 The next item of business is a debate in motion 278 in the name of Michael Matheson on addressing the climate emergency. I would invite members who wish to speak in the debate to press their request to speak buttons now. I call on Michael Matheson to speak to and move the motion. We are already seeing the impact of the global climate crisis here in Scotland, warmer temperatures with more extreme weather events, rising sea levels and the subsequent impact on the health and prosperity of our society and economy. That will only increase if temperatures continue to rise. It is estimated that every degree of warming in Scotland will cost us 1 per cent of our GDP, effectively eliminating the prospect of growing our economy. I want to lay the groundwork for the next five years of the Scottish Government's approach to tackling the climate crisis, to acknowledge what Scotland has achieved to date and the significant opportunities in delivering a green recovery and a fairer, more sustainable future. I want to be absolutely clear on the challenges the nation faces in achieving our goal and the critical decisions that we must take together. Scotland has taken a world-leading, distinctive and ambitious approach to tackling the twin crises of climate change and ecological decline, putting in place legislation, targets and governance to reduce emissions, to build our climate resilience and protect our environment, and critically, to do so in a just and fair way. We recognise that climate change is not just an environmental and economic issue, but also an opportunity to drive greater social justice. That is why a just transition to net zero is enshrined in law and we have put people at the heart of our international climate action. Scotland can be proud that we have already halved our greenhouse gas emissions since 1990. Indeed, as the UK Committee on Climate Change stated, Scotland has decarbonised more quickly than any G20 economy since 2008. We have already shifted almost 100 per cent of our electricity use to come from renewable sources and our funding for energy efficiency has benefited over 150,000 households since 2013. Drivers in Scotland benefit from 25 per cent more public charging points per person than England and double the public access than in Wales and Northern Ireland, thanks to the £45 million that we have invested to date in our electric vehicle infrastructure. Over the past two years, Scotland has created over 22,000 hectares of new woodland, approximately 80 per cent of the UK woodland creation, with our forestry industries now supporting around 25,000 jobs and generating £1 billion for our economy every year. What is already clear, however, is that the second half of the journey to net zero will be far more challenging. We must now achieve in the next 10 years what it has taken over the last 30 years. That will be a decisive and defining decade for us all. Our climate change plan update puts Scotland on a pathway to meeting its world-leading targets over the next decade, bringing together nearly 150 policies to drive our delivery. It includes a bold and credible package of measures to reduce emissions, such as our commitment to reduce car kilometres by 20 per cent by 2030, by encouraging more active travel and use of public transport tied to the development of 20-minute neighbourhoods, which will allow people to access key services close to where they live. Alongside reducing our emissions to net zero, we must also, as a nation, build our resilience to the impacts of global climate change, which is already locked in. Our climate change adaptation programme sets out more than 170 policies and proposals on how we are responding to the main climate risk for Scotland over the period to 2024. Our response to climate risks includes our ambitious 10-year programme for some £250 million of investment in peatland restoration, which will deliver co-benefits for climate change, biodiversity, flood management and water quality. Funding that has already helped to restore over 25,000 hectares of the graded Scottish peatland, an area that is almost the size of Edinburgh itself. The journey to net zero will transform every aspect of our lives—how we live, how we work and how we travel. I want Scotland to seize the opportunity that becoming a net zero society presents, growing our economy and enhancing our natural environment so that we can improve the health and wellbeing for all of our society. We need to make sure that our transition is a just transition, that in responding to changing climate that the journey is fair and it creates a better future for everyone, regardless of where they live, what they do and who they are. By capitalising on Scotland's strengths in energy, natural capital, innovation and on skilled workforce, we can be at the forefront of growing global low-carbon markets in the future. Opening the applications for local authorities to come forward to develop the first green growth accelerator projects today is one of the key steps that we are taking to unlock additional investment from a mission-reducing infrastructure that supports our transition. Supported this year by £1 million, the green growth accelerator will speed up delivery of low-carbon infrastructure projects right across Scotland and provide extra resource and technical support to local authorities to get projects off the ground more quickly. Once fully opened, the programme will unlock £200 million of public sector investment to drive our transition to net zero. Recent inward investment plan, which was published by the Scottish Government, identified energy transition and decarbonisation of transport as two areas of competitive strength here in Scotland. How we heat our homes is a perfect example. We estimate that some 24,000 jobs could be supported each year by the roll-out of zero-emission heat. Scotland needs to quickly go from niche to rapid deployment of new heat technologies, doubling our installations year on year per annum. I want to see green jobs and skills in a burgeoning clean heat sector and greener and more efficient homes and workplaces where across Scotland. I will give way to Mr Whittle. I thank the cabinet secretary for giving way. He will be aware that, in Glasgow, he is looking to deliver electric buses, quite a few of them, but it has been suggested that he will take up the same amount of energy as it would be to heat 10,000 homes. I ask the cabinet secretary what the Scottish Government plans are to develop the network to be able to deliver that kind of energy resource. Mr Whittle raised a very good point. I visited the Caledonian Depot just last week for the launch of the installation of the charging points. It is a programme that has been taken forward by three parties—the Scottish Government, First Bus and Scottish Energy Power Networks—in order to make sure that we capitalise on the capacity within the network in order to support the transition to electric vehicles, similar to the programme that we have in South Lanarkshire and the programme that we now have in the West Highlands with SSE networks to capitalise on the capacity within the network. It is a good point about making sure that we have the infrastructure in place to support that going forward. On the issue of domestic heating, regulation plays a key part in unlocking that transformation. Will we maximise our efforts in devolved areas, we need the UK Government to take urgent decisions on the future of the gas network to unlock longer-term planning and delivery? We also need a UK-wide approach to reforming our energy markets that puts consumers first aligned with our shared objective of net zero. While Government and Parliament have a clear role to play in a just transition to net zero, decisions on how we ensure the benefits as well as how the costs are equally distributed must be taken here in Scotland. It is imperative that we use all the levers available to us, including regulation such as the UK emission trading scheme and the financial incentives such as that offered by the Scottish National Investment Bank and other business supports. However, our ambition and action that we take as a Government will mean little if we do not bring people with us. In fact, the UK Committee on Climate Change estimates that more than 60 per cent of the changes needed will require at least some element of individual or societal behaviour change. Many habits and behaviours are ingrained over long periods of time, so behaviour change and demand management, alongside technological solutions, will be required. Therefore, in meeting our targets and enhancing the opportunities, we need to ensure that decisions and changes benefit the many rather than the few. That requires collective leadership as well as cross-sectorial collaboration. We have seen in Scotland how unplanned structural change in the past have left intergenerational scarring and deprivation. The recent opportunities arising from the rapid economic growth, globalisation and digitalisation have left many behind, with the costs and the benefits of Louis Schiff's being unequally distributed, often leading to inequality being exacerbated. The scale of the economic and social transformation that is necessitated by our transition to a net zero society requires us to make sure that we tackle some of the persistent inequalities such as child and fuel poverty. That is what it means to deliver a just transition, maximising economic, environmental and societal opportunities, while mitigating risk arising from vast system changes that need to be addressed. My mission, the Scottish Government's mission, and I would challenge this Parliament's mission, is to deliver lasting action towards our net zero future. That is of paramount importance as we move towards COP26 and as we seek to set the same levels of ambition and action as other global leaders. A mission that is set out in our first 100 days in our commitments alongside my own appointment and that of Richard Lockhead as minister for just transition. The actions and the commitments that I set out here are just a small example of where this Government has and will continue to lower emissions, support the creation of jobs and develop new skills while fostering a culture of innovation to lead us into a net zero future. I look forward to working with colleagues right across the chamber to provide collective leadership and clear support for actions towards a greener future, delivered through a just transition to net zero emissions, both here and internationally. I move the motion in my name. I call on Liam Kerr to speak to and move amendment 278.2. There are few things as urgent as tackling the climate emergency and preventing its disastrous consequences for people all over the world. The motion, which we shall vote for, describes it as a critical priority, and I think that it is correct to do so. Of course, both the UK and Scotland have some of the world's most ambitious climate change targets, but it is way beyond time to focus on delivery. I know that the cabinet secretary agrees with me on that. Throughout the afternoon, my colleagues will cover specific areas around progress on the journey to net zero. Maurice Golden will talk about the long-awaited circular economy bill. Brian Whittle will talk about the role of the private sector in driving technological change. Sharon Dowie in her maiden speech will look particularly at roads and associated emissions. For my part, I wish to explore three principal areas. First, I was interested by the motion's specific reference to restore nature. That is laudable, but again, we must start delivering. The cabinet secretary talked about biodiversity, but in 2011 Scotland signed up to the 20 IHE biodiversity targets. When NatureScot recently assessed Scotland against those 20 targets, it concluded that insufficient progress had been made and only nine of the targets had been met in full. In our manifesto, we committed to introducing a nature bill to strengthen environmental protections on land, in rivers and at sea. That would include new nature corridors to allow species to move between habitats, a commitment to redevelop derelict sites in towns and cities and green spaces, the piloting of new highly protected marine areas and increasing new tree planting to 18,000 hectares a year by 2024. We are convinced that those ideas still hold true. I hope that the cabinet secretary will meet with me in short course to discuss bringing some, if not all, of those measures forward. Secondly, we know from the Friends of the Earth Scotland briefing that transport is the largest sector in creating climate change emissions. We also know that there was increased car use across Scotland before the pandemic, up 7.7 per cent over the five years to 2018-19. This week's DFT figures suggest that British traffic is now nearly at pre-pandemic levels whilst public transport use remains around half to two thirds. Yet electric vehicles account for less than 6 per cent of the 3 million licensed vehicles on Scotland's roads. That was why I was pleased to see that central to the UK's industrial decarbonisation plan for a £12 billion green industrial revolution is more green transport. I think that we could be on the cusp of exponential growth in electric cars, but range anxiety, limited recharging networks and high purchase cost are holding this back. That is why I agree with the cabinet secretary about increases in infrastructure and why we must accelerate the programme by Charge Place Scotland to install a charging network. That will be helped by off-gen's announcement of £48 million of funding to support 23 projects, including more electric vehicle charge points and Shell's purchase of eubatricity and BP's purchase of Chargemaster to help, amongst other outcomes, to integrate EV charging with existing four courts. In light of the cabinet secretary's comments on delivery, perhaps in closing, the minister could set out her view on our manifesto promise to develop a new action plan to deliver a complete national charging infrastructure by 2025 and subsidise the installation of charging points in homes and workplaces. Staying with transport on rail, there is much to be done. Although it only accounts for 1.1 per cent of emissions, I was pleased to see that ScotRail reckoned there on track for net zero emissions by 2035. Part of that will be about electrification on the network, but given that only 25 per cent is currently electrified and there has been a cut of £33 million out of this year's rail infrastructure budget, that cannot be the whole solution. Part of it might be hydrogen trains. I am very pleased at the progress of the Scottish hydrogen train project at Bones and I will shortly look to present a paper to the cabinet secretary on the possibilities looking at hydrogen trains. Those are all incremental changes, where innovation, entrepreneurialism and collaborative work between public, private and academic sectors drive the changes that we need to see. Of course, nowhere is this more apparent than in the energy sector. No one, least of all the industry itself, denies that there is an issue. Extracting oil and gas within UKCS is directly responsible for around three and a half per cent of the UK's greenhouse gas emissions, yet the industry responds to that by setting targets to cut emissions by 50 per cent by 2030. 10 out of 15 oil and gas majors had by the end of 2020 and out of net zero emissions pledges backed by a 34 per cent increase in capex investment in the energy transition. It is an industry proactively working with Aberdeen University to set up the centre for energy transition. It is an industry making changes such that a recent study by RGU concludes that 10 years from now, most of the UK's offshore energy jobs will be in the low-carbon energy industry. This, of course, is supported by the UK's commitment to a 40 gigawatt offshore wind target, which is projected to help unleash around £20 billion of private investment in renewable energy by 2030. It is all evidence of the motion's call for a commitment to working together, as is the UK Government's transformative North Sea transition deal, which will invest up to £16 billion to reduce emissions and secure 40,000 jobs across the supply chain. I thank Liam Kerr very much for taking my intervention. Would he agree that, off-gem, at the moment, they are about to have a review that should have net zero in their mission, which they currently do not have in order to look at transmission charges? I think that it is a very important point. The more agencies are coming forward and stating that, yes, we need to be talking net zero, we need to be driving net zero, I think that there is something there, I think that it is a very reasonable intervention. Lorna Slater was right earlier this week. I am worried about the Greens. Like workers, families and businesses across the North East and Scotland, I am terrified of the consequences of them ever getting near the levers of power with their knee-jerk cliff edge intentions. Those workers heard Lorna Slater saying last year, it is her ambition to shut down the oil and gas sector within two to five years, despite oil and gas still supporting 100,000 jobs, providing three quarters of the UK's energy needs and meeting 70 per cent of demand last year. Members will recall that the IPCC published a special report on achieving global warming of 1.5 per cent degrees in October 2018, which states that carbon capture, utilisation and storage is an important tool for emissions reductions in meeting the Paris agreement goal. SSE thermal says that it could capture 1.5 million tonnes of CO2 annually. I know from his answer to my written question yesterday that the cabinet secretary agrees. He says that a proven technology, the Committee on Climate Change describes CCUS as a necessity, not an option, but the Green Party's view, page 16 of the manifesto, says that the party opposed public investment in carbon capture and storage as it is unproven. Members may have heard of the OGTC, which opened in 2017, with £180 million of support from both our Governments. Their mission statement says that our mission is to accelerate the oil and gas industry to a net zero future, developing and deploying technology to make the energy transition affordable, decarbonising hydrocarbons, unlock investment in carbon capture and storage, develop a low-carbon hydrogen economy and secure, sustainable, high-skilled jobs. It is great stuff. The Green Party's view, page 17 of the manifesto, specifically singles out by name the OGTC to demand that we do not support it. I am in my last minute, Mr Ruskell. The Green Party's policy of absolute zero emissions is neither realistic, practical nor in line with either UK or Scottish Government policy. It would put the economy of Scotland and especially the north-east and our genuine net zero ambitions at risk. There are several ways to approach the extraordinary challenges that we face. Certain MSPs prefer the slash and, ironically, burn approach based on dogma and ideology, which is a surefire route to economic and social chaos. There is an ambitious, forward-thinking, collaborative approach in which the public, private and academic work together to address the greatest challenge that we face, to support and indeed lead innovation and technology here in Scotland to create a net zero economy, not destroy the existing one. If the cabinet secretary wants to take this option, he will find a willing partner in the Scottish Conservatives. We will support the motion today and I move the amendment in my name. I now call on Monica Lennon to speak to and move amendment 278.1. Climate change and nature loss are undeniably the greatest global threats that we face, so we therefore welcome this debate today. My first is Scottish Labour's net zero energy and transport spokesperson. Of course, on these benches, we will miss the passion, knowledge and dedication to the environmental movement that Claudia Beamish brought to her parliamentary work. She is a loss to this chamber, however, we know that Claudia's commitment to tackling the climate and nature crises will very much continue. I am grateful to Sarah Boyack for her leadership on these vital issues, and I am pleased that we will be hearing from Sarah later on in the debate, and I look forward to hearing from my new colleague, Mercedes Villalba, making her first speech. Of course, I wish all new members the very best. Scottish Labour will be supporting the motion at decision time. We fully share the concerns and ambitions to addressing the climate and biodiversity crises and strongly agree that we need a green recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic. While our words and votes in this chamber matter, our actions outside the chamber matter more. We need to act fast, and we cannot afford any more missed opportunities. In a few months' time, the eyes of the world will fall on Scotland when we welcome the COP26 conference to Glasgow. That will be a crucial milestone, commencing the decade in which Paris agreement measures take effect, and where significant emissions cuts are required to limit global warming to one and a half degrees. Scottish Labour would like the Scottish Government to lead, for example, and we will support every endeavour towards that. We agree with SCIAF that we have made some really important points to think about ahead of COP, including that we must confront deep carbon inequality, because those who have done the least to cause the climate crisis are suffering the most. With the right action, Glasgow and Scotland can help to put the world on the road to recovery that is green, just and fair. Excuse me a moment, I have a drive-throat. That takes me to our amendment today. We need action, and that is why we have prioritised a circular economy bill into our amendment. According to friends of the earth, and colleagues will know this, a circular economy would save Scotland 11 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions by 2050, a quarter of our current total. The bill must include targets to reduce material footprint and carbon footprint, including emissions that are embedded in imported goods and services. It would not surprise the cabinet secretary to hear me raise the issue of incinerators, because we had this discussion earlier today in the chamber. New incinerators built now will lock us into years of wasting resources by burning them instead of reducing, reusing and recycling. In a member's debate in the last Parliament, I urged the Government not to turn us into an ash-heap nation. Worringly, large-scale incinerators continue to be proposed in my region and across Scotland. Central Scotland, the Dovesdale action group, has campaigned tirelessly. Although the commitment into a review of the role of incineration in the West Hierarchy is welcome, without a moratorium on building new incinerators, it will simply be too late. I was coming to mention Maurice Golden, but I will give way. Does the member agree with me that it is an absolute disgrace that 30,000 tonnes of recycled waste were sent to be burnt last year in Scotland? I do agree that it is horrifying. Although we can all do more to tackle our throwaway culture, we need big system change, and that is why regulation is so important. I confess that I may have lobbied Maurice Golden to set up a cross-party group on circular economy, and now the whole Parliament knows. If anyone wants to volunteer to be the secretary, I get in touch with myself or Maurice Golden. On the issue of that throwaway culture, we all need faster action, including on fast fashion. I want to name-check a business in my area in North Lanarkshire called Bag the Dress, and they specialise in selling pre-loved occasion-wear, bridal dresses and so on. It is really interesting, but we all need to do more to encourage lifestyle changes, but to get that big system change that Maurice Golden has talked about. With COP26 just around the corner, again Scotland can lead the way in tackling the pollution and waste created by the fashion and textile industry, and we all want to see progress on a bill. Last week, I had the pleasure of attending the launch of the Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland, and one of the guest speakers was the UN special rapporteur on human rights and environment, Professor David Boyd. He was really interesting, but the real stars of the event were the young people from the children's Parliament. You can see that tackling climate crisis has been a key issue for the children's Parliament since its inception 25 years ago, beginning with the EcoCity project. More recently, it is investigating for the climate assembly. Some of its ideas are brilliant and so simple to implement a national tree planting day, which is close to my heart, as the oak champion in the last parliamentary session on banning plastic packaging and single-use plastics. I have also met young campaigners from Teach the Future, and they are fighting for climate justice. Their research and passion has convinced me that we need to embed climate justice within the heart of the curriculum. That is why, on our amendment today, we are asking the Government and indeed Parliament to agree to that. Although progress has been made—I recognise that—on behalf of the Government, there is more that we need to do to embed climate education into our classrooms. That is a cause that should unite all of us. Beyond embedding climate justice in education for our young people, we must embed climate solutions into people's everyday lives. I joined up an approach across Government and business and across all of society. We need greater investment in public transport and active travel to reduce emissions. We cannot allow rhetoric to triumph over reality. In my area, the loss of the X-1 bus, a crucial link between Hamilton and Glasgow, has been devastating. I would welcome a meeting with the transport minister on this if he could find the time. More broadly, the STUC are right when they talk about the need for a people's recovery and investment in a green new deal. We need serious investment in infrastructure and renewable technology. Can I ask the member to bring her remarks to close, please? Of course. In conclusion, there will be lots that we agree on today. I hope that the chamber will support our amendment and I move the amendment in my name. I now call on Mark Ruskell to speak to and move amendment 278.3. I think that, like so many people across Scotland around the world, I have been deeply inspired and moved by the school climate strikes. I feel ashamed, particularly as a father, by the burden that we are set to leave on future generations. At the same time, I am hopeful and positive that a greener, fairer future is possible. I think that we have all the tools in the box to tackle the climate and nature emergencies. We just need the political will to break from business as usual and drive that transformational change. It is fair to say that so far we have enjoyed a fairly leisurely pace of change. An early retire of coal-fired power stations, a first wave of onshore wind development, recycling of household waste have all helped to halve emissions over the past 30 years, but halving them again in the next nine years demands an absolute step change and tokenism just won't deliver. System change, deep system change will be needed to tackle climate change. I think that it's a real test for this Parliament for our committees and the political culture that we create here. It will mean making hard decisions that will not please everyone in the short term, but it is about seeing those decisions through and making the transition work so that no one is left behind. It will mean sharing thinking and ownership of the solutions and taking some political risks. That's a challenge for everyone and every party in this chamber, including the Greens. Looking at the climate change plan, which is our only real route map to net zero in this Parliament, there are major challenges in there. We all know, for example, that the 20% reduction in vehicle mileage target is attempting to reverse a trend of traffic growth that has been relentless for the best part of 70 years. Like many people in this chamber, I grew up with access to a family car and I benefited from it as have my children. However, our over dependence on the private car is not only killing the planet, it's ruining our health and wellbeing, it's dominating the public space needed for economic regeneration in our towns while excluding many people because of their age, disability or income. I'm pushed for time with opening. I've got four minutes, Mr Kerr, but I'll come back to you later on. A target like that won't be met without transformative change and investment. If we want our towns to move and feel like Copenhagen, we're going to have to act now and make non-essential car use a harder choice than public transport, walking, cycling and wheeling. Likewise, if we want communities reconnected to the rail network and get freight off the roads and onto rail, that means diverting a big chunk of trunk road capital spending into that priority. We will at times disagree on more challenging ideas such as workplace parking levies, but if the solutions are rejected by parties in this chamber, there is also a responsibility on those parties to put forward better solutions rather than backing a status quo that is now completely untenable. The Green amendment mentions the 166 improvements to the climate change plan called for by four committees of the last parliament just a couple of months ago. A remarkable level of cross-party consensus at a time when we've needed ideas and action like never before, it is a responsibility of this new administration to respond meaningfully to that will of parliament and bring forward a revised climate plan as early as it possibly can in this session. Time is not running out, Deputy Presiding Officer. It has already run out. Urgency, drive, innovation and a can-do attitude from all of us is needed, and it has to start today. I move the amendment in my name. Thank you Mr Ruskell. I now call on Alex Cole-Hamilton to speak to and move amendment 278.4. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I'm very grateful with the chance to speak in what I hope will be a genuinely constructive debate today. As the Government's motion sets out, tackling the climate emergency must be a shared and national endeavours. That's why Scottish Liberal Democrats are proud of the part that we have played in working with others to force the pace of change so far. Our 2030 target for 75% reduction in emissions, which Scottish Liberal Democrats supported and worked hard to secure with others, is one of the most determined in the entire world. Experts recognise that those targets push us to the very brink of what is possible. Chris Stark, the chief executive of the UK Committee on Climate Change, recently described it as very, very stretching. Now the work of making that target a reality really needs to bite, because more warm words will just make for an even warmer planet, and the measure of our commitment will not be ascertained in the ambition of the targets that we set, but in the rate and reach of their achievement. My amendment today speaks to the very specific challenges presented by the transport sector, and that is what I intend to spend much of my time discussing. We do not have a chance of meeting our climate change targets, unless options for transport are truly rapidly and radically decarbonised. The First Minister said that she recognised that in her reshuffle and arranged the portfolios accordingly. I welcome that. In 2015, transport became Scotland's single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. It accounts for more than a third of all our emissions. Progress has been made in other sectors, but transport has not bunched. Presiding officer, if that does not change, we are in trouble. That has to be one of the main missions of this Parliament, because car travel has been on the increase since the end of World War 2. In 2019, 48.7 billion vehicle kilometres were travelled by road. That is up 10 per cent in a decade. The pandemic means that people are understandably nervous about getting back into the groove of using public transport. Surveys have already shown that people are even more inclined to favour their cars above other forms of travel. Getting people out of their cars is one of our biggest challenges. On active travel, let us not shy away from the issue as it stands. We have failed to make Scotland a cycling nation. My critics will point to the fact that I personally helped to lead a campaign that forced the city of Edinburgh to shelve plans for a low-traffic neighbourhood in my constituency. That is entirely true. Presiding officer, I oppose that scheme, not because I oppose active travel. I do not far from it. I oppose it because, had the city bothered to ask my community, it would have discovered that they were closing routes into an area that was largely low traffic to begin with. By doing that, it would compound congestion and pollution on arterial routes. I passionately support the principle of LTMs. I like what they have achieved in Waltham Forest, but I particularly like the five public consultations and co-production that went into its creation, none of which took place in my constituency. That is a great shame, because the council knows best the approach to strong-arm constituents into permanent lifestyle change has certainly set back the active travel agenda in our city. It is typical of a disconnect between political aspiration and delivery on the ground. A 10 per cent target for 2020 completely failed to materialise, and the last September statistics showed that the share of car journeys taken by bikes was falling to 1.2 per cent, but simply cycling needs to be made as easy as possible. Lockdown showed that when people feel that cycling is a safer option, they are eager to take it up with quieter roads. Whole families were taking the opportunity to get out and to get active in a safe and sustainable way. The streets of Amsterdam, Presiding Officer, we are not filled with bikes by accident. Their Governments gave them the infrastructure and the support that they needed so that people young and old could feel safe and secure and uncomfortable enough to get on their bikes. There are so many things that we could do here in Scotland to help people to feel exactly like that. We could help planning processes to make sure that roads have the space for everyone to be kept safe, to make funding available for facilities such as showers and changing rooms and workplaces, and to get cycling proficiency in schools back on track. At the moment, its availability is plummeting, and that makes no sense at all. For the journeys where active travel is not an option, electrification must be the way forward. Again, confidence is going to be key. Half of people say that they would consider buying an electrical vehicle if they felt that the charging network was there to support them. We want to help them along the way by switching over council vehicles, police cars and the rest of the public sector. That would help to motivate the charging network to roll out and build people's confidence so that it can make that switch. My amendment signs off with a challenge. Heathrow is already the single brigist producer of emissions in the whole of the UK. A third runway would go directly against all our green ambitions. The flights that would come to Scotland alone as a result would release 600,000 tonnes of emissions into our environment. Despite that, the SNP has a contract to support the building of that third runway. That flies in the face of the climate emergency and everything that we are trying to achieve. I am afraid that I am in my last minute. When the First Minister stood in this Parliament and declared a climate emergency, we were told that difficult decisions would have to be made and that everything would now be under review. Everything, it seems, except for that contract. That cannot be allowed to stand. As such, I urge all of the colleagues in this chamber to support my amendment and I move it in my name. I now call on Fula Hyslop to participate in the debate. I welcome the cabinet secretary to his new role. Of course, climate emergency issues need to run through every portfolio as a central backbone. I agree that a green recovery must embed just transition and just transition commission needs to be central to our work. I agree that biodiversity crisis needs to be addressed alongside the climate emergency. I would like to pay tribute to Roseanna Cunningham for her work on the Edinburgh declaration and to Roseanna Cunningham and Stuart Stevenson for their previous leadership on climate change. We all need to constantly challenge ourselves what more can we do, how faster can we go to make an impact. It is 14 years since I made a speech in this chamber as a back-bencher and I want to reflect on my own lernithgo constituency but also reflect on some of the global and national issues. We need shared ambition, constructive accountability and an attitude that we are all leaders in this mission. Internationally, global political leadership no longer can put off, abrogate or dilute action or responsibility. Cultural climate diplomacy matters and the virtual miles of the UK Government need to be delivering now as host of the COP26, if the November summit only months away is to be effective. The US is increasing ownership of that global role. It may be a welcome reflection of its new president but I hope that it is not about filling of any vacuum. COP26, yes, is a showcase that Scotland must use as a demonstrator of our capabilities but, at the end of the day, it has to be about binding decisions between state governments to produce action. Nationally, this Parliament set out our ambitions on carbon reduction and it did so collectively. Scotland's targets may be extremely challenging but all parties support them so we bear collective responsibility. I warn that there will be difficult decisions to be made to deliver those targets and the need for a composition cherry-picking decisions that we do not like must and will be called out. However, we can come together to support the Scottish Government's Circular Economy Bill and the billion-pound national infrastructure plan to catalyse emission reductions and the green accelerator that is announced today. We have public bodies, all of whom must contribute. We have a Scottish National Investment Bank, capitalised with £2 billion of investment within net zero core mission. Historic Environment Scotland is a world initiator, driving change along with California on the science, technology and sales needed in that sector and founding the global climate heritage network. Turning to community and constituency, many of my constituents pre-pandemic use car commute to Edinburgh and Glasgow and, with hybrid working 25-minute neighbourhoods, cycle, park and ride and the new planned witch for rail station. We can deliver a step change in commuter emissions. The community in the Lithgow town has driven practical change, selling two community bonds funded by local people, providing ethical investment for local sports clubs, organisations and businesses to deliver local community energy, including solar panels. It provides better interests than banks, helps to invest in local community energy, helps clubs to save money and also creates a surplus. That is scalable. The Lithgow community development trust is making sure that they are building on the work of the community groups and churches throughout the pandemic and building on many of the successful transition initiatives to develop new climate action. I support their belief that communities need to be empowered and funded directly to be able to run local energy schemes to make that systemic shift of change happen. That is a whole-town approach. There is an aim to be the first net zero town in Scotland. I would ask the minister, Mary McCallan, in closing, if he would consider accepting an invitation to visit my constituency to hear about the developments in the Lithgow to date and the plans for the future. Locally, many of my constituents work in Mitsubishi, who employ over 1,000 people producing commercial heat pumps. That technology use in housing retrofits will develop skills, growing jobs and turning to other businesses. Digital innovation and technology are key. I am a keen supporter of hydrogen and we need to not only research and pilot but to implement and develop supply chains with the Government's 100 million fund and follow up on the positive German and other international interests. On industry, we cannot and must not offshore trading emissions and the careful industrial balance to prevent this will be key. Renewable energy transmission costs in Scotland are punitive prohibitive and they must be changed. We need sexual approaches. Food and drink tourism are examples of sectors with serious plans already delivering and culture has much to offer. On construction, the greenest building is one that is already built. When you look at energy involved in aggregates, extractions and transportation and a simple, quick measure of that reduction for construction work from UK Government on existing buildings to match that of new, it is a simple and rapid measure. I am also pleased to see that the built environment is being prioritised in the Scottish Government's draft heat and building strategy and must be in the green skills academy along with energy. On finance, our business minister yesterday virtually welcomed 3,000 delegates from 100-plus countries to the global ethical finance summit as a staging post to COP26. With shared ambition, sharing responsibility, constructive accountability to support drive change and an attitude that we are all leaders in this place, we can serve constituency, community and country, and we might have a fighting chance to help to save humanity internationally from itself and make an impact. I would like to start by thanking each and every person who voted for the Scottish Conservative and Unionist party in the south of Scotland and to all those who helped me in my campaign. I would also like to pay tribute to John Scott. John Scott served in this place for 21 years. He has helped thousands of constituents and made a huge difference in his community. I would like to thank him personally for all his encouragement, wish him well and hope that he can now enjoy a well-earned rest and spend more time with his wife Sheila and her family. I am not a career politician. I am a lassie from Maybowl. I have worked since I was 14, the last 35 years in retail. I entered politics because I want to make a difference. I have the honour and privilege of being able to represent the area where I was born and grew up, Carrick, Cumnuck and Dune Valley and also the area that is now my home here. I feel lucky to live in one of the most beautiful and diverse parts of Scotland. Other members may have said this of their areas, but I intend to use my time here to change their mind. I was born and given, now famous for its palace, the Gin Palace that is at Grant's distillery, the home of Hendricks Gin and Grant's whisky, among others. For those who want a taste of Ayrshire, we can offer more than Gin. The south-west of Scotland has the potential to be a premier tourist destination in the UK. Robert Burns, Clain Castle, Dumfries House, Heads of Air Farm Park, Craig Tara, Dark Skies, superb golf courses, including Turnbury, where the golf course is even more famous than its celebrity owner. We are not forgetting the main route to the port of Cairnryne, the link to Ireland. We boast nationally and internationally renowned businesses. Nestle, Maculothrail and Ballantree begs in air, Emergency 1, EGA and the many aerospace companies that press week. We have colleges, a university, an airport and a talented local workforce, but with all that in our favour, we are being left behind by a lack of investment in this forgotten corner of Scotland. 27 per cent of children in Ayrshire live in poverty, compared to 23 per cent in Scotland as a whole, while unemployment rates for 18 to 24-year-olds 12.8 per cent compared to 8.3 per cent nationally. Last week, as I listened to speeches from other members, I was encouraged to hear Kate Forbes say, we know that to achieve a successful recovery, we must ensure that no one is left behind. Well, Presiding Officer, it is time for the Scottish Government to put its money where it's mouth is. Ayrshire is being left behind, and I challenge this Scottish Government to change that. The Ayrshire growth deal, a collaboration between the UK Government, the Scottish Government and the three Ayrshire councils, will bring a much-needed boost, but investment barely goes further south in press week airport. To encourage investment and growth further south, we badly need investment in our infrastructure. Jeweling of the A77 is a priority. Currently, there is no plan of where this would be rooted, let alone funded. The A70 is also badly in need of an upgrade, dealing with traffic enroute to the Port of Cairnryan. South Ayrshire would be in a prime position for a free port if we were not being let down so badly by the poor quality of local roads. On top of all that, countless people have been affected by unnecessary crashes that regularly occur on those two roads, while emissions continue to blight to town centres like Girvan. That brings to mind comments from Fergus Ewing last week. He noted that one key element of a vibrant economy is good, safe and reliable transport links. He went on to say, it may not be widely known, but the risk of serious head-on collisions is far greater on non-drilled roads because there is no crash barrier and we are not anti-roads, we are anti-emissions. That was echoed by the Minister for Trade, Ivan McKee, who said, I will ensure that my colleague the Minister for Transport takes on board this point about the drilling of transport links. Of course, I am delighted that we have achieved cross-party consensus so soon, and I look forward to sitting down with the Scottish Government at the nearest opportunity to discuss their plans to upgrade South Ayrshire's roads. In this debate about addressing the climate emergency, I cannot finish without also mentioning the environmental ticking time bomb that is Turbolton Moss landfill site, a site that was closed three years ago and reportedly since been seeping pollution and gases into the environment, a situation that SIPA and the Scottish Government are well aware of, yet we are still waiting for action to be taken. With the recent report on the quality of bathing water at Ayr beach, questions need to be raised as to whether the two are connected. In a new study on the dirtiest water at the UK's beaches, seven out of the top 10 were in Scotland with three being in South Ayrshire. It is simply not good enough. From someone who has just started in this place, I am full of enthusiasm and look forward to making a difference in all of our communities. We have a responsibility in this chamber to lead by example. We have a right to know the truth, and the statements and answers that we hear should reflect that. And so, Presiding Officer, to conclude, I have three asks. Stop hiding and delaying reports to this chamber and start using the knowledge and expertise in this place to fix them. Stop talking about what you are going to do and start delivering. And stop the division and start rebuilding. Thank you. I now call Julian Martin to be followed by Mercedes Villalba and it will be Mercedes Villalba's first speech to our Parliament. So we all know what the targets are. Now we need the action and the system change to deliver on them. There is a lot to cover in the motion, but I want to specifically concentrate on one element of it, and that is just transition. I spoke many times in this chamber on this issue as it is affecting my constituents right now. A just transition is essential for people who work in high-carbon industries, and in Aberdeenshire's case that is those working directly in oil and gas, and the people who rely on the supply chain for their living. It is also the economic health of the communities that those workers live in, who will be adversely affected if that is not done right. Over the past couple of years, I have lost count of the amount of friends and neighbours who are unsuccessfully trying to exit the oil and gas sector with a view to working in the renewable energy sector in particular. We are talking highly skilled and experienced people here. One of my friends who I will not name is a former project manager in the drilling sector, and he could not even secure a delivery driver job once he lost his job, and he has now gone to work in the Middle East without his family with him out of sheer necessity. Off the back of hearing this anecdotal evidence of difficulty, once re-elected, I launched a survey for oil and gas workers to get on record their experiences of transitioning. I have had a quite incredible response. The survey will remain open during the summer to give people time to complete it. As many in this chamber will know, because I have mentioned it quite a few times, my parents moved from Clydebank in the 1970s to Aberdeenshire because there was not a just transition for those working in heavy engineering. It is fair to say that they were the lucky ones. Moving gave my dad a new career in oil and gas and a secure future for our family, but many of his friends in Clydebank never worked again, and some of them even moved to Canada to avoid unemployment. We cannot have a repeat of what happened to Scottish mining, steel and shipbuilding communities in the 1980s, but it just is not enough to say so. We need to urgently find out what the issues are and how to work with the sectors to address them as quickly as possible. The funding for the North East, which was delivered by my colleague Fiona Hyslop last year, is hugely welcome, as is young persons guaranteeing green jobs fund, but there are other structural and regulatory difficulties that we really need to look at, although not all of them are directly in the hands of the Scottish Government. 11 years ago, the SNP predicted that there would be 28,000 jobs in offshore wind by 2020, but I think there are only 1,400 today. Is the member able to detail any actions being taken that would reassure the workforce who is rightly flagging? I am glad that Liam Kerr mentioned that. It swings back to the intervention that I made on him. One of the reasons is that there are not the same amount of jobs that we have predicted as a regulatory issue. One issue that comes up time and time again is the amount of jobs in renewables that Liam Kerr has led beautifully on to that part of my speech. Last week, I put a topical question on one of those blockers, fulfilling our potential in renewables. It was not chosen so I will reference it now and maybe the minister might want to pick up on it in their closing remarks. A report by Renewable UK highlights that the transmission charges for Scotland's electricity are dramatically higher compared to others in the UK market, specifically south of England. Power generators located in the north of Scotland pay 16 times more for using the transmission system compared to many EU countries that are exporting electricity into our grid. I want to ask whether our homegrown renewable sector potential will be limited because of those unfair charges. What is the job potential that we are losing out on? As I said in the intervention to Liam Kerr off-gem, he has recently indicated that it is considering a full review of locational charging within the significant code review. However, off-gem is not currently required to regulate for the delivery of net zero. Therefore, it has no legal basis for making changes to the charging regime to reflect this policy objective and to make electricity for renewables more competitive. The majority of people in Scotland would like to have electricity coming from renewables. I would like the minister to outline what representations that have been made to the UK Government on those points on and off-gem. I will use the rest of my time to deliver direct quotes from some of the respondents to my survey as a little bit of a teaser for when we put it into a report. They will pinpoint other things that really need addressing as we put just transition and green jobs plans into place. A female chemical engineer of 10 years experience in oil and gas said that there should be an accessible framework that allows people to clearly see where their core skills can be transferred into existing roles within the renewable sector, tangible pathways to identify a route and role destination in the renewable sector that is essential. A male oil and gas worker with 21 years experience said, I have been made redundant and cannot find full-time work. The cost of global wind organisation certificates is prohibitive. A male oil and gas worker with over 30 years experience said this. Transfer the skills and stop having to train to do a petal, GWO and STCW as the courses are basically the same. Just amalgamate them. This would save out-of-work people a huge amount of money. A female engineer with over 20 years experience said, Is the professional training that could be offered part-time in the evenings that oil and gas professionals like me could undertake while still in employment, this would encourage my active transition instead of waiting until I am made redundant and have no choice. I look forward to formalising more of the testimony that those people have provided with in a report in late summer, which I will send to the cabinet secretary and to industry bodies. I call Mercedes Villalba. This is Ms Villalba's first speech in the chamber. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in today's debate on the climate emergency because it is an issue that I care deeply about and which is especially relevant to the people in the north-east. The north-east is where I was elected to represent by people who entrusted Scottish Labour with their vote. I stood for Scottish Labour because Labour in Parliament is the political wing of the wider Labour movement. That is important because workers in my region and in the rest of Scotland need parliamentarians who will be on their side and who will fight for them and who will fight for the planet. I make this link between people and planet because tackling the climate emergency and improving workers' rights go hand in hand because climate justice is inextricably linked to economic and social justice. There are two fundamental challenges facing us. The class inequality that still blights our society and smothers the potential of millions and the climate emergency that threatens life on earth. For too many, work is defined by low-pay, zero-hours contracts and unsafe conditions, all in order to maximise profits for those who already have more than enough. At the same time, those at the top are fuelling climate catastrophe by destroying habitats, polluting our air and poisoning our oceans. The root cause of both insecure low-paying work and disasters like the pandemic is our economy. The capitalist system has consistently prioritised short-term profit over long-term sustainability and quality of life. Why are people homeless while properties lie empty because it makes someone money? Why are people forced to choose between eating and eating even though we have ample food and limitless potential for renewable energy because it makes someone money? And why are people in poorer countries priced out of life-saving vaccines because it makes someone money? It makes someone money and because for too long Governments have been enthralled to the idea that privatisation leads to better services. Climate change, public health and unemployment are all intrinsically linked by our economic system. This has done great damage to our society and to our planet. The great opportunity that we have is that we can tackle both by implementing a socialist, green new deal with democratic public ownership at its heart. Energy, water, transport, mail and telecommunications are natural monopolies that should serve the people, not profit. More than that, there are also tools in the work of building a healthy society and planet. We are going to need to retrofit our homes to reduce carbon emissions and end fuel poverty. That means job creation. We will need electrified and expanded public transport to boost our city centres, connect communities and reduce car use and pollution. That means job creation. We will need to green our public spaces, creating active travel routes, biodiverse green corridors and accessible parks. That means job creation, but not just any jobs. We must strengthen trade unions and promote worker ownership so that, when we create these jobs, we build an economy that is resilient and fair for all. We can do this by ensuring a just transition from carbon intensive sectors through a streamlined retraining programme and the guarantee of unionised pay. By using public procurement to promote decarbonisation, restore the environment and guarantee fair work at home and further afield through international supply chains. Our Green New Deal must be global. Unless we cancel debt and freely share technology and resources, we condemn those that are least responsible for climate change to bear the brunt of its effects. If the pandemic has taught us one thing, it is that we are all connected. A pandemic that began thousands of miles away has wreaked havoc on society right here. So the choices that we make in Scotland on our environment and our economy are equally momentous. So we must choose a sustainable and fair economy. We must choose to empower workers and we must choose to create a society that values people and planet over profit. We must do so because, in the end, there really is no other choice. Thank you. Thank you. I call Lorna Slater to be followed by Emma Harper. As I am keen on co-operative and consensus building politics, I was very pleased to read a copy of the cross-party committee recommendations on tackling the climate emergency that was produced during the last session of Parliament. Those are the 166 recommendations mentioned in Mark Ruskell's amendment. Those represent 166 actions that this Parliament has already agreed are necessary to tackle the climate crisis and can be the basis for a credible pathway to meeting the ambitious targets that have been set by this Parliament. Targets are all very well, but now let us have action. A report from the international energy agency last month said that for global temperatures to stay within 1.5 degrees celsius, there must be no new investment in fossil fuel projects. However, the UK Tory Government has refused to rule out new licenses for additional exploration and production of oil and gas in the North Sea. According to a survey out yesterday, barely one in four, only 27 per cent of people support this. Most people in the UK, 63 per cent, want the UK Government to switch billions of pounds of public money away from North Sea oil and gas and fund low-carbon industries instead. As I mentioned last week, I am deeply skeptical of the UK's North Sea transition deal, because the entire premise of it is that the UK Government intends to give yet more money to oil and gas companies to allow them to extract and burn yet more fossil fuels in the hope that they can invent and implement new carbon capture technologies fast enough to still meet our climate targets. They cannot. It is not possible. It is a fantasy. Carbon capture is needed to absorb out of the atmosphere the carbon that is already in it. It is not a free pass to keep burning this stuff. It is needed to keep us from reaching 3.5 degrees of global warming. We need to use the time that we have and the resources that we have. I would be interested to hear the member talk about that, but does the member still wish to shut down the oil and gas industry within the next four years? I am delighted—you will be delighted—that the entire manifesto was written by the party and is not up to me to say, so we will be going with what is in the manifesto. You will be delighted to hear. According to the survey, almost two thirds of Scots support the creation of a concrete plan to wind down the existing extraction of oil and gas in the North Sea and other waters around the UK, so the approach to wind down the industry has wide public support. I am more than happy to talk about a specific timeline that would make the member happy. Fortunately, within those 166 cross-party recommendations from the last session of Parliament, there is plenty of good news that I see on jobs, which I know is of concern to the Scottish Conservatives in particular when it comes to the North Sea. Among the recommendations are proactively considering future workforce needs and supporting people into green jobs, collecting better data to monitor trends in jobs to ensure that this support goes where it is needed. There will be a lot of jobs to be had in forestry and peatland restoration if we invest in those things. I see that there is cross-party support for funding, for retraining and jobs guarantees for young people. We, of course, would like to see a jobs guarantee for oil and gas workers as well. I see lots of support for the growing rural talent initiative for rural jobs. I see recommendations for investing in the green jobs fund and more. Those are things that we have already agreed on. This is a great start. Let's do the work to join up the practical recommendations to create the jobs that we need to recover from the pandemic and allow a planned phase out of oil and gas extraction. Worldwide, we are in the midst of a climate and biodiversity emergency, and it is actions of leaders across the world in the next five years that will determine the future of our world for future generations. We know that the science is real, climate change is real and human activities are the main cause. Scientifically, we are now firmly in the Anthropocene, a period of unstable global warming, where global temperature has risen by 1.1 degrees in the last hundred years. This temperature increase has caused immense damage, but it is not too late to act. I grew up watching Sir David Attenborough and have witnessed his shift to be more protectionist of our environment and biodiversity. At 95 years old, Sir David stated that he just can't stand by, and I agree. In his new TV show, he says, that we are at a unique stage in our history, never before have we had such an awareness of what we humans are doing to the planet, and never before have we had the power to do something about it. The future of humanity and indeed all of life and earth now depends on us. Those are powerful words from Sir David that we must all heed. What we have learned during the pandemic is that society is able to come together to take radical action for the common good. As we head into recovery from Covid-19, we must keep that spirit alive to build a sustainable recovery. In Scotland, we are already delivering to address both the climate and biodiversity emergencies. In government, the SNP has been the first country in the world to declare a climate emergency and have since passed legislation for the world's most ambitious emissions reduction targets to bring us to net zero emissions by 2045. We have already halved our greenhouse gas emissions since 1990, and we are world-renowned for having underpinned our net zero targets with a legislative commitment to adjust transition, ensuring that no one is left behind. We have committed to a green recovery from Covid-19 and announced £62 million investment in an energy transition fund. We have been active on the world stage, leading the Edinburgh process on biodiversity and publishing the Edinburgh declaration, calling for increased action to tackle biodiversity loss. Scotland is playing our part, but we must have an international approach and we must have a local approach that takes our communities and citizens with us on this vital journey. Scotland is leading the way in tree planting in the UK, with 82 per cent of UK woodland being in Scotland. In 2019-20, we planted 11,050 hectares of new woodland, exceeding our annual 10,000 hectares target. That is extremely welcome. However, if we are to be truly serious about addressing the climate and biodiversity emergency, we will need to change land use as we currently understand it and focus on forest and woodland, peatland and renewable energy. I am contacted by some constituencies who have concerns about proposed forestry, woodland and wind farm developments across the south of Scotland. Those concerns range from the percentage of citrus fruits compared with the percentage of native broadleaf species that are planted. Concerns are also raised over the visual impact of offshore and onshore wind farm development. I am interested in pursuing thorough community engagement for offshore wind to be created if it brings good green jobs and much needed community benefit, especially to Wictonshire in my south Scotland region. I am pleased to see the commitment from the Government in the revised climate change plan to hold early engagement consistent communication and genuine dialogue between different groups and communities. I would ask the cabinet secretary to outline how this engagement will be done and whether local authority planning frameworks will be changed to enable development given their urgent need. This Government has funded the restoration of over 25,000 hectares of degraded Scottish peatland. Some of that funding has come directly to the Crichton Carbon Centre and the Galloway Fisheries Trust in the Freeson Galloway, where peatland expert Dr Emily Taylor and the team are restoring over 17,000 hectares of peat in the river loose catchment area. Important work, as peatlands are capable of absorbing and storing 50 per cent more carbon than some of our trees. When I visited a peatland restoration project with Dr Taylor at Corsgow and Moss near Wigtown, we measured the peat bog at six metres deep. That is good because deep peat is normally measured at 40 centimetres. One issue that Dr Taylor raised with me was that there is currently no international agreed definition of deep peat. Given that peatlands have a proven ability to sequester carbon, I asked if the cabinet secretary could pursue an international agreed level of peat so that carbon sequestration can be calculated more efficiently. I welcome this debate and the progress being made on the climate and biodiversity crisis in Scotland, but I repeat the need for international cooperation and on bringing people with us on this journey. I call Maurice Golden to be followed by Alex Rowley. I say, Presiding Officer, that Parliament has agreed that we need to achieve net zero, but the last five years have seen the SNP Government preside over a catalogue of failures to meet their own targets. We need a step change and approach if we are going to create a circular economy, improve biodiversity and truly tackle climate change. Plastic pollution is a growing threat and one that risks accelerating climate change. If we do not change, there will be more plastic by weight in the seas than there are fish. Moreover, the light-absorbing properties of microplastics pose a risk to arctic regions potentially speeding up the melting of ice caps. Microplastics also contribute to biodiversity loss, weakening ecosystems, damaging economies and impacting human health. Either through ingesting contaminated seafood or through airborne particles lowering the air quality in our towns and cities. Plastic pollution is right on our doorstep. Surveying Scottish waters between 2014 and 2020, Marine Scotland revealed a worrying picture. In five of the areas that studied concentrations of microplastics were comparable to the North Atlantic and North Pacific, areas of open ocean infamous for their vast rubbish patches. Some efforts have been made to tackle the problem of banning single-use plastics such as small cosmetic beads, but plastics account for just 2 per cent of seaborne plastic pollution, according to research from the Galway Mail Institute of Technology. Both the Marine Scotland and Galway Mail studies found that it was fragments of larger plastic items causing the most pollution. In fact, tyres, road markings and synthetic fibres account for a staggering 70 per cent of seaborne microplastics, according to the Galway Mail research. We need to establish a plastic pollution baseline for Scotland with a dedicated survey vessel in place to properly inform future policies. We should launch a public awareness campaign to remind drivers to keep tyres properly inflated. That would reduce abrasion and thus reduce microplastic fragments. A simple measure, but that could have a long-lasting impact. About one third of plastic pollution is from textiles, yet the SNP cancelled Zero Waste Scotland's textiles programme and pulled out of the Love Your Clothes campaign. Meanwhile, around 50 per cent of textiles are still going to landfill in addition to causing sea pollution. Moreover, just 2 per cent of our plastic waste is recycled here in Scotland, yet the SNP has still not committed to a new plastic recycling facility or micro-recycling facilities and waste hubs for rural communities, all of which I have been calling for since 2017. The overall household recycling rate is now worse than 2016, and the SNP has still not met its 2013 household waste recycling target. Progress is really concerning in some key areas. Does the SNP council recycle less than 35 per cent? The SNP in Glasgow cannot even manage 25 per cent. What an absolute embarrassment. I start contrast to areas where Conservatives are in power, such as Angus, which recycles almost 60 per cent of its waste, and Perth and Kinross, which recycles 52.7 per cent. Then there is disposal. The SNP failed to deliver its 2021 landfill ban on biodegradable waste, so it has decided to burn waste instead, with incineration capacity skyrocketing 400 per cent. What a terrible message to send out as the world arrives in Scotland for COP26, for Scotland, the ashtray of Europe. Instead, we should be putting a moratorium on new incineration capacity, as my colleague Monica Lennon has mentioned. If Maurice Golden was in the cabinet secretary's position, would he have given a firmer answer that Mr Matheson gave me earlier when I called for just that moratorium? Would Maurice Golden call for that immediately? If I had been in that position over the past five years, I would have helped the SNP to meet all their targets. However, those issues can still be dealt with with a circular economy bill, promised before the pandemic, but which is now missing in action. Also missing is any serious deterrence to illegal waste dumping. Last year, there were only 17 convictions in Scotland for fly tipping. An abysmal figure that makes a mockery of the law is that it is not time now to hand prosecution powers to SIPA. Added to all those failures, we have a biodiversity crisis with one in nine species threatened with extinction, yet the SNP has not published a biodiversity strategy since 2013, and less than half of public bodies are failing to comply with the duty to publish reports on biodiversity compliance. The SNP's catalogue of inaction missed targets, including the legal emissions targets for the last two years, even reducing Zero Waste Scotland's operating budget makes it difficult to believe that it can deal with the growing problem of climate change. However, to end on a consensual note, the SNP must now work across chamber with MSPs who have the knowledge and expertise to deliver our climate targets, create a circular economy and establish Scotland as a plastic neutral nation. I should say that last night I watched the one of my favourite TV programmes, Yes Minister, and Sir Humphrey said that the problem with politicians is that they start to believe their own speeches. As I look back at the amount of speeches that have been made in this Parliament on the subject, we need to get past the speeches and have a clear line of action across all the areas. That is why I welcome the cabinet secretary to his new post, because I think that there is an opportunity there to try to make that happen. In the interstate consensus today, I understand that the amendments that have all been put forward have been accepted. If you look at those amendments, there are issues that we really should have tackled by now, not just the last 12 or 14 years of the SNP Government that has failed, but the failure since 1999 of successive Governments to tackle some of those issues. I also noted the point that Michael Matheson made when he said that we needed to take people with us and build an off-change movement that wants to tackle climate in this country and, indeed, across the world if we are going to succeed. If you look at the amendments, the Green amendment that Mark Ruskell talks about is about housing policy. We could have major investment in this country right now. We can invest in the housing infrastructure, and we should tackle it. I find it difficult to accept that there are more than 24 per cent of households in Scotland living in fuel poverty. There are some 12.4 per cent of households that are living in extreme fuel poverty. That is more than 300,000 households in Scotland living in extreme poverty. Despite all the speeches that have been made in this place in the past seven years that I have been here, those figures are incredible. We could start to set out a very clear plan and bring forward the targets that have been put in place for fuel poverty. If we are talking about real people here, and if we link that first to those that are in fuel poverty, it would be a massive boon for them not to be in fuel poverty. However, if we then talk about joined-up Government, because the numbers of people living in fuel poverty will access our NHS services more, because they are poor health, because of the dampness, condensation and the conditions in which they are expected to live, the clear collaration between that is evidenced as factual. You then have the levels of inadequate housing, poor housing and private rented housing that is not up to standard. There is one area immediately where we could start to tackle some of the issues that we are talking about today, but also tackle some of the big problems that people are living with. The just transition that the Government motion talks about will amplify. I have seen the shipyards compete and compete and compete to try and get work, and we have seen jackets being transported halfway round the world while the yards sit empty. Even though I have welcomed the investment that has gone in, we need to see far more investment if we are truly going to take advantage and get the jobs that will come with a transition. If that does not happen, you will not take people with you. If we end up a low-wage, low-skilled economy, we will never take people with us. That is the danger. Low-wage, low-skill economy or work to put the investment into research and development, work with the private sector as well as the public sector, and we will get the jobs that can come. The Liberal Democrat amendment talks about electric vehicle infrastructure. The truth is that it is fine for Michael Matheson to say that we are doing better in Wales and Ireland, but the reality is that we are still not doing that great. There are mixed messages out there, and five before the pandemic broke, they put forward a paper to a committee to introduce a whole range of charges for the electric transition. It is the poorest people that suffer again. If they lived up in the north-east to Fife, they would be cheaper than that across in charging their car up in Dundee, and they would be in Fife. However, if they owned their own house, their driveway, etc., they would charge their car for their house. People like me who live in flats are still a lot more difficult. It is the poorer people normally that are living in those areas where they are not able to just drive their car into their garden. There are issues there. I do not know if anyone has went and looked at what electric cars actually cost, but there is a barrier there—again, a cost barrier. If you are wealthy enough, you can run about in your electric car and do your bit for the environment. If you are poorer, you will be priced out. Talking about being priced out, the cost of the buses—many of us in here probably have never used buses—is quite amazing when you get on a bus and you see what it costs. The same with the trains that I have complained about before when Michael Matheson was the transport minister that people cannot afford to use the trains, so poorer people are paying the price. If we are serious about taking people with us, we need to start to look at all those issues. There is a lot that we can do right now. We could have an ambitious programme for tackling some of the biggest issues in Scotland and, at the same time, working on the environment and taking people with us. Welcome, Mr Matheson and Ms McAllum, to the new roles this afternoon. I also congratulate Sharon Downey and Mercedes Villalba on their meeting speech, both of which were very passionate, and I look forward to working with them. If I may say that it was lovely to hear Ms Hyslop able to concentrate on her local constituency and speak about some of the work that is going on there, it reminded me of some of the things in my constituency that I would tell to the chamber and encourage them to visit, too. In my constituency, we have the BRE Centre of Excellence for Housebuilding, and there we have retrofitted houses, showing how existing weekly-style houses can be adapted to be more energy-efficient, as well as the examples of energy-efficient new-build housing. It is very interesting to visit. I also have Greenhead Moss in my area, which is a former coal mine that is now given over to a local park. In that, we have protected peatland, and it is also the home of the small perl border fertility of which I am the species champion—another champion in the room this afternoon. I would like to reflect on what I thought was going to be a very consensual debate almost to the last moment. Mr Golden might have severed that a little for my feeling this afternoon, but it is—if I could just quote a witsum power, the gifted gears to see ourselves as others see us, because we do become very insular in this place, but it is interesting to see what the world view is of what we are trying to achieve in Scotland at the moment. Indeed, at the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York in 2019, the executive secretary and UN framework convention on climate change, Patricia Epinoza, said, congratulations, Patricia, put it in a tweet. Congratulations, Scotland, for demonstrating bold leadership and climate action. This is an inspiring example of the level of mission that we need globally to achieve the Paris agreement. We have globally the most ambitious legal framework for emission reduction, and the targets are challenging to us not only as individuals, to our communities, as has been discussed this afternoon, and to the economy and our environment. The climate and biodiversity crisis must be a critical priority for all of us in this chamber. 75 per cent reduction by 2030 and net zero by 2045. We have the policies to do this, and with the appointment of the First-Ever Minister for Justice transition, we have the leadership to implement those policies. In effect, I highlight just a few of them investing £120 million in zero-emission buses, driving forward decarbonised future for Scotland's bus fleet. A new £180 million emerging energy technologies fund to support development of hydrogen and carbon capture storage and add impetus to the development of negative emission technologies. A cashback scheme for householders, which will provide eligible households with access to up to £7,500 towards the cost of renewable heating systems and a £6,000 for energy-efficient measures. It is the types of policies that are going to help us to achieve those targets. On that point, the SNP's 2021 budget cut funding for zero waste, which encourages recycling in the move to a circular economy by £4 million. How does she square that with the comments that she has just made? In this term of the Parliament, we are going forward. We all signed up to the climate target. It was unanimous in this place, and it is incumbent on us all to look forward to how we achieve that. I want to look to the future and to the policies that are coming that will help us to implement that. Younger people were talked about by Mr Ruskell and by many others, and Monica Lennon mentioned the children's Parliament as well. During the election, I was written to by some primary four pupils from Calderbridge primary in my constituency, and it was the consent for their futures. One pupil altered it with the climate crisis, as they saw it in the worries for the future. One pupil raised wildfires in Australia and the terrible impact on the wildlife there and an endangered species. Another was concerned about the destruction of the rainforest that could possibly lead to food shortages in the future. Another was concerned for litter in his own community and the wider impact of plastics in our oceans, as we mentioned by Mr Golden. Another expressed concern for bees and wildlife and the impact of loss of habitat and the use of insecticides. One would wonder if there would be polar bears when he grew up to be my age. Finally, one young lady said that having persuaded her parents to get her a puppy, she was sure that she could persuade adults that she knew to do the right thing in changing their behaviour and habits and to prevent damaging the environment. I have to tell Ms Lennon that I directed that young lady to the children's Parliament and I am sure that we will see her in here one day in the future. From the mouth of babes, I was absolutely blown away by the knowledge and interpretation of those young people and also the fact that they knew that that was all interlinked. I have talked about so many of those things this afternoon, participatory planning for communities, the fact that our skills and our development has to meet the aspirations of what we are doing. That is why I am so delighted that BRE works so closely with new college land nature and the skills that are needed for retrofitting and for the builds that they have on site. For those young people to understand those threads that link everything that builds our environment and builds the sustainability of our world going forward, I was absolutely blown away by their knowledge and their understanding. They get this and, as Mark Russell says, it is incumbent on us to do the right thing by them and ensure that we all live up to those targets that we all signed up to in the last session of the Parliament. We now move to closing speeches, and I call on Alex Cole-Hamilton. My apologies, Presiding Officer. There has been an excellent debate, I thought, and some first-class speeches both from Sharon Dary and Mercedes Villalba. It is great to have you among us and I look forward to your further contributions. We have got so much to do. If nothing else, today's debate has shown us that. We need to plant millions of trees. We need to heat our home and all of our buildings without burning fossil fuels like we do at the moment. We should have whole towns running on renewables, ground source, air source, heat pumps and district heating. We need to switch over millions of polluting cars to electric vehicles and get the charging networks in place to do that. I thought that Liam Kerr spoke very well on that topic. He also talked about the need for carbon capture and storage, and I absolutely agree that that is part of the solution. It works, but it is not a get-out-of-jail free card, and it must be done in tandem with a radical overhaul of the way that we all live our lives. He talked extensively about the quandary of the north-east, and it is a quandary, because we cannot just pull the rug there or pull the plug there. We need a just transition, and Gillian Martin, I thought, was right to address that as well. We need to restore nature around us as a critical part of that endeavour, and to recognise the inexorable link between the nature emergency and the climate emergency, because they are so deeply intertwined. That is why I think that both the cabinet secretary and I think that Lorna Slater both mentioned the need to restore our peatlands. Some members may know that, in the last Parliament, I was the RSPB species champion for the rusty sphagnum bog moss. The proliferation of bog moss is key to Scotland's efforts to reduce. You may laugh, but it is really key to reducing our emissions. Why? Because it grows on peat, and not only that, but it does so if it is sufficiently irrigated and is one of the best absorbers of CO2 that grows in Scotland. When we dry peat, when we cut it, we release huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. That is why restoring our peatlands is so important, and I will continue to campaign for it even if I am not the moth boss in this Parliament. Monica Lennon articulated very well, I thought, the need for us to deal with the waste products of the various industries that we have in our society. That was the theme that was picked up also by Maurice Golden when he talked about addressing the problem of plastic pollution. That is a massive problem. We need to get rid of all the single-use plastics. In estimated 300 million plastic straws, 276 million pieces of plastic cutlery, 50 million plastic plates and 66 million polystyrene food containers are used annually in Scotland. At a beach clean in South Queensferry in my constituency, we pulled 174 single-use wet wipes off the beach that had been flushed out and did not degrade in the seed. I am sure that every person in this chamber felt the public will for change during the election. All parties were elected on promises for a greener and fairer future. It is the fairer future that I thought that Mercedes-Benz Vienaubel really captured in what I thought was a spellbinding fair speech. She reminded us of the substantial barrier to progress that profit creates in existing business practices. She also reminded us that climate injustice and poverty are also inexorably linked. Alex Rowley was right to say that it is easier to go green if you have money. From young people in particular, the message is clear. I am glad to see the work of the Teach the Future campaign being represented in the Labour amendment today. My party is fully supporting that campaign. Young people have already had an incredible impact on the conversation around the climate emergency so far. The school strikes of 2019 made a huge difference. Young people marched down the royal mile and knocked on this Parliament's door. I was with them with my teenage son, Finn. The declaration of a climate emergency finally followed, along with our new emissions reductions targets. However, we cannot only make progress when we have people knocking on the door of this place demanding it. Where sensible policies are implemented, real systemic change can happen. The plastic bag charger is one example of that. There needs to be more of that. There are also many promising policies in the realm of the circular economy alone. The deposit return scheme is something that the Scottish Liberal Democrats have long campaigned for. Likewise, a latte levy would help people to get back into the habit of taking their reusable cuts with them. I am very concerned that the strictures of the pandemic have caused us to lose our way on some of the progress that we have seen people taking in terms of reusable options already. Of course, those are all problems that we work when working together. Mark Ruskell talked about cross-party consensus. I have worked with Mark Ruskell before. I look forward to working with him in this Parliament on finding that consensus. They work together internationally, because it is the needs of countries coming together and companies changing their ways and methods of production to realise that phase shift that we have defined in this debate. COP26 gives us the opportunity of new and international thinking—a chance to show Scotland and the UK at its best and to prove that we are ready to play our part on the international stage. However, it is not going to be easy. We need politicians to be constructive to work together. An event like that is no place for divisive and toxic discourse between Governments. The Scottish and UK Governments really need to step up. We need to be completely focused on recovery from the pandemic and recovery for the planet. Every delay reduces the chance of our avoiding catastrophic climate change and temperature increase and species loss. Every delay will cause more pain for those countries already living with the impacts of climate change and most at risk of the worst damage. Alex Rowley is absolutely right. We need to get past these well-meaning speeches. Distractions could be fatal. I welcome the minister and Cabinet Secretary to the new posts and many members who have given their first speeches here this afternoon. I was particularly struck by what Mercedes-Badalba talked about in relation to the transformative role of the state in investing in solutions and the importance of a green new deal that involves the unions and the workers in that transition. I am looking across to what is happening in the US at the moment with Biden's administration and the absolutely transformative investments in new technology and industries there. Not just fixing markets but creating new markets. Exciting times. I would say to Labour colleagues that if this Parliament had more borrowing powers, if we had powers over electricity regulation, we could fix things like the unfair transmission charges. We are in a consensual debate here this afternoon, so let us hope that in this year of COP26 that we can strike a new spirit of co-operation with the UK Government and that they can understand that Scotland's contribution to climate change and tackling this emergency is absolutely critical. They need to allow us to thrive and our industries to thrive in Scotland. I think that it is important that we define what a just transition is a bit. I miss Claudia Beamish who would be normally sitting here because Claudia was absolutely pivotal in getting just transition into legislation in this Parliament. I miss her work greatly. It is important that we define this because it has to be just. I absolutely get this. It has to be just that nobody must be left behind. That is why in the Greens manifesto we proposed extending that jobs guarantee specifically to workers in the oil and gas industry. I was struck by the work that Gillian Muth had a lot of conversations about just transition over the last five years. I am struck now by the strong work that she is doing to survey those workers in the north-east to actually look at where those skills gaps are. It is hugely important that we learn the lessons from the 1980s when coal mining communities were absolutely decimated across Scotland. Even in recent years, with the closure of Long Gannet, there was no transition for those 360 workers at Long Gannet. Everything that was done to secure their employment in the future happened after the event, rather than involving them in a conversation beforehand. I would say to Liam Kerr and everyone in the chamber that this has to be a transition. It has to be just, but it also has to be a transition. To move from current resources of oil and gas in the north-sea estimated at around £5 billion to then licence for £20 billion is not a transition. It is a transition. It is a transition to four times that level of resource. That simply is not compatible with the Paris climate change agreement. To answer Mr Kerr's question about where he draws the line, about how much time there is left for that oil and gas industry to transition, we have to start with the science of climate. We have to look at what that carbon budget is under the Paris agreement and work back from there. Mr Kerr is a lawyer. Surely he understands the importance of international legal agreements. We have to stick with that. I think that there are even signs that the UK Government is understanding that now. It is starting to question the policy of maximum economic recovery in the north-sea transition plan. It is starting to turn the corner, not fast enough, but we can get there. If it turns that corner, it will be joining other Governments, which are dangerous. Ireland and New Zealand have Greens and Government as well. Denmark, now Europe's largest oil and gas producer, France, are all drawing a line under licensing. Carbon caption storage is the wrong priority at this point. Even the Tories on the Eclare Committee agreed that we cannot meet 25 per cent reduction in emissions using CCS. We have to move on from that. We have to work collaboratively together. We have to test each other's arguments to destruction. However, there are some inconvenient truths that need to be addressed. We have just started today in this debate to uncover and examine those. I agree with others that this has been an excellent debate. I think that our challenge is what comes next in this Parliament, because this is the Parliament that really matters. I want to welcome the range of excellent briefings from organisations across the environmental movement that we have all had in the run-up-to-days debate. We have also had some excellent meetings, the nature champions meeting that we were at this week's climate emergency meeting, where the real focus is to make sure that we have a joined-up approach. When we tackle our current health crisis, we do so alongside our nature and climate emergencies, and that was argued incredibly powerful yesterday. As we work to build our recovery from Covid and address our climate crisis, we need both a global and a joined-up approach. As others said, this year's COP26 in Glasgow gives us an unprecedented opportunity to lead by example and to deliver the success that we need for our world's future. As Fiona Hyslop said, we need to bear collective responsibility. It is up to all of us. That means leadership nationally and locally across Scotland. The call in our amendment for climate justice to be included in the curriculum is called for by young people who understand the need for urgency to tackle our climate emergency is vital. By the time we reach 2045, today's secondary school students will be in their 40s, but the tipping point for their lives will be action in this term of Parliament. We need to act. I am okay about us disagreeing on different issues as long as we come together on the big issues and as long as we push hard and push further forward. In replying to the debate, I would like to welcome all those new first speeches around the chamber, but particularly I want to congratulate my colleague Mercedes Villalba on her excellent first speech. She will be a powerful voice for Scottish Labour and for Scotland on environment and biodiversity. It is time that climate and biodiversity is taken seriously across Scotland. In our capital city Edinburgh, we saw our draft climate strategy for 2030, published last week. It gives people across our city the chance to give their views on how we reduce our climate emissions, and we need to see plans across Scotland that involve people, that involve communities, that then lead to action on things like low-carbon heat networks, on new green jobs being created and tackling fuel poverty at the same time. That is the kind of joined-up thinking that we need that is promoted by the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. If I can pick the issue of heat networks up, Scottish Renewables has identified 46 heat networks across Scotland's seven cities, which, following the passage of the new heat networks bill that we passed just a few weeks ago, could help to make the much-needed progress towards our heat decarbonisation targets. In section 15 of the Non-Domestic Rates Act, which my amendment in the bill gives the Scottish Government the capacity to incentivise investment to enable communities, councils and co-operatives to develop new heat networks, which are currently unaffordable due to the high rates. That is the kind of practical action where we need progress now. The cabinet secretary, and I welcome him to his new job and his new team, said that if we get 24,000 jobs, we could create them from action and climate change. The truth is that we need to see urgent action, and that needs strong leadership from the Scottish Government, because we cannot afford the kind of problems that we have seen by FAB and companies across the country. Just transition, I thought that Gillian Martin's speech was incredibly powerful. It means supporting climate action now and jobs in Scotland now. That means that the Scottish Government needs to work much harder with the renewable industry to make sure that we get a green recovery so that communities impacted by the energy transition are supported to retain their prosperity, to support local communities, to see local apprenticeships, to see training and to see our communities being able to have co-operative renewable energy schemes right across the country. Scottish Renewables said last week that the renewable energy industry is already supporting over 22,000 jobs and is significant of output of over £5 billion a year in Scotland, but if you pick the stats out, you can see that there is much more scope for new investment and renewables jobs, as Monica Lennon said. That has got to be urgent action for the Government, and I would recommend the report produced by the STUC, which takes you through what would change the outputs. There are some key issues where I think that the Scottish Government needs to act urgently. Mark Ruskell and others have mentioned the updated climate change plan that we need, not waiting several years. We had cross-party agreement from all parties at the end of the last Parliament, so I would urge the new team in the Scottish Government to pick up on those recommendations and get going on them. Look at the Just Transition Commission. It was closed. It did a fantastic report in March this year, but could we have it restarted so that businesses, trade unions, environmental groups and the Government can work together? The report in March was excellent, but it has got to be followed up. It has got to be acted upon, and we need pressure on the Scottish Government, not just in the Parliament but from those groups outside. Let's see more action in the Scottish Government procurement so that we shift to a greener and fairer set of contracts that would be game changers. The comments made by Morris Golden about the time for a circular economy strongly agree with. Let's get the timetable for that bill. Let's get going on it now, because it's not just that we need to stop incinerating waste. We are still exporting waste to lower-income countries who have no choice but to accept our plastic waste, and it's creating a climate crisis in other countries, so we need that responsibility. It needs to be across the parties in this Parliament. We need to move faster, and we need to make sure that our local councils are part of this as well. This is not just a national issue, it's local. We need to see our councils being able to act on locally-owned bus companies, such as we have in Lothian, to address the issues that Monica Lennon has raised about the loss of bus services. We have radical targets in Scotland, but if we pull together what everybody said today, we need action—practical action on the ground, strong leadership and investment—to deliver transformational change, and it's got to happen now. So let's work together and make sure that the next Parliament doesn't have a lovely debate like this, but that we've made progress and we do it now. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I'm delighted to be closing this extremely important debate on behalf of the Scottish Conservatives, and I start by congratulating those who gave their first speeches today, Mercedes Villalba, who in passion speech will look forward to hearing more from her through the next five years. I really excellent speech, first speech, from my colleague, Shalyn Dowey. I'm delighted that she took the opportunity to raise the on-going issue of Tobolton landfill and also join us, those of us who are continually putting pressure on the Scottish Government, to recognise the south-west and invest in our infrastructure. Addressing the effects of climate change and taking action to move towards a more sustainable future is one that we all share. I think that Scotland's aim to reach a net zero by 2045 is certainly ambitious, and it's world-leading. Plenty of MSPs have used that kind of language. It is laudable, and the SNP are never slow to commend themselves for it. However, as Liam Kerr pointed out in his speech, announcing the aim to achieve such an ambitious target is one thing, delivering is quite another. That brings me to an excellent speech by Maurice Golden, the guru of the circular economy, who reminded us that setting a target is not enough and that the Scottish Government has continually missed its targets year on year. I think that the chamber would do a lot worse than to listen to some of his expertise. If we are to succeed in achieving net zero, we cannot allow every debate on the issue to become a competition in political and policy radicalism. Reaching net zero will mean change for us all, but to deliver that change, we must bring society with us, not impose change upon it. I think that the cabinet secretary agrees with me on that point. Moving Scotland towards a greener, cleaner future should not be seen by anyone as an exercise in martyrdom. Smaller, imperfect steps that we can all take together will do more to get us to net zero than grandiose impractical gestures that many of the public come to resent or reject. Liam Kerr spoke at length for the need for a just transition from oil and gas. Calls to eliminate oil and gas jobs and create new green jobs are all well and good, but for a majority of people in that work, they will not find themselves suddenly in a green job. I think that Gillian Martin made a point very well in her speech, but I would say to her that the potential for jobs in this sector must surely look at the way in Scotland that imports much of that infrastructure in that technology rather than utilising our own people. That brings me to education and skills, whether it is to eliminate fossil fuel combustion heating systems or phasing out petrol and diesel. We still need qualified heating engineers and mechanics, but are we doing enough to ensure that young people are being trained on today's technology and tomorrow's technology? Furthermore, what opportunities are there for those already in these fields to update their skills? We want all technologies to become obsolete, not the people whose jobs rely on them. Transport is an area where particular conflicts seem to arise. Saying no to new roads is certainly headline grabbing, but I think that it misses the point. It is not roads that impact the climate change so much as the fuel sources of the vehicles on them. We are already committed to moving away from petrol and diesel towards electric vehicles, whether that is through batteries or hydrogen cell fuel. In south Scotland, we have trunk roads such as the A77, the A75 and the A76, and all those need a substantial improvement to support the economy, reduce congestion and improve safety. Yes, they can have a positive impact on the environment. Why are we not investing in those roads with an eye to the future, including infrastructure for fast-charging points in hydrogen fuel stations? Developing cycle routes is part of that development. Reality is that personal private transport cannot credibly be replaced by any form of public transport in all circumstances, particularly in rural areas. Air travel, we must encourage the aviation industry to decarbonise, but at the same time we have to avoid denying the opportunity to travel and work and explore the world. Already, the aviation industry is looking at hybrid aviation engines, and that is where we need to be, the fastest change versus the most sustainable for the long term. The objective here is not just reaching net zero. It is reaching it in a way that is environmentally sustainable and economically viable, as well as just. The process of change must be just as sustainable as the outcome. Many of the changes that we need to make are not about changing our daily lives and routines so much as they are about changing the tools and the technology that we use. It would not be a speech from me, if I did not bring the discussion around health, the health of people on the planet and in an extricably linked, and in many cases efforts to make one healthier benefits to the other, whether that be cycle lanes or active travel, on encouraging a more balanced healthy diet with locally processed and procured food, greater availability to access green spaces, warm, well insulated home. Often a suspicion that the proposals made by someone in this chamber around climate change are made as much, if not more, for their ability to drive a particular political agenda as they are for their environmental impact. Business and the private sector are not the enemy. Many companies, historically associated with fossil fuel production, are leading the way in finding alternative fuel sources. Although the Greens might prefer to have the nuclear option to resist our ability to work in travel and restrict the private enterprise to innovate, the Scottish Conservatives prefer to work with businesses to support them in reducing their carbon footprint, to stress the long-term economic benefits of those green measures. Given that, why did his party take away the market support for the on-shore wind industry? I think that a bigger question here is why so much of the wind farm industry is imported into this country. Why are we not doing that on our own? BiFab was supposed to do that. What about Ferguson Marine, who was supposed to be involved in the development of that technology? We import the technology. Why are we not developing our infrastructure and our workforce to deliver that? Economic growth and private investment are what has driven forward the technological innovations that are already helping to make Scotland greener and cleaner. As we look to the future, it is the same kind of private sector-driven innovation invention that we need to deliver the technology that will help us to reach net zero. We need more of that kind of collaboration. We need to enable and encourage the private sector to invest in this kind of long-term innovation. Big announcements. Grand targets and ambitious goals have had their place, but they are irrelevant without a credible, achievable plan to delivery. All too often, the SNP's approach to any challenge facing Scotland, be it climate change, education or the economy or health, is to make announcements that give the impression of action without solving the problem. We will push for sensible, practical and pragmatic policies that can protect Scotland's environment and move us towards net zero. We recognise the only credible approach to delivering those aims to policies that benefit our economy and move people's living standards on. As a new member of this Parliament, it is really great to hear the tributes paid to former members who I know would have made a massive contribution today. So, like Sharon Dowey, I want to pay tribute to John Scott with Monica Lennon and others. I want to pay tribute to Claudia Beamish and Fiona Hyslop. I want to pay tribute to Rosanna Cunningham, whose contribution to this Parliament to climate progress and to my own personal experience in this building has been enormous. I would also like to thank members from across the chamber for their input this afternoon and congratulate Sharon Dowey and Mercedes Willalba on their first speech. While I remember Fiona Hyslop, I would love to join you in Llythgo and, indeed, to learn from your vast knowledge in this new role that I have been given. Today's contributions have shown a determination across the chamber to address the twin crises of climate change and ecological decline and to capture the opportunities of a transition to net zero. Importantly, there has also been a recognition that we are unlikely to achieve any of this without fundamental transformational whole system change and without working together, as Sarah Boyack and others so eloquently put. When the First Minister declared a climate emergency and when this Parliament later voted to enshrine the world's most ambitious targets, all underpinned by a just transition commitment, we showed that we understood the risk of inaction. As the cabinet secretary and others have made clear, substantial progress has been made, but we now must go further and faster than ever. It is incumbent upon all of us to rise to the challenges facing Scotland and the world, because Scotland is watching. As Claire Adamson pointed out, young people who have driven the cause of climate action are watching. With that in mind, and as I think the Scotland's youngest member of the Government currently, I would ask that everyone across the chamber, in all the work that we do in the years to come, consider the future that we want to leave for future generations. Together, we can tackle climate change, we can restore our natural environment, we can support a green economic recovery and we can do all of that in a way that promotes greater resilience, especially for climate vulnerable communities. That green recovery that I mentioned is always accompanied by our commitment to just transition and includes our energy sector just as it does all parts of our economy who will be impacted. I asked the cabinet secretary in a written question when the Scottish Government plans to publish a revised energy strategy. He reiterated his commitment to it but was not able to give me a timeline. Is the minister able to assist? Yes, I think that I am. The Scottish Government will publish an updated draft of the strategy this next spring. Just to continue with some of Liam Kerr's observations, he sought comments on rail decarbonisation. Scotland's commitment is to decarbonise the rail network by 2035, and that is the only such target in the UK. On electric vehicles, as the cabinet secretary pointed out, Scotland has one of the most developed charging networks in the UK. To address Alex Rowley's concerns on affordability, we are the only ones in the UK with a loan scheme that facilitates second hand EVs. On Gillian Martin's well-made point on transmission charges, you are absolutely right. They are anti-competitive and unfair. They are the UK's responsibility, and we have been calling on them for years to make a difference. As the minister will be aware, to newest charging works by balancing costs between generators and consumers. Clearly, if the SNP is looking for subsidies for multinational energy generation companies, that means that consumers will pay more. Given that SNP's failure to eradicate fuel poverty is promised, how will increasing consumer bills help? We are not looking for any special treatment. We are looking for fairness, and that is what the Government is calling for. On the circular economy, I want to reiterate our commitment to a bill that was paused because of Covid. However, we are also taking action in the meantime outside of primary legislation, including our pioneering deposit return scheme and banning harmful plastics, including beads and buds, as we are mentioned, but also consulting on other harmful plastics, including plates and packaging. I just hope that the UK's internal market act will not hold us back in the environmental progress that we are determined to make, and that is something that Maurice Golden should reflect on. Finally, just to reassure Sarah Boyack, we are entirely committed to the Just Transition Commission in our manifesto. We have pledged to implement its recommendations in full and will maintain the commission to advise us throughout the Parliament. I mentioned that young people have been central to the climate movement, and, like Monica Lennon, I have a huge admiration for the Teach the Future group. The young people in that group are so inspiring. Their knowledge is sometimes quite astounding, but we can allow the burden of that to fall to them. They need more than our admiration, they need action. The group met the Deputy First Minister in September last year and are now engaging with Scottish Government and education agencies to explore how we strengthen learning for sustainability and further embed climate education, albeit that I have to point out that Scotland's curriculum is not prescribed. It is not just for Scotland's future generations that we need to act, but it is for young people throughout the world that we need to demonstrate leadership. Vulnerable communities at home and overseas are often the first to be affected by climate change and can suffer the most, yet have done little or nothing to cause the problem. That is why, in the year of COP26, we are committed to doubling our world-first climate justice fund to help to facilitate that much-needed global action. We are also developing the Glasgow Dialogues, where stakeholders from the global south, as well as Scottish and international organisations, will share experiences and pathways to adjust transition to adaptation and to resilience. That goes to the heart of our people theme of COP26, through which we are determined to elevate the voices of those who are too infrequently heard, including women, young people and those from the global south. Ahead of COP26, we are committed to publishing Scotland's contribution to the Paris agreement, an indicative NDC, which will highlight our actions against world-leading ambition. That ambition is set out in our climate change plan update, and I hear Mark Ruskell's calls to move quickly on a new plan. I share his desire for progress, but I am sure that he will agree that it must be considered and meaningful progress. We need to work together on that, just as we did work together on the update through the sustainable renewal advisory group, which representatives of every part of the chamber sat on over many weeks, and we went through all the sectors in the climate change plan update in great detail. The inclusivity of that board shows clearly the shared responsibility that Fiona Hyslop spoke to. Scotland's climate assembly is, of course, another key example of that. Another theme that has come through today is the magnitude of the challenge that we face on one hand and the scale of opportunity that can be unlocked on the other. Our journey to net zero can deliver for our planet, but it must also deliver for our people. Good green jobs, better air quality and warmer energy-efficient homes are just some of the examples of ways that we will build our economy based on wellbeing and sustainability for people and planet. Our young persons guarantee is a key example of that and something that I am very passionate about. We are building on that, and we will also work with schools and employers to our youth employment strategy and developing a young workforce initiative to help ensure a legacy for COP26. That will include identifying climate heroes from industry to support school leaders and young people. I have no idea how long I have been talking for, because I cannot see the clock, so I will close. I opened my remarks by looking back, paying tribute to former members and, in that way, thinking of all that we have already achieved in Scotland's journey. I want to close by looking forward. Again, as Scotland's youngest member of government, I speak directly to young people throughout Scotland who may be watching today, I do not know. I ask all of them to firstly take heart in the progress that we have made, to take note of the commitments that you have heard across the chamber today and to take time in the years ahead to hold all of us in government and in parliament to account on the contributions that we make now that can help to deliver a fairer and more sustainable future for you and generations to come. That concludes the debate on addressing the climate emergency, and we will move on to the next item of business, which is consideration of motion 295 in the name of George Adam on behalf of the parliamentary bureau setting out a business programme. I call on George Adam to move the motion. Today's business motion includes provisions for the week commencing Monday, June 21, in which time, and not a lot of time either, is set aside to consider the coronavirus extension and expiry Scotland bill. The first notice that we received of the Government's intention to lay this bill before Parliament was yesterday, and we were given no details of the contents of the bill other than its name, and the bill itself, of course, is not yet published. It seeks apparently according to the Deputy First Minister's statement this afternoon to extend the immense powers contained within the two Scottish Covid acts by six months from October 2021 with a further six-month extension option. We do not accept the timetabling that the Government is proposing for this bill. There is no need for it to be rushed through this Parliament in a matter of a few hours. Over the summer, the nature of the pandemic could change significantly. These measures should be dealt with in September when we will have a much clearer view of what is required. The Government, of course, needs to be able to act in the interests of public health and safety. However, no parliamentarian would want to see any Government have such unprecedented powers a moment longer than is necessary. There is no good argument to rush through this power grab within the space of three days, months ahead of its use, without proper parliamentary scrutiny. That is why we on these benches oppose this business motion. I have a request to speak from Neil Bibby, Mr Bibby. Thank you, Presiding Officer. The Scottish Labour will not oppose the business motion tonight, but, in doing so, we still do have some concerns. At present, we do not know the full contents of the coronavirus expiry and extension bill and we do not know how many amendments will be brought forward at stage 2. Given the importance of the legislation, as we know from past experience, that could be a substantial number of amendments, and certainly on these benches we will bring forward a number in areas such as non-evictions. Sufficient time to consider those carefully will therefore be required. We are not in a position to know how much time and whether that could be done in one day or not. Rather than considering the entire bill in the last week in June or considering the entire bill in the first week in September, we could hold stage 1 and stage 2 in the last week in June and come back and deal with stage 3 in the first week of September. That could deal with the concerns around timescales and of gaining royal assent and also allow us to take account of any changes and circumstances that happen over the summer. I know that you and other members in the chamber will be aware that there are other opportunities to amend the business for the week beginning for 21 June. I reiterate that we will support the business motion tonight, but we will seek to raise these issues at the bureau next week. I hope that the Government and all other parties will give consideration to our reasonable suggestion. I call on George Adam to respond on behalf of the Parliamentary Bureau. I will try to address everyone's point of view, while at the same time trying to remain brief, because there is no doubt that everyone is waiting in anticipation for the large number of SSIs that I have to speak on later. At yesterday's bureau, we had a discussion for a proposed future of business. The details that we agreed then were that the Scottish Government is introducing the coronavirus extension, expiry Scotland, on 18 June, and having a stage day-by-day over 22 June to 24 June to maximise the scrutiny time. That is a change from when we did previously with those bills when they were all done in one day. Stage 1 would have been chosen on 22 June, stage 2 would have been Wednesday 23 June and stage 3 on Thursday 24 June. I would be quite happy to extend the business date should that be needed as longer business days prior to recess are not that unusual. Presiding Officer, I cannot agree with Mr Kerr's proposal on behalf of the Conservatives and do not believe that he addresses the challenges that we currently face. Mr Kerr's perhaps an experience in the matters on how this place works is showing and it will obviously not be a couple of hours of debate over a day. That is sheer hyperbole and not the reality of the situation. However, I appreciate Neil Bibby's contribution and the helpful tone in which he put forward Labour's party's position. However, I feel that his solution could unintentionally cause further problems. Patrick Harvie at the Bureau on behalf of the Greens broadly agreed with the Scottish Government's proposals while making his own points on timings. There are a number of challenges that we face if we take into account the time needed for royal assent. If the bill is not introduced and passed by the end of June, we are on the very serious risk of provisions expiring on 30 September and temporary measures that are enabling public authorities to continue to operate in the pandemic falling away. If we do not pass the bill before summer recess, citizens and public authorities will significantly less time to respond to the changes before they come into effect at the end of September. The bill does not introduce any new provisions, it merely removes temporary measures that are no longer necessary or extends expiry date to March 2022, to ensure that public bodies can continue to operate while public health measures remain in place. I would hope that everyone feels that I have listened to their points of view but would propose that we continue to agree with what was proposed at the Bureau yesterday. The question is that motion 295 be agreed. Are we all agreed? Yes. The Parliament has not agreed, therefore we will move to a vote and there will be a short suspension to allow members to access the digital voting system.