the economy

- a redi­rec­tion of the efforts of the finan­cial sec­tor toward more socially and envi­ron­men­tally pro­duc­tive activities

- increased gov­ern­ment sup­port to community-led action to build local resilience to the cli­mate, energy and finan­cial crunches

3.  Trans­port emis­sions are not ade­quately cov­ered in the Scot­tish Government’s Cli­mate Change Deliv­ery Plan. “Cap­ping and sharing” even a part of fos­sil fuel use in this sec­tor could offer the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment a means of both meet­ing their car­bon tar­gets and of show­ing lead­er­ship in cli­mate policy.  Private car use accounts for approx­i­mately 40% of all trans­port emis­sions.  A cap that achieved a per­mit price of 10p per kilo of fuel related CO2 would raise £600 mil­lion pounds, add 25p to the cost of a litre of fuel and pro­vide a share of £120 per person.  This would be pure gain to the 30% of Scots who do not own a car.

A [Hung Par­lia­ment] at West­min­ster in May, and a ref­er­en­dum on the exten­sion of devolved pow­ers prior to the Holy­rood elec­tions in May next year, might mean that now is a good time to start push­ing Cap and Share more strongly at Holyrood.