World gathers to fight climate change

Scottish efforts to fight climate change are on show at the UN climate conference.

Campaigners and politicians have headed to Lima in Peru as world leaders hope to lay the foundations for a global deal next year.

Pressure is on governments to sign up to policies that will limit the warming of the planet to under 2C.

Among the thousands of delegates and observers will be a Scottish contingent setting out what has been achieved here in putting laws in place, efforts to decarbonise industry and also work on climate justice.

Aileen McLeod, the new Scottish minister for Environment and Climate Change, is expected to be in Lima for the conference which started on 1 December and runs for 12 days.

Among the representatives of NGOs are Mary Church, of Friends of the Earth Scotland, Oxfam Scotland’s Sara Cowan and Lang Banks, director of WWF Scotland.

Banks said: “The climate science is clear, the vast majority of known fossil-fuel reserves need to be left in the ground and not exploited. We instead need to see an energy transition that enables us to harness the engineering skills currently deployed in the oil and gas industry and apply them to supporting a range of cleaner forms of energy production.”

Conservative MEP Ian Duncan is also at the talks representing the European Parliament and said Scotland needed to follow up on its pledges to take action on climate change.

“We have some of the world’s most ambitious climate change targets – a reduction of 42 per cent of greenhouse gases by 2020. Yet to date we haven’t met a single annual target underpinning it. We cannot ignore the gauntlet we have thrown down.”

Meanwhile the Scottish Parliament’s Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee has written to McLeod urging greater efforts to reduce emissions.

Convener Rob Gibson said: “It is now time to activate real change in approach and behaviour across all underperforming sectors of society, both public and private.”