As Scotland Veers into Political Crisis: where does that leave Climate policies?

Will Humza Yousaf still be First Minister in a week, in an hour? Will Labour’s no confidence motion in the whole Scottish government pass or not? And yet, as the immediate once again drives out the important, what we should really be talking about with urgency is the climate and biodiversity crises.

The current political crisis does impact on those bigger, more important crises. Alex Salmond  is busy using Ash Regan as his pawn to decide whether now is the time to bring Yousaf down (presumably not the whole government (as now confirmed by Regan) or that would rather undermine the chance of getting Kate Forbes as First Minister which some on the SNP’s Alba wing aspire to). But Ash Regan’s broad demands are not about climate and green issues. They’re about gender, women’s rights and independence. But climate challenges must be tackled now; independence will not come soon enough under any scenario.

Bute House Agreement Failed on Climate

One of the big drawbacks of the now derailed SNP-Green government is that failure to get green policies through or inadequate drafting or implementation of proposed laws, whether the bottle deposit return scheme, or the highly protected marine areas or the argument over the banning of wood-burners in new builds, have too often led to finger-pointing at the Green party junior ministers in government.

SNP critics of the Bute House Agreement may now be jubilant that it’s over, and unconcerned or happy that Yousaf’s First Minister term may be over. But one doesn’t have to rate Green party politicians very highly to be concerned that the Scottish government as a whole (and SNP MPs down in Westminster) have failed to promote a serious, sustained, engaging and energised conversation about climate change and green policies.

The rapid abandonment of the 75% emissions cut target for 2030, without any replacement targets, is a major, deeply concerning failure. Wobbling on North Sea oil and gas, and windfall taxes, for the sake of some votes in the north-east, as Yousaf has done, is not the way to go either.

If SNP and Green politicians had stood together to take responsibility for missing the 2030 targets and put forward a clear plan, including new targets, for where next, the current political crisis may not have exploded.

The Weakness of Our Politics Undermines Vital Green Policies

But our politics is not currently strong on responsibility, consistency, good and open communications and strategy. And with trust in politicians and media amongst the general public at low levels, there is nothing here to revive that trust. Yet trust is an essential ingredient of getting to the sort of transformative climate and biodiversity polices that are so vital.

What has happened, particularly over the last year, in Scotland is that too many climate policies have become neuralgic and then used by different politicians to promote an ‘us and them’ (rural-urban, Highlands-central belt, north-east-Edinburgh) argument. The voices of those who are or who perceive themselves to be negatively affected are often heard much more loudly than those who back measures to protect our environment. Yet the loudest voices are not necessarily the majority voices.

Scotland has some excellent environment, climate and rewilding NGOs, doing innovative and important work such as Trees for Life or Scotland: the Big Picture. Some are part of European and international networks. But where are the politicians consistently backing this work and making these arguments? The Scottish government passed its ‘keeping pace’ law through Holyrood in order to align, as far as possible, with EU environmental laws, but so far has aligned on one, yes just one, EU law since the UK left the EU over three years ago.

But there are lots of areas where progress is being made, and emissions are falling just not fast enough. But backlash can overshadow the good news.

Take the wood-burners row. There were consultations and impact studies but, yes, these did fail to take account of where flexibility and exemptions may be needed (some limited emergency exemptions for new-builds are not what was needed). Yet one of the impact studies on wood-burners, specifically for the islands, showed that 75% of new builds on the islands since 2018 already have zero direct emissions heating (with heat pumps, and another 11% with communal heating systems), compared to 80% of new builds across Scotland having gas-heating.

The story should be that the islands are leading the way and showing it can be done. But that requires more finely-tuned policies, more local consultation (not defining stakeholders as primarily developers and manufacturers) and more attentive politicians and officials (the impact study showed that the Isle of Eigg was a clear exception that needed looking at more closely – but it wasn’t).

But we also don’t need to throw the baby out with the bath water. We do need better consultation, more flexibility where appropriate, engagement with those affected in different communities wherever they are located. But the climate crisis is also urgent. We all need to be engaged. We cannot meet global targets and commitments in the time-scale needed without a national and international approach with local flexibility. Bottom-up only is not the answer.

Taking the Lead on Rewilding

Rewilding NGOs are campaigning to make Scotland a rewilding nation. And those NGOs have been leading by example on showing how rewilding can create more jobs at the same time. It’s a dynamic, engaging idea that resonates much more to many people than anything the Scottish government has promoted recently.

It is much preferable to the ‘us and them’ approach taken by potential leadership contender Kate Forbes who backed the economic case for a golf course on the protected dunes of Coul Links, rejecting the strong arguments to protect biodiversity and nature there. Forbes said that the only people expressing views against were outsiders (though it’s not actually in her constituency) and were “pontificating” on the future (that includes the RSPB, Scottish Wildlife Trust and others). Perish the thought that Scots might care about biodiversity across Scotland. This ‘us and them’ approach would need dropping if Forbes ever did become First Minister, but the economy before green might not be.

As the crisis plays out, will Scotland soon see two elections – Holyrood and general – or just one and will it soon have a new First Minister? Either way, the short-termism of politics will risk, once again, putting climate and biodiversity challenges to one side.

The current crisis is a challenge to Humza Yousaf and the SNP. But most of all, it’s a challenge to all of Scotland’s politicians to start focusing on the big challenges of our time not the lure of the short-term win.