THE Scottish Greens will today urge the Scottish Parliament to declare a climate emergency and to take “bold action” in the interests of future generations.
Mark Ruskell, the party’s environment and climate spokesperson, will lead a debate in which he will highlight the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) report showing we have just over
10 years to take action to keep global temperatures below 1.5C.
He will also call on the Scottish Government to acknowledge that the maximum economic recovery of oil and gas is incompatible with tackling the climate emergency, and call on ministers to introduce a legislative ban on fracking.
“Young people in Scotland and across the world have been an inspiration, walking out of classes to highlight the threat posed by the climate emergency and urging governments to take the bold
action required to address it,” said Ruskell. “The IPCC has given us a decade to bring emissions down to a level where we can keep global temperature rises below 1.5 degrees, to miss that objective would be to condemn millions to misery and bring widespread collapse of our natural world. This is a climate emergency.
“If we are serious about tackling this crisis head on, there needs to be an acknowledgement that maximum economic extraction of oil and gas cannot happen. We can’t burn all the reserves we already know about, and we should not kid ourselves on that further exploration is a responsible option.”
Ruskell said communities were frustrated at the lack of action on fracking and he will urge the Scottish Government to ban it: “QC legal advice is clear that Scotland has the powers to implement a legally watertight ban on this destructive and unsustainable process and the Government should get on with doing that.”
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