The collation deal between SNP and Scottish Greens passed in the Scottish Parliament is the beginning of a quest to make clear some definitions and to lead the country away from constitutional meaninglessness, cruel political comedy and out of the deliberately constructed tragic dead end of devolution and toward full engagement with the climate emergency.
In the first week of August this year the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published a grim report which stated that the fires, floods and extreme weather seen around the world in recent months are just a foretaste of what can be expected if global heating takes hold. For example,
– atmospheric CO2 is up one third on the levels recorded in the 1960’s.
– The past six years have been the hottest on record.
– In 2020 the world’s oceans were the hottest ever recorded.
– Scotland has had its fourth hottest summer on record, according to provisional figures released by the Met Office just this week.
Simon Lewis, professor of global change science at University College London, said,
“The observations this summer show that some impacts seem to be underestimated, but we can’t know if the devastation of summer 2021 is the new normal without a few more years’ data. But what we do know is if emissions continue to rise, then increasingly severe climate impacts will occur and the consequences will be severe. What we need to keep in mind is that we all live in places that have built up over decades and centuries to cope well with a given climate. The really, really scary thing about the climate crisis is that every single achievement of every human society on Earth occurred under a climate that no longer exists. The pressure is on for world leaders to agree both detailed and achievable plans to cut emissions now, and plans to adapt to climate impacts, when they meet in Glasgow in November.”
Concurrent with this the British government will push through the development of the Campbell (Cambo) oil field, 75 miles north-west of Shetland, which is estimated to contain 800 million barrels of oil. Our house is on fire and the solution is to turn up the heating. The First Minister of Scotland can plead with the Prime Minister of the UK not to go ahead with this development but energy is a reserved matter and she has absolutely no power to stop it. This is the Hell of devolution. This is its tragic dead end.