The climate emergency is unfolding around us.
Though Scotland has made great progress on renewables, it is falling behind on most other aspects. Scottish Greens worked hard to put ambition back into the Scottish Government’s programme in recent years, but the SNP have reversed course.
For too long, politicians have allowed fossil fuel companies to profit while our communities pay the price. Now a new wave of anti-environment propaganda is being produced by fossil fuel interests, trying to prevent the transition to a cleaner and more affordable future, misleading people about the costs and the benefits. At the same time, the corporate giants who have extracted vast profits from Scotland are leaving their workforce on the economic scrapheap.
Scotland is already missing out on immense benefits for every community and household - but it doesn’t have to be that way. Bold climate policies will deliver real shared benefits to all our lives. Scotland deserves the cheap, reliable and affordable transport that many other European countries take for granted. Modern clean heating will give people warm homes without being tied to fossil fuel prices. A flourishing natural environment is one that we can all benefit from, boosting the health and prosperity of communities.
The Scottish Government’s Climate Change Plan is deeply flawed, based on techno-fixes that cannot be relied on, and lacks ambition in almost every area. If we stick with this approach, Scotland’s net zero target will slip out of reach, and the transition we need will be both slow and unjust.
The climate emergency requires action across every sector of the economy and society, so you’ll find commitments to tackle the climate emergency throughout the chapters of this manifesto. Here we lay out our top priorities to ensure communities can transition from fossil fuel dependence to well-paid jobs, and to make sure that polluters pay for the damage they’ve done.
- Get Scotland back on track to deliver net zero by 2045, launching a coordinated climate action delivery programme to drive down emissions from transport, energy, farming and housing. Our targets will be meaningless without this real and immediate action in every sector.
- Ensure the government is held to account over climate failures by empowering citizens and organisations to sue future governments if they continue to fail to meet our legally-binding climate targets. We will do this by creating a fair, affordable legal system which is obliged to take the welfare of future generations into account.
- Establish a Scottish Environmental Court, accessible to individuals and communities, to hear cases on pollution, biodiversity loss and corporate environmental crime, with strong enforcement powers. This could include challenging projects such as major new road building and public subsidies for polluting companies.
- Bring forward a Scottish Corporate Accountability and Ecocide Bill criminalising severe environmental harm and widening liability for corporate executives.
- Set fully-funded worker-led transition plans to support every community and economic sector moving away from fossil fuel dependence, to be developed collaboratively with trade unions and local communities. These will be supported by Scotland’s Just Transition Commission, which will be made permanent, and ongoing and properly funded Just Transition funding.
- Protect communities from floods, storms, heatwaves and coastal erosion by taking preventative actions now, and establish a Climate Adaptation Fund with sufficient financial resources to deliver the measures identified in the latest Scottish National Adaptation Plan.
- Drive down emissions from Scotland’s land use by introducing a well-designed Carbon Emissions Land Tax, providing incentives for large landowners to manage land in ways which maximise the carbon locked into the land and minimise the emissions from that land.
- Challenge climate misinformation through a sustained public information campaign to deepen people’s understanding of climate change and counter climate denialism. We will maintain funding for existing climate and environmental education programmes to support educators and young people.
- Advocate for an international Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty to stop the global expansion of coal, oil and gas production and phase out existing fossil fuel use in a fair and managed way that supports workers and the most climate vulnerable countries. Scottish Greens will continue to call for Scotland to join the international Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance.
- Continue to oppose new fossil fuel developments in Scotland, including new oil and gas exploration in fields like Rosebank, and the new gas-fired power plant at Peterhead.
- Keep climate justice at the heart of Scotland’s international commitments, supporting those across the world who have contributed the least to climate change but are suffering its worst impacts, including by providing direct funding to support locally-led projects.
- Continue to maximise Scotland’s role at international climate summits and advocate for climate equity for those in the Global South, in particular through support for a global Loss and Damage fund, with Scotland paying its fair share.
