 The final item of business is a member's business debate on motion 107.93 in the name of Maggie Chapman on climate justice and support for a global loss and damage fund. This debate will be concluded without any questions being put and I would ask those members who would wish to speak in the debate to please press the request to speak buttons and I call on Maggie Chapman to open the debate. Thank you Presiding Officer. I'm pleased to be able to lead this debate this evening. I'd like to thank all those members who have supported the motion to enable us to talk about this now and I pay tribute to the third sector organisations, especially the Stop Climate Chaos Scotland Coalition, ChristianAid and Skiath, who have done so much painstaking work on this vital issue. Climate devastation is here. After the raging tempest of the past week, no one in Scotland, especially in the north-east, can be in any real doubt. I hold in my heart all who have suffered in their homes, their families, their communities and livelihoods, and most especially the families and friends of those who lost their lives in such sad circumstances. Everyone everywhere is affected by the impacts of climate change. For a fortunate few so far, these may seem little more than inconveniences. That is the deadly gamble that Rishi Sunak and his Westminster Government are throwing, the dice fall, the cynical hope that voters will be incapable of looking out of their own windows to see the storms on the horizon. I don't believe it will work in England and I know it will not work in Scotland. For we face not only more extreme weather events like storm Bebet, with all the destruction that they bring but also slower and quieter assaults, coastal erosion, threatening to displace whole communities, decimated harvests, degraded soils, wildfires and floods, disease, loss of home and habitat, extinction of keystone and beloved species. It is unthinkably painful, even for us here and now, with all of our accumulated privilege and defence. For the next generations it will be harder still. For billions of our fellow humans across the world, the blow falls now heavy and relentless. In the majority world, the global south, climate devastation is, for many, a daily reality. Lived in bodies and homes, in year after year of disrupted season, rains that come late or not at all, or come too hard washing away the frail shoots of hope. In year after year of lost harvests, lost water resources, lost livelihoods, lost children. This is not bad luck, poor planning or insufficient resilience. This is injustice, as brutal as it gets. The people bearing the heaviest burden of climate chaos are almost universally those least responsible for its reality. However you calculate emissions, theirs are minute, scarcely visible on the charts. Far from benefiting from the fossil economy and the capitalism it supports, they have borne the curse of extractivism, exploitation of resources, environment and labour. Colonial and post-colonial oppressions have forced them to use precious land for export crops, denied them the kind of economy that can brazenly outsource its emissions and callously suppressed Indigenous people whose knowledge of and careful non-human nature we need now more than ever. Our response to the scravest of crises must be wide and it must be deep. It must acknowledge that many ways in which decision makers of Scotland and the UK have been complicit in colonialism and climate injustice. It must impale us to rapid emissions reduction, to urgent decarbonisation and to global co-operation on both mitigation and adaptation. But it requires more. Esculating emissions have led to climate impacts that it is now too late to prevent or adapt to. They can only be addressed by compensation, by reparations, by the provision of resources, by those most responsible. That is what we mean by loss and damage. They include harms that are tangible and intangible, economic and non-economic, caused by rapid or slow onset events. Scotland has played an important role in amplifying the issue of loss and damage, not least in its symbolic and real commitment at COP26. I pay tribute to Nicola Sturgeon for her leadership in that. It helped to bring about the decision at last year's COP to establish an international loss and damage solidarity fund. But now, urgently, we need to do more. That global loss and damage fund exists only as an idea, really. Many of us hoped that, at this year's COP, in just a few weeks' time, that idea would become operational, following the work of the Transnational Committee that was working on this issue over the last year, and of which the UK is a member. But I am angry and bitterly disappointed that, just last weekend, at the last of four meetings of this Transnational Committee, they failed to draft the recommendations on the operationalisation of the global loss and damage fund. There will now be an extra meeting in November, where I hope that the EU and the US will listen to the alliance of small island states and other developing countries and not impose the World Bank's business model on them or this fund. Aosis is clear. That model does not work for them. Again, the developed countries are trying to control and determine other people's futures. Developing countries are also clear on who should be eligible for the fund. All developing countries. Again, the global north wants to restrict eligibility. There are several other points of disagreement between developed and developing countries, but the fund must be governed robustly with effective resources that meets the need of compensation and the weight of financial contribution resting squarely on the shoulders of those most responsible. This procedural work must be followed by substantive finance from the UK to the new fund. This must be new money, reflecting the historic and current responsibilities that the UK bears. It cannot simply be redesigned funds from the already insufficient climate finance or development and aid budgets. It must be based on need, not on benefit to UK businesses and geopolitical interests. It must take the form of grants, not loans, that suck countries further into the spiral of toxic debt. It must not be used as an excuse to avoid the essential work of emissions reduction and adaptation, and its costs must not be borne by the people and communities who are already suffering from the domestic crises of cost, greed and underinvestment here. Polluter pays must mean just that. We in Scotland need to amplify these messages, speaking with clarity and conscience, and there is specific work that we can do here as well, developing and expanding Scotland's lot and damage programme and our wider climate justice fund, ensuring that its work is locally led, transparent and effective, and sharing what we have learned and what we have yet to learn with generosity and humility. Finally, I urge colleagues to consider signing the global parliamentarians pledge on loss and damage, and I invite you all to attend the event that I am hosting on this issue next Tuesday when we will hear from the global south directly about the devastating impacts that our industrial revolution and fossil economy has had on them. We carry knowledge of our history and of the ways in which we have failed, in justice, in solidarity, in compassion and in humanity, but we also carry a determination to do better. Now is the time to make that real. Thank you. Thank you, Ms Chapman. I now call on Nicola Sturgeon to be followed by Maurice Golden. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Can I begin by thanking Maggie Chapman for securing this important debate? This is a topic that goes to the very heart of the moral obligation, and I use that term deliberately, that developed countries owe to those in the global south. The devastating effects of climate change are now impossible for any politician, Barthe Mendatius, to deny or ignore. Here in Scotland, of course, as Maggie Chapman has just reflected on, Storm Babette has just delivered a tragic reminder that these impacts are now being felt everywhere, and my thoughts are also with those affected. Though global, the impacts do fall most acutely and massively disproportionately on countries that have done least to cause climate change. Countries that are already poorer and less equipped to deal with the consequences of the emissions that have fuelled the prosperity of those of us in the developed world. For example, the carbon emissions of countries in East Africa are negligible in a global context, and yet human-induced climate change has contributed to drought and famine there, a hunger crisis that, earlier this year, was estimated to be claiming two lives every single minute. Finance provided by rich countries to help the poorest to deal with climate change is woefully inadequate. Shamefully, the much-lodded $100 million a year commitment first made 14 years ago has still not been delivered in full, but finance, as well as being inadequate, is also far too limited in scope. Current funding covers mitigation action to reduce emissions and adaptation action to build resilience through, for example, flood defences. Both of those matter, of course they do, they are hugely important, but not covered at all at this stage is the loss and damage being wrought by the impacts of climate change that are of a type and scale that can no longer be mitigated or adapted to. Those impacts are already causing loss of life, loss of livelihoods and enforced changes to how and where people live, and they are doing so on a truly massive scale. Countries and individuals across the Global South have been campaigning for explicit recognition of and recompense for loss and damage for 30 years, and yet it was only at COP26 in Glasgow that the first glimmer of a breakthrough was made. I am very proud that Scotland played its part becoming the first developed country in the world to pledge funding for loss and damage. Momentum continued last year at COP27 in Egypt with agreement to set up a dedicated fund and the establishment of a transitional committee to agree the detail. Again, Scotland was at the forefront of efforts to make that progress. However, it will be at COP28 in Dubai in just a few weeks' time that we will know if those promises are to be honoured. Indeed, if it is any longer possible to expect Global South countries to keep face with the multilateral process at all. I hope for the best but already fear the worst. By all accounts, progress in the transitional committee is nowhere near where it should be. In the short time that I have today, I simply want to add my voice to those demanding true climate justice. COP28 must ensure that the loss and damage fund becomes operational without delay. It must be open to all developing countries. The finance offers must be additional to that already available for mitigation and adaptation. It must be in the form of grants, not loans. To deepen the indebtedness of developing countries would not address injustice, it would compound it. It must cover the full range of the loss and damages being suffered. That means not just the impacts of sudden events like floods and storms but also slow-on climatic changes and also not just economic loss like damage to infrastructure but non-economic loss of life, culture and heritage. My final call before I conclude falls closer to home. I understand probably more than most in this chamber the financial pressures confronting Government but I do ask the Scottish Government to ensure that our overall climate justice fund commitment for this Parliament increased during COP26 is delivered in full. That, as a bare minimum and a stress bare minimum, we honour in full the world-leading commitments made to loss and damage funding. That is a matter of basic justice. It is the obligation that we owe to those in the Global South paying the price of our prosperity. I hope that Scotland continues to lead the way. I now call Maurice Golden to be followed by Sarah Boyack. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I thank Maggie Chapman for bringing this important debate to Parliament. Climate change is a global threat and a global threat means we all have a responsibility to act especially when those who will be impacted most are often least able to adapt. There are many organisations working hard to improve access to food, water and energy in those vulnerable communities such as Sceaf and Tier Fund. I will always be grateful for the opportunity I got to witness and support those efforts during my trip to Nepal with Tier Fund in 2018. The work of such charities is important. It is impactful and it is inspirational. However, what we need most is for Governments to take action. That is why the decision at COP 27 to establish a loss and damage fund was so significant. There are still operational details to work out by welcoming the UK's commitment to encourage mobilisation of a broad range of finance. That builds on COP 27's recognition of the role private finance can play in supporting climate projects. The UK Government has a strong track record here between 2011 and 2023. There have been driven significant investment in climate projects in developing countries. £6.9 billion of public finance and £6.8 billion in private finance. The combination of public and private funding is vital given the scale of the threat we face. According to the IPCC, up to 3.6 billion people, almost half the entire human race, live in areas deemed highly vulnerable to climate change. Let me also say, as I have done before, I welcome the role played by the Scottish Government in helping to mitigate climate impacts in vulnerable communities, such as through training women in leadership roles. I have also urged them to do more, such as supporting efforts to provide reliable waste management services in developing countries. A 2019 tier fund report estimated that as many as 1 million people a year die from mismanaged waste, that is one person every 30 seconds. Action here could save lives as well as tackling climate change and laying the foundation for circular economies. I am pleased that the UK has been active on this, having committed millions in funding. Historically, waste management has received little global attention. Solid waste management accounted for less than 1 per cent of development funding between 2003 and 2012, according to the International Solid Waste Association. Scotland has a wealth of technical expertise and experience in waste management. There is an opportunity for the Scottish Government to draw on that to help to provide training and solutions for developing countries. It is also an opportunity to support Britain's global effort to support those at risk from climate change. Since 2011, we have provided direct support to more than 100 million people to cope with climate change effects, improved access to clean energy for 69 million people and reduced or avoided 86 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. Of course, there is much more to do. While I recognise the commitment from the UK Government, welcoming that does not mean that we have to support everything that the UK Government does. As members know, I have been quick to point out that I think that they are not doing enough. If we do not recognise where progress is made, it risks making calls to go further and do more sound hollow. First of all, I congratulate Maggie Chapman for securing the member's debate and for her speech this evening. As others have said, this summer we saw the impact of this right across Europe. We have discussed that in debates before. If you look at the temperatures that were across southern Europe, where it reached 40 degrees, that is now being discussed as potentially the kind of temperatures that we will have to experience going forward. In the Middle East, 50 degrees and in countries in East Asia, they have already been experiencing very high temperatures for a long time. I think that what it did was it brought things home to us. I think that the horrendous experiences colleagues and constituents will have experienced over the last few weeks. When two weeks ago we had a month's rain in 24 hours, which saw our railway industry just come to a halt. The debate that we had this afternoon about the impact of storm and babbit, but for countries like Bangladesh and Pakistan, they have experienced major and damaging floods for years. That is not new to them. I think that we woke up to it when we saw the scale of the flood in Pakistan last year that saw 33 million people being impacted. The scale of that is hard for us to imagine. When you start looking at it, you can see that Bangladesh had floods over a decade ago that had a massive impact on the country. I think that we have been waking up to this slowly. For countries in sub-Saharan Africa particularly, the impact of drought has a massive impact on their capacity to grow food and to access clean drinking water. That leads to vulnerability to diseases. I think that we have to be really up front that the climate emergency has been here for a long time. I do not think that we have reached the stage where we have really begun to deliver the support that we need to do. I think that I had three key areas where we needed to act. The first thing that I was going to talk about was that we need to work together to make sure that we deliver on our own climate targets. There is a leadership issue there. It is the country that has started the industrial revolution in central Scotland, something that you can be proud of, not necessarily the climate emissions. We need to really think that through in terms of our homes and buildings, transport and land. The leadership that we can provide by meeting our own radical targets would be important. The points that Maurice Golden made about a circular economy we have had cross-party groups who have had briefings. We have a bill in front of us thinking about how we take responsibility and do not just use our waste more wisely once we have got it, but we create less waste in the first place. We reuse, we repair, we remake. We need to do more in the difficult angles there. The third issue is what everybody has been talking about today is leading on climate justice and loss on damage. We started debating that in our international development cross-party group two years ago, and we heard incredible powerfully from different countries of the impact that climate change was having then. They came up with very clear, specific asks for us in terms of seeing progress. It was about seeing progress at COP26, which we have heard both from Maggie Chapman and from Nicola Sturgeon today about the leadership that we have played as a country, making the recommendations. We have not seen the progress that we would want. COP27 agreed the principle, but we have not seen the action that we need in advance of COP28. I want to thank Skiaf and Oxfam for the briefings that they sent us in advance of today's debate, both of which I think were incredibly useful. For me, looking at what loss and damage really means in practice, we have got to look at how it will impact in countries that need that now, particularly in low and mid-income countries. The money needs to be accessible so that communities can access in the global south and decide how that money is spent. It needs to be restorative, it needs to be grants, not loans. That is something that has come up in our cross-party group in international development about the huge impact that is impacting on low-income countries who have massive debts. They are not able to pay off impacts on their health services, education services. Seeing loss and damage as investment, as grants, using subsidiarity principles underpinned by human rights are absolutely crucial. The information from Skiaf about the impact of climate change is that, according to United Nations, women and children are 14 times more likely to die in a disaster than men. With every disaster, women's rights and progress are threatened. It is a now issue that impacts on right across the world. The last thing I would say is that we just need efficient and effective response through loss and damage funding. It needs not just to be a rapid response, it needs to be long-term support. We could be proud about the UK's Disasters Emergency Committee. You can see that the public are happy to meet people who have cash and are willing to make those donations, but the challenge is that we need long-term support. We need not just support for charities, but we need support for countries to actually make that investment that will protect people from future climate disasters, will invest, will adapt, but give them the resource to tackle the challenge that is a now issue, because we know that we will have more and more extreme weather events. Droughts, floods, cyclones, we are going to get more of those, but the countries that are most going to be impacted are the low-income countries and we have a duty, we have a responsibility. Coming together today is not just symbolic, it is important. This is indeed a short debate, but I echo Sarah Boyack's comment on the importance and perhaps the minister might wish to consider in due course the Government might bring forward a longer debate where we can consider this probably in the aftermath of COP28. Can I also offer my thanks to organisations like SKEAF and Oxfam, principally for the work that they do in terms of climate justice, but in the context of this debate the briefings that they provided which do make for very grim reading. There is no doubt or dispute that the climate emergency, is a global one. We have had immediate evidence in recent weeks that there is not really a part of the world that that climate emergency is not touching, but at the same time I think everybody recognises there is a gross imbalance in the way those effects are manifesting themselves now and will going forward. I think those impacts are economic. Christian AIDS set out some of the impacts that we are already seeing in terms of GDP per person the reductions in the global south. The health impacts, the excess deaths that we are seeing, figured from the WHO are truly alarming and set to get even worse. The loss of things like heritage of culture, of community things that it is very difficult to regain to rebuild if they are lost. I have had the privilege to be one of the co-conveniers of the Malawi cross-party group in this Parliament over a number of sessions and Malawi is perhaps not the worst affected in this regard in the global south but we have seen the devastating impacts that floods and droughts have had over the years and the effect it has in terms of diverting funds away from building resilience and encouraging a diversification in terms of crop production into the immediate urgent life-saving efforts that are required on the back of these devastating droughts and floods. For every step we take forward we seem to be taking 5, 10, 15 steps back and I do not think that the experience in Malawi is anyway different from other parts of the global south. In terms of the strides that were made forward first in terms of COP26 but then COP27 in terms of the establishment of the loss and damage fund is significant and I would certainly pay tribute to Nicola Sturgeon for her personal efforts and those of the Government she led in getting to that stage. I think that it was a significant diplomatic success but I think that she is equally right to the stalling of the progress that we saw last year. Whether it is around the World Bank's Administration whether it is about who pays for what and to what extent there is a loss of momentum there and losing momentum it is very difficult to regain it. Chris Stark, chair of the UKCCC was speaking to the convener's group earlier today it was in private session but what he was saying is different to what he was saying in public so I don't think I'm breaching any confidences but he was talking about the fact that Scotland, UK and indeed other countries around the world in terms of the industrialised north have gone through a sugar rush phase where they rush at the ambitions they rush to set targets and now seem to be finding themselves in the buyer remorse phase where they are struggling to work out how they realise that ambition they meet those targets it wasn't a particular criticism of any administration but it's a recognition of the fact that the easy thing is setting the targets the hard thing is then following through and we're seeing that with the loss and damage fund as well. I think COP28 as Chris Stark was indicating earlier today COP28 is likely to return to energy transition emissions reductions and adaptations issue and therefore that moment to capture and really embed loss and damage could be lost unless we get the progress we need to see over the coming weeks so I would finish by echoing simply what Nicola Sturgeon was saying in terms of the call to have the scale of those funding the funding allocated met not in terms of loans in saddling the global south with yet more debts but also ensuring and a plea to the minister to make sure that the Scottish Government steps up in terms of its own commitment to those funds but again I thank Maggie Chapman for allowing us the debate and I hope we can return to this at some point in the not too distant future. Thank you Mr MacArthur and I now call on cabinet secretary Mary McCallan to respond to the debate cabinet secretary. Thank you as many colleagues have reflected this afternoon recent events at home and around the world have served to make abundantly clear that climate change is happening here and it's happening now. In Scotland in October alone we have seen two highly unusual rainfall events including most recently Storm Babette which disrupted transport which destroyed infrastructure and crops which saw communities having to be evacuated and which tragically took lives in Scotland and across the UK and we also have the opportunity I want to offer my heartfelt condolences to those who are mourning the loss of a loved one and I want to pay tribute to all of our emergency responders and our resilience partners and the scores of volunteers who worked so hard to keep people safe in those frightening events. Those were not normal autumn rainfall events they saw a flood defence in Breakin which was designed to withstand a one in two hundred year event they saw that compromised. It is clear that Scotland is feeling the effects of climate change but equally that the health of our economy of our society and of course of our environment is now abundantly linked with how well we both mitigate climate change and adapt to its impacts. That's why on top of the £42 million that we provide for flood risk management annually we're making an extra £150 million available this term and it's why we've provided 12 million on coastal adaptation another front on which Scotland will experience climate change. In response to a number of colleagues who've rightly called for ambitious plans from the Scottish Government in line with the targets that this Parliament set it's why we're also determinedly preparing ambitious plans both a climate change plan on emissions abatement but equally an adaptation plan of course will rise to challenges like flooding and coastal erosion but as colleagues have rightly reflected as we take these actions in Scotland we have to be clear that communities throughout the world are squarely on the front line and principally these are communities in the global south and of course this is the inherent injustice of climate change its ability to exacerbate existing inequalities but also the fact that those who have contributed least to the problem are now first and most severely impacted and Maggie Chapman, Sarah Boyack and others were absolutely right to reflect the fact that historic systemic prejudice and inequalities have ensured that people within these communities are feeling climate impacts disproportionately that they fall disproportionately on women on children on those who are already marginalised and of course this is extending suffering, exacerbating poverty and creating risk of conflict now in Scotland as Nicola Sturgeon articulated we know that we have benefitted from the industrial processes which are driving climactic breakdown and therefore that we hold a moral responsibility to address the resultant loss and damage indeed we have sought to pioneer putting people and justice at the heart of our international climate policy for many years in 2012 the Scottish Government launched the world's first climate justice fund and as has been narrated a number of times this afternoon when we hosted the world at COP26 in Glasgow we became the first global north country to commit funding explicitly to address loss and damage in this regard I pay enormous tribute to my friend and my colleague Nicola Sturgeon who will not admit it herself first minister when no one else was willing to she stood up, she stood shoulder to shoulder with the global south with committed campaigners and she helped to broker the breaking of a three decade long impasse on this most important issue and I know that she will continue to champion it but she can be forever proud of that breakthrough and with humility we accept of course thank the cabinet secretary for giving way and absolutely concur with her comments about the leadership of Nicola Sturgeon on this issue but given the scale of loss and damage that we're seeing around the world at the moment I think some estimates put it at $580 billion by 2030 many other states are looking at going beyond just funding reparation and funding loss and damage they're also looking at establishing an international law in terms of climate justice where that's something that the Scottish Government would be open to considering about how we could embed this concept of ecocide in Scots law in the way that the EU are looking to adopt it in some states such as Belgium have already started to implement that cabinet secretary thank you absolutely it's an issue that I discussed with his green colleague Lorna Slater earlier today and we were talking about it in the context of the human rights bill to work with him on that but the point that I was going to make prior to the intervention was with humility we recognised that the sums that we have made available directly for loss and damage are exceptionally small compared with what is required in a global context but they have encouraged others to follow with around $300 million thought to be now globally pledged for loss and damage and I'm very proud of what the funding has delivered on the ground yes I will I'm a bit conscious of time but I'm glad too I appreciate the remarks around funding but I wonder if there's a way that Scotland could utilise soft power the way we've got global Scots for the business community I mentioned the waste management sector but in Scotland and Dundee we have the UK's only UNESCO international water law and policy centre where we have international students coming and actually using that vibrancy to get Scottish expertise globally linked to funding if possible but I appreciate the constraints might be something that you may consider cabinet secretary absolutely I welcome that and I like the idea of the global Scots for business being a model for that kind of work and Maurice Golden is right to reflect this point about soft power because our funding hasn't just been delivering on the ground in October 22 we hosted a conference which brought together international practitioners to articulate best practice on loss and damage and a key purpose of this was to listen to the views of marginalised groups and people from the global south and from that we successfully established deliberative dialogues on mobilising finance and on delivering climate change interventions and as part of all of that and the learning from our direct support programmes we have been exceptionally privileged to be able to feed in to some of the UNFCCC processes which are working not as well as I should like but to operationalise that COP 27 fund and of course that's in closing that's something that I will be looking to press when the First Minister and I hope to both attend the 28th UN climate conference later this year we will be calling upon all parties to support that urgent operationalisation of the UNFCCC loss and damage fund I'll be very happy as Liam McArthur suggested to bring the issue back to the chamber and to debate it more fully and I will also in advance be very keen to hear from colleagues from across the chamber about what they would like to see forward by Scotland there but the key point is that we urge all developed nations to bring forward loss and damage funding in a way as has been said which ensures the money is new is additional is adequate and it never exacerbates indebtedness and Nicola Sturgeon is absolutely right our ability to do this as a global community of nations will be a test for the global South's faith in the UNFCCC process and to conclude I would just say to that community that the Scottish Government stands with them and for climate justice thank you that concludes the debate and I close this meeting