Scotland’s Climate Assembly: Organisations Urge Scottish Government to Listen to Its People
Greater Govanhill has added its name to Scotland’s Civic Charter, which calls on the Scottish Government to take heed of the 81 recommendations drawn up by the Scotland’s Climate Assembly, which call for bold leadership on climate change.
Assembly Members - Photo © Chris Watt
By Rhiannon J Davies
Organisations across Scotland – including Greater Govanhill CIC – have signed a Civic Charter expressing support for the recommendations Scotland’s Climate Assembly submitted to the Scottish Parliament.
The charter urges policy makers to take heed of the recommendations themselves and the spirit in which they were made, stating:
“Scotland now has a mandate from its people to provide genuine global leadership on climate change.
“Through the Climate Assembly, ordinary people from across the country have laid the foundations of a strategic vision and urgent plan of action for Scotland to deliver on its climate change commitments.
“The Assembly’s 100 members found common ground for driving both cuts in emissions and adapting to a changing climate - despite coming from diverse backgrounds and holding different views.”
Scotland’s Climate Assembly was the second to be held in Scotland following on from the Citizens' Assembly of Scotland which ran from 2019-2020. These forums are a way of ‘doing democracy differently’, bringing together a cross-section of society to learn about and deliberate on set topics before making recommendations.
Scotland’s Climate Assembly ran from November 2020 to March 2021, meeting virtually for seven weekends. They learned about ‘climate change, mitigation, adaptation, fairness, and how change happens, before splitting into three streams to consider Diet, Land Use and Lifestyle; Homes and Communities; and Travel and Work’. They also worked closely with the Children’s Parliament to ensure those under 16 got to have their input too.
The members were chosen to represent a ‘mini Scotland’, taking into account geography, age, gender, disability ethnicity, household income, rurality and attitudes towards climate change.
The Assembly’s report sets out 81 recommendations which were agreed by an overwhelming consensus. They cover a broad range of issues including domestic heating, emissions, environmental impact in public procurement, land use and agriculture, taxation, transport (including air travel) and the economy.
Some of the recommendations include:
Provide support to Local Authorities to establish a network of ‘Resource Libraries’ across the country, where people can ‘borrow’ high quality tools and equipment.
Ban the use of single-use plastics (unless there is no viable alternative) and increase regulation to prevent the supply of products in non-recyclable packaging.
Update building standards to ensure that, within the next 5 years, all new housing is built to Passivhaus standards (or an agreed Scottish equivalent).
Invest in workforce development and retraining to deliver retrofitting and construction work to high standards and ensure we have the ability to implement an ambitious retrofit plan across Scotland.
Introduce standardised smart ticketing for public transport across the whole country – an ‘Oyster card for Scotland’.
Empower local communities to manage underused, unproductive, and/or unoccupied land around them in ways that address the climate emergency through rapid and decisive movement on land ownership reform.
Raise public awareness on the value that can be achieved for climate change by embracing localised living and a 4-day, or reduced, working week.
Writing about their proposals, assembly members said:
“As a nation we have the opportunity to be pioneers, by taking immediate action to empower our next generations to lead sustainable lives by setting up the framework now. As a society we will need to change and adapt to meet the challenges, and recognise that there will be costs. But failure to act now will mean greater expense, and more difficult changes in the future, in order to avoid catastrophic costs to the planet.”
The Scottish Government will formally respond to the recommendations of the Climate Assembly later this year. The Civic Charter shows the groundswell of support for the proposals, with a broad range of organisations and individuals adding their name to the document.
As COP26 gets underway, 12-year-old Margaret from the Western Isles, who was one of the Children’s Parliament’s ‘investigators’, said she had signed the civic charter because:
“My message to party leaders is that they take our calls forward. It’s our country too, and we have the right to be heard and listened to.”
Anyone interested in signing Scotland’s Civic Charter has been invited to post their support on social media using the hashtag, #SignForScotland. Read the full report from Scotland’s Climate Assembly at www.climateassembly.scot