IPCC Report must be a rallying call for climate action
A brutally stark report from almost 200 of the world’s leading scientists over the worsening global climate crisis must serve as a rallying call for all of Scotland to take urgent and serious action, say the Scottish Greens.
The party’s environment spokesperson Mark Ruskell said the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s document must serve as a spur for officials, politicians and ordinary people to step-up their efforts.
Mark said:
“This report is brutally clear. There is nowhere to run and nowhere to stick our heads in the sand. We can’t treat this as a far away threat or an imaginary conceptual thing in the distance when it is already having a direct impact on hundreds of millions of people around the world.
“The age of fossil fuels has to end if we are to have any kind of sustainable future. That means ramping up the transition to clean and renewable energy and making the kind of investment that can rebuild our economy
"We need to review everything from top to bottom, to understand and make sure every minutiae, every target and every action is precise. That means looking at our energy supply, our transport networks, our food production and the way we heat our buildings, and asking big and fundamental questions.
“It has to serve as a rallying cry to the world. The things we do in Scotland are vitally important, but we need to see global action.
“If the COP conferences show us anything it is that the problem does not lie in any lack of technology or expertise, it is about political will.
“This generation of politicians needs to think about the lasting impact we have and how we are remembered.
“Do we want to be the ones who saw this crisis coming, had the science at our fingertips and carried on walking into catastrophe? There is nothing inevitable about climate breakdown, but, as this report makes clear, we need to act now.”
