 I remind members of the Covid-related measures that are in place, and that face covering should be worn when moving around the chamber and across the Holyrood campus. The next item of business is a member's business debate on motion 1490, in the name of Fiona Hyslop, on publication of the communique setting out the conclusions of the Glasgow climate dialogues. The debate will be concluded without any questions being put. I would ask those members who would wish to speak in the debate to please press the request to speak buttons now, and I call on Fiona Hyslop to open the debate around the minute, please, Mrs Hyslop. It is a privilege to bring this incredibly important debate to the chamber. It is such a timely moment for this debate, as COP26 draws to a conclusion when the gaping absence on a deal for the vulnerable countries still urgently needs addressed. I thank all the colleagues who have supported the motion and those who will speak this afternoon. The effects of climate change are not equal, fair or just, and the publication of the communique setting out the conclusion of the Glasgow climate dialogues is a positive step in the right direction in amplifying the voices of the global south. Those who cause the least damage are those who are suffering the most now from the climate emergency. The dialogues were co-convened by the Scottish Government and Stop Climate Care Scotland, an alliance of Scottish civil society, and we are a series of online discussions that took place between 6 and 9 September 2021, providing a forum for civil society and government departments from impacted countries in the global south to discuss and share their positions and some of the key priorities for action at and beyond COP26. The communique covered four key areas, access, participation and voice, adaptation, loss and damage and address transition. In line with what the dialogue set out to do, I want to use this speech to further highlight and amplify the voices of the global south. To do that, we must hear their stories spoken. In a Stop Climate Care Scotland event, I met Maranel Ubu, a youth climate justice advocate from the Philippines, who wants justice for the lives lost in her community due to climate change. Maranel sadly lost relatives and friends because of Super Typhon Highland, one of the strongest and deadliest typhoons ever recorded in history. She was a graduating high school student when Super Typhon Highland hit the Philippines in November 2013 and killed more than 6,000 people and displaced thousands of families. She told me that they lost their house in the livelihood. She said, We have seen death. We were eating what we could find on the water. We were just all wet and cold without any water or food. Even now, Maranel told me, heavy rains bring back the fears and anxieties that she felt eight years ago during the onslaught of the Super Typhon Highland. She told me that she still does not know what happened to members of her family. At the co-dread for parliamentarians event here in the Scottish Parliament, I also spoke with Hassan Hulufo MP from Kenya, who was sitting in this very chair on Saturday morning. He told me that, in his constituency of Aesolil North, water sources have completely dried up. Pasture and browse for livestock has depleted, and more than 100,000 people face starvation and rely on food relief and cash transfers from national government. He said that, in turn, means that livestock markets have collapsed, that children are missing school because of hunger and lack of water, and that the burden on women has increased as distance water points has increased. It means that local health facilities cannot function because of a lack of water, despite an upsurge in diseases associated with poor hygiene, due to compromised immunity caused by hunger. The suffering and desperation in the global south is real, now and present, and COP26 must deliver. When the Scottish Climate Justice Fund was introduced in 2012, as a minister, I insisted that it would be separate to our international development fund. The introduction of the Climate Justice Fund followed a call by the UN for such fund, and it was the first in the world. From this morning, further increased trebling support to the world's poorest and more vulnerable communities from Scotland in the efforts to tackle climate change. I welcome the announcement at COP that the Scottish Government is also the first Government in the world to introduce a loss and damage fund, increased today from that additional funding to £2 million. The record is small in amount, but it is recognised by the UN's significant leadership. We must do more, go further and move faster in all aspects of the climate emergency. Innovation and green technologies are critical, but we need finance, climate justice and global leadership commitment and action. The Bangladeshi poet Shaza Doja, who is studying at the University of Glasgow, has seen the devastating impacts of climate change in his home country first hand. Indeed, we heard from the Prime Minister of Bangladesh when she spoke and addressed the members of the Parliament here in a very historic moment. Shaza Doja's poem, No Fresh Soil Left to Plant, which marked the start of COP26, warns us that when seasons quiver together in subservience, assortments that once grew in temperate calm repeals any further invitations. It is not enough to make plans to tackle climate change in the future. It is not enough to create ambitious goals to help the planet. It is not enough for Government at COP26 to promise help for the global south but to offer no financial means to fulfil those promises. We must listen to the people of Scotland who want climate justice now as shown by the global day of action last Saturday from Glasgow to smaller towns and cities. People took to the streets to support global action for climate justice, including in my constituency where people gathered in the rain at Llywodraethol Cross to peacefully demonstrate for quicker change. The Scottish people want to end the era of injustice and the leaders must listen. We must act now, we must act decisively and we must act in partnership with the global south. We are one world with one chance. I therefore call on the UK Government and all the leaders in the global north to listen and understand the voices of those in the global south who are living with the impact of climate change now. I will end by quoting the Prime Minister of Barbarus and what she said in her outstanding global leader speech last week. For those who have eyes to see, for those who have ears to listen and for those who have a heart to feel, 1.5 is what we need to survive, 2.5 is a death sentence. We must try harder, we must go further and we must get there faster. Our one world and our one people who need to survive on that one world depend on it. I am glad to see Fiona Hyslop's motion being debated. I welcome the publication of the communique following the Glasgow climate dialogues hosted by the Scottish Government and Stop Climate Chaos Scotland. The need to keep 1.5 alive is crucial. If the world can contain global temperature rises to 1.5 degrees, we can avert catastrophic and possibly irreversible storms, wildfires, floods and droughts. The draft COP agreement states that the parties are noting the importance for some of the concept of climate justice when taking action to address climate change. Every single Government in the world must recognise climate justice as a key consideration. Many of the countries that will experience the worst of climate change are those who have done little to cause it. In co-hosting the Glasgow climate dialogues, the Scottish Government recognises the need and responsibility to learn, listen and engage with citizens from the global south. Their voice in COP26 and all future COPs must be heard, particularly given that they are currently experiencing severe climate change-related loss and damage. Leaders must listen to them and take action to support countries in the global south. The Paris agreement requires that developed countries provide financial resources to assist developing countries with mitigation and adaptation. The promised $100 billion per year has not yet been achieved. However, that amount, as a minimum, must be delivered if we want to achieve our global ambition to minimise temperature rises. Importantly, as the community sets out, this funding should be a grant rather than a loan. Scotland's targets are world-leading and our commitment to a just transition and drastically cutting transport emissions are so important. As the host country, I hope that politicians from across the world will take some inspiration from what we are doing here in Scotland. The Scottish Government launched its climate justice fund in 2012. That has delivered £20 million to support Malawi, Zambia and Rwanda, protecting communities from the worst effects of global climate change. Earlier this year, the Scottish Government committed to doubling the fund, but just this morning, the First Minister confirmed real instead treble it. Scotland is showing leadership, and I really hope that a Glasgow agreement will secure commitment from other countries on this front. If the larger developed countries step up to the mark, a good system of climate-related funding can help to build resilience but also support adaptation and create opportunities in the global south. As an example, financial support could help developing countries expand renewable energy capacity, creating jobs, reducing energy poverty and increasing energy independence. I hope that negotiators will come to an agreement tomorrow, which accelerates global action to cut emissions and reach net zero. We must keep 1.5 alive, but we must also ensure that climate justice is considered and essential. I want to thank everyone who participated in the Glasgow climate dialogues, and I hope that the community and associated work will demonstrate to world leaders the responsibility, the importance and the urgency of delivering climate justice as we collectively work to safeguard our planet. Those global challenges require a global response. I thank Fiona Hyslop for bringing this debate to the chamber, and I welcome the opportunity to speak on this motion while COP26 is still in full flow. As with many of my colleagues in the chamber, I have been immersed in COP26, attending meetings and speaking on panels. I am using this potentially historic event to gather as much information as I can on the approach to the climate emergency that has been taken from around the world. It is very obvious that our concern is mirrored across most of the world, which is a good starting point, but I would note here that there are some countries who intend to go on regardless, and it is incumbent on all of us to persuade them that we need to move forward collaboratively and globally. That is the only way in which we can effectively achieve the outcomes that the world so desperately needs. Putting differences aside and working together has certainly been a theme of this COP so far. Who would have thought that the two main global polluters of the USA and China would be able to make such a significant joint announcement? Two countries pose apart politically and ideologically, setting aside differences and looking for a commonality of approach. The conclusions from the Glasgow Dialogues are undoubtedly welcome. They have certainly helped to set the agenda on some of the main issues that the green economy will depend on, such as ensuring that, in our drive to develop those greener policies, we do not leave anyone behind and induce or create a greater inequality. A theme that has been prevalent across many of the presentations and meetings that I have been to so far—social justice, the need to develop community involvement, a just transition—are all buzzwords and phrases that have done the rounds. I think that here is where government responsibilities to create that opportunity and the framework to encourage individuals, communities and businesses to move to a lower-carbon way of living. We need to ensure that everyone understands the decisions that we make as individuals, communities, businesses and Governments that impact every other person on this planet. It is almost like a PR and marketing exercise that we need here. Too many, I think, are looking only at politicians to solve this crisis. When the reality is, it will take all of us. Talking and setting lofty and necessary goals is hugely important. However, unless those goals are realised, the outcomes that are required will not be met. Just so that we understand the consequences of falling short, I note that early work on the impact of agreement so far would still result in a global temperature rise of between 1.8 and 1.9. I think that the $100 billion of investment that my colleague mentioned from Governments across the world does not touch the trillions that are required to tackle crisis on such a global scale. However, that investment should leverage private investment in my view towards that trillion dollars. We need to work with the private sector, not against them, as some politicians seem hellbent on doing. The 1.8 and 1.9 are, of course, way above the target of 1.5 degrees, so not only do we need to achieve the goal set, we need to go further. Scotland has set ambitious targets, but it has missed them three years in a row, and we just cannot afford to miss any more. Scotland can and should highlight what can be done. If we are serious about the outcomes and not just the ambitious targets, we need a workable route map to those targets. I welcome Fiona Hyslop's motion and the Glasgow climate dialogues and the publications of those conclusions to those dialogues. However, it will be the actions that will take in following the conclusions on which we should all be judged. We, across the chamber, have a duty to ensure that the actions lead to the outcomes that are essential to tackling the climate crisis. Paul Swinney will be the last speaker in this part of the debate before I ask the minister to respond. Around four minutes, please, Mr Swinney. Unfortunately, the COP so far, on reflection, has been far from the rate of progress that our country and the planet as a whole has needed it to be, and it pains me to say that the agreements made thus far, as outlined in the communique, are predominantly ambiguously worded, full of platitudes and contain lofty ambitions with little to no concrete commitments. That said, there have been slivers of light. The agreement last night between the People's Republic of China and the United States is the most important development that we have seen so far. Combined, they emit over half the world's carbon, and to see them working together on this issue is of crucial importance. That development therefore begs the question as to whether we should be wrapping up the conference in the next 24 hours. With the fate of the planet hanging in the balance, the diplomacy between the two biggest global emitters at a high point should we not be seeking to extend the conference to see what other areas of co-operation there may be going into the weekend? Will the member give way? I am happy to give way. Fiona Hyslop? Along with other MSPs, I was in the plenary stop-taking session yesterday, and Alex Sharmer, the president at that point, said that it is our intention to finish on the 12th, but I think that that was an indication that, if the deal did not get to where it needed to, there may be a possibility that it may have to be extended precisely for the points that the member is making. I thank the member for that important intervention, and of course that somewhat diplomatically awarded phrase opens the door to that extension. I think that if we see the light of a potential breakthrough over the weekend, we should be pressing for that, and I hope that the Scottish Government, although not formally represented at the talks, will hopefully press for the UK Government to do that, and I hope that the Scottish Conservatives and their colleagues in the British Government will do so, if necessary. One of the other key areas that has been quite disappointing is deforestation. The commitments that are made by the conference are welcome, but are they ambitious enough? The agreement gives a date of 2030 to stop and reverse deforestation, but that is nine years away. I think that it was not even dry on the paper before the Brazilian Government started backtracking. The president of the Brazilian Senate was telling the media that the focus of the Government in Brazil would be on curbing illegal deforestation, rather than deforestation, sanctioned by the Government. The devastating impact on indigenous people in Brazil as well as the lungs of the planet are still in jeopardy. Between August last year and July this year alone, the Amazon rainforest lost over 10,000 square kilometres, an area seven times bigger than London 13 times the size of New York. If that amount of damage can be done in the space of a mere nine months, how much can we do in the next nine years? We agree with me that it is not just about the deforestation of the rainforest. We also have to replace a way of earning a living for those people who would have to give that particular route up. I absolutely agree that economic justice goes hand in hand with the physical changes that we need to do in those key industries. When you see the agreement on deforestation in 2014, even after that, there was no progress made in physically stopping it. How do we tie those commitments to real action on the ground and to ensure that that does not happen again? I would like to see a greater effort put forward by both the Scottish and British Governments in their diplomatic channels to try and push for tighter commitments from those Governments that have such a critical responsibility across the rainforest belts of the Amazon, Central Africa and Indonesia. It also begs the question, what role does the UK currently play in the world? This week, of all weeks, we have a Government in the UK embroiled in sleaze allegations, in identifying spectacle last night of the Prime Minister having to defend his Government from allegations of corruption. How do we get to that point at the heart of a conference where the UK is on the world stage? At this time of all times, why did the Prime Minister have to sponge the remaining shreds of his credibility in trying to save the reputation of one of his members of Parliament? Perhaps we should not be surprised at the lack of timing on the parts of the UK Government. After all, the UK Government announced a tax cut for domestic flights two days before the climate conference kicked off. It has been a complete absence of leadership in the run-up to and during this conference, from Boris travelling to from Glasgow to London by private jet, the distraction of the sleaze allegations and the continued embarrassing behaviour of the Prime Minister. We need to go much further and much faster with much greater commitments, Deputy Presiding Officer. We need to focus particularly on climate reparations. I know that Fiona Hyslop mentioned the climate justice fund and the commitments from the Scottish Government, but it is still only that I represent 0.01 per cent of our Scottish GDP and 0.02 per cent of public expenditure. Mr Sweeney, I know that you have been generous with interventions, but you really need to be in the process. Absolutely, Deputy Presiding Officer. I recognise that. I will come to a conclusion by saying that we will have to increase the scale of our ambition. The numbers on the face of it sound impressive, but as a share of our national wealth, given the legacy of Scotland's industrial pollution, we need to go much further and much more rigorously to reach a net-zero carbon emission target for the world. Thank you, Mr Sweeney. I now call on the minister, Mariam Callan, to respond to the debate. Around seven minutes, please, minister. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I would like to begin by thanking Fiona Hyslop for bringing that motion at this critical time, while a vital summit is on going in our largest city and on this most important issue. The dual crises of climate change and nature loss are put simply the single greatest long-term threat that we all face. We know that in action will impact us all, but we also know that it will not impact us equally. There are two great intolerable ironies at the heart of the climate crisis, which members, including Fiona Hyslop, have variously set out in today's debate. Firstly, those being impacted first and worst by climate change, who are suffering right now, have done little or nothing to cause the problem. The second intolerable irony is that the voices of those who are set to suffer most, including young people, women and girls, indigenous communities and those in the global south, are far too infrequently heard in decision making fora. Those anomalies cannot be allowed to continue and it is incumbent upon all of us to challenge them. When we are confronted with the scale of the climate crisis, with the pace with which we need to move and amid all the busyness of COP26, we have to stop and ask ourselves whose voices are we not hearing. We need to find them and we need to elevate them. That is exactly what Fiona Hyslop has done today, sharing harrowing stories of loss and damage. That is exactly what this Government has been trying to do before, during and after COP26. As Ms Hyslop detailed, in 2012, Scotland was the first country in the world to introduce a climate justice fund, which since then has empowered people in Malawi, Zambia and Rwanda to design and to build resilience and equality in their communities. I had the great privilege in September of virtually joining the people of Mangamba in Malawi, who told me how that fund had empowered them and supported them to build the solutions that they needed in their communities. I note the progress in establishing the climate justice fund, which we commend. However, I think that in order to ratchet up the ambition, can we look at potentially linking it to GDP as a key indicator of redistributing our relative wealth in the world, as a way of making progress to scale it up to the scale that it is needed? I absolutely take that point on board, but I would only add to that that it is equally important that, as we scale up our support for climate justice, that it is separate to and additional to our international development funding, as Ms Hyslop was discussing earlier. I really must make progress. I am sorry. One of the local leaders that I spoke to that day on that virtual visit to Mangamba was a young woman named Tipiwa. We agreed at that point that we would meet in person, and I had the opportunity to sit down with her and her colleague Arryn this week as they visited COP26 in Glasgow. During COP26, the First Minister, myself and others have taken all opportunities that we can get to speak with leaders and delegates from the global south. All of those conversations have increased our resolve to do everything that we can to support them. That is why, today, the First Minister announced that having committed to double our climate justice fund before COP26, in light of those conversations and the need for action, we will now go even further and we will triple it. The Scottish Government has been embedding international justice in our climate actions since 2012, and it is only growing. However, as well as funding, COP26 has been a vital opportunity to hear those voices from the global south. Scotland is not yet a state party to the COP, but we are determined to use our position as a bridge to elevate voices of those who are often unheard. That is why we funded the Conference of Youth, that is why we are backing international feminist policy and why we co-hosted the Glasgow climate dialogues with Stop Climate Chaos Scotland in September. I have been honoured to be involved in the Glasgow climate dialogues, launching the community earlier this year and at COP26 last week. It represents the culmination of views of experts from a range of countries and people working and living on the front line of climate change right now. It is their collective call to action on key issues such as participation, adaptation, loss and damage and just transition. This is the outcome. This is a copy of the community. Mine is a little tattered now because I have spent the past week showing it and speaking to anyone who will listen about the outcome of it. I would encourage everybody to do the same. I wanted to pay tribute to the minister for that. It is a very impressive document, and I can see that I struggled to disagree with a single sentence. I should also thank Fiona Hyslop for coming forward with this debate. Does she agree that loss and damage should form part of the final community from COP26? Does she also echo the point made by other speakers about it being grant rather than loans and to remove conditions from developing countries where many are forced into energy insecurity in exchange for those grants? That goes against the very principles of social justice. I thank the member for that intervention. I absolutely agree that it must form part of the final decision. Part of what we have been trying to do is raise the profile of it and lead by example in that regard. The point about loans is very important. This cannot be done in a way that saddles developing countries with debt. COP26 has to deliver ambitious action on mitigation, capable of keeping 1.5 alive. It must deliver fair financing and it must do it in a way that does not saddle developing countries with debt. We also need COP26 to recognise that the impacts of climate change and nature loss are being felt right now. They are being felt right now in a way that it is not always possible to adapt to. People are suffering drought, floods, desertification, coastal erosion and, tragically, loss of life. That means that we need support, which is separate from and additional to climate finance, currently supporting adaptation and medication. Climate change is an urgent human rights issue, posing a serious threat to the right to food, water, education and life. The Glasgow climate dialogues have brought that to the fore. The Scottish Government is very proud to stand in solidarity with those impacted by climate change. That is why, last week, we took the first substantial step of becoming the first western country to pledge support specifically for loss and damage, which is now backed by £2 million. With humility, as has been discussed, £2 million is a small part of what is required globally. We hope that other large industrialised countries, with borrowing powers that we do not have in Scotland, will follow where we have led. In our view, the issue of financing for loss and damage and climate justice more widely is a central one of COP26 and the legacy of the conference. I will conclude by saying that we believe that it is central for two fundamental reasons. Firstly, because developed countries such as Scotland, who have benefited from industrialisation, owe a moral obligation to those throughout the world who are suffering the consequences right now. Secondly, because solutions to climate change that do not have fairness, justice and inclusivity at their heart will fail. I would take this opportunity, in closing, to urge the greatest ambition for all those who are still taking part in the COP26 negotiations. The world is watching and we cannot fail.