Summary
The world is in a climate crisis. UN Secretary General, António Guterres has called on the world’s nations to ‘massively fast-track climate efforts by every country and every sector and on every timeframe.’
From farming to transport and from energy to our seas, the policies in this document cover vast swathes of the economy. They also show how to change the economy itself and they demand that we make our fair contribution to the rest of the world’s efforts to cope with a changing climate.
The policies in the Climate Manifesto concentrate on reducing emissions but also touch on adaptation. Critically, they outline how climate action can be paid for fairly by making polluters pay.
Total Policies: 119
The breakdown of policies in this document (some policies are of course targeted at more than one level of government)
Most of the policies are for the Scottish Government, but some are for local authorities, some for the UK Government and some for the international community. Confronting the climate crisis will indeed require doing Guterres’ “everything, everywhere, all at once” and even where the Scottish Government does not hold all the levers, it can influence, incentivise and persuade – a role that it must perform from a position of domestic credibility.
Some policies would directly bring about emissions reductions, some would help to enable behaviour change towards those that are pro-climate by making these choices more affordable and accessible, and some would do both.
Some of the policies in this document could be put in place tomorrow, some quite quickly and some are ideas that need working through with experts and stakeholders.
Certain measures would obviously fit well together – for instance, Workplace Parking Levies could help fund Free Public Transport.
There has been some good progress in a number of areas and SCCS would want to see positive policies maintained and used as a springboard for action at a truly transformative scale. Examples include the climate plan process, the ban on fracking, the transformation in how electricity is generated, the 20% car-kms reduction target.
SCCS members, together as the coalition and separately, will be advocating for these policies to political parties, through Scottish Government processes and to the wider public. Those who are part of international networks will also be promoting them there as well.
