By Christine Campeau, Caritas Internationalis Climate Change Analyst
Caritas held an event at the Barcelona climate change talks to promote the sterling work being done in Scotland. It was called “How to reduce your emissions by more than 40% by 2020: Practical examples from Scotland”.
The new Scottish Climate Change Act is one of the most ambitious climate change legislation in the world, and is being viewed as a “model of international best practice” for other developed countries.
Steward Stevenson, the Climate Minister from Scotland explained his country’s plan to create a successful low-carbon economy.
Mr. Stevenson said that the greatest strategy to achieve this target is through carbon capture and storage, while the biggest challenges lie in reducing emissions in road transportation.
As well as passing legislation that commits Scotland to some of the strongest emissions reductions targets in the world (42% by 2020 and 80% by 2050), the Scottish government has also published a detailed delivery plan, explaining in detail how they will meet such ambitious targets.
Another panelist, Jane Wood, Chief Executive of the Scottish Business Community, said that the Scottish business sector recognizes the economic opportunities in renewable energies and welcomes onshore and offshore wind power. She stressed that “banks may be propped up by tax payers dollars there’s no second chance for the environment” and that it is up to the business sector to take responsibility to reduce their share of the country’s emissions.
Chris Hegarty, Advocacy Manager from SCIAF (Caritas Scotland) explained that the two principle objectives of this event were to engender greater trust between developing and developed countries at the negotiations by showing that one developed country has adopted emissions reduction targets that match what the science and developed countries have called for.
Secondly, it was to prove to developed countries that meeting emissions reduction targets of more than 40% by 2020 is possible by looking at specific examples from Scotland.
Hopefully this message echoed through the conference halls will inspire other negotiators to display similar leadership.
