Climate Change

Thank you presiding officer.

This bill is hugely important - its easy to say "what difference can a small country like ours make" - But there's no doubt that a difference we can make - climate change is complex and there are also natural cycles at work but no-one can doubt that we are polluting - a point illustrated by the Stop Climate Chaos Coalition recently.

And green issues are at the heart of Liberal Democrat policy.

In Coalition we made great strides on renewable energy. Liberal Democrats invested around £100 million in renewables and energy efficiency support - ahead of any other part of Britain or Ireland - and we provided support for over 600 small and micro-renewables projects through the Scottish Community and Household Renewables Initiative.

Liberal Democrats delivered record recycling rates with rates trebling under our governance. We have a proven track record in delivering green policies - we know what we are talking about it, and what's achievable.

As a continuation of that good work, we support the Bill's headline target of an 80% reduction in emissions by 2050.

But there are two important points that I can see -

1. First, so far there has been no precise details on how the government will achieve this. We do know however that work to tackle climate must begin now; the Stern report emphasised the importance of speedy action and this is an important point made in the Committee report and something which my party has been saying for many months.

2. Secondly, as my colleagues have repeatedly said, what we need to see now are clearly defined and detailed plans from the Scottish Government on how they will tackle climate change that will take forward the targets set in the Bill. We believe that the interim target could be brought forward from 2030 to 2020 and I'd prefer to see annual targets to judge Govt progress.

So I welcome today's debate and the committee report which echoes much of what the Libdems have been saying for some time.

Presiding officer, I couldn't take part in this debate and not talk about forestry and land use.

The leasing proposal threatened the climate change bill - as stated by RSPB and the like - but has now been dropped after overpowering opposition, but the powers enabling ministers to change the functions of Forestry Commissioners remain in the Bill. So I put it on the record that I shall push an amendment at a later stage if the Govt doesn't address this themselves ?

A second point is that according to the then minister we are now left with the prospect of a huge funding gap for climate changes measures such as tree planting.

The lease option was supposed to raise a one off £200 million. We were told by the minister that "by dropping the leasing proposal, we face a short-term funding problem for woodland creation for up to five years."

But, SRDP funding figures released last week directly contradict that statement and we can now see that in fact there is "ample headroom" for forestry under rural priorities funding. I hope that this was a miscalculation on the minister's part rather than a misrepresentation of the facts as part of a cynical plan to fill a hole in government budgets, but in any event clarification on that point would be welcome.

In terms of tree planting, we know this has some role to play in acting as a carbon sink, although there is still some debate as to how significant a role it can play. But any tree planting has to be done in a balanced way, taking into consideration other land uses and not displacing those existing and commercially viable activities. And is only part of the solution. There is no point in planting up hundreds of acres of land if nothing is done to address renewable energies or indeed our energy consumption itself. And there is no point in doing it without considering other land use and soil types - a fact is that planting in Peat based soils releases a large amount of Carbon - taking thirty years of tree growth to negate that release.

We need an integrated land use strategy that will take into account all land uses from commercial and agricultural through to leisure and environmental. The recent Forestry debates highlighted the fact that forestry is a lot more than just wood production or a Carbon sink,

But my concern with the Bill as it stands is the lack of detail on the management of Scotland's land. The forestry sector has been acknowledged in the Bill, but Ministers have failed to provide direction for Scotland's major land user - agriculture. If the Scottish Government is determined to tackle climate change then it can ill afford to mismanage one of our most important resources. We all await the results of the rural land use study toward the end of this year but what will come of this study and will the Government be in a position to formulate a proper strategy on its conclusion?

Presiding officer, this bill is welcome. I hope that ministers will heed the committee's recommendations. I also hope that a sensible land use strategy will be produced sooner rather than later. Thank you.