Ewan Aitken For Eastern Edinburgh

I had a long conversation about the environment with a young couple yesterday right at the end of a very successful day on the doors.  For them the environment is the issue that politicians need to grapple with but they questioned the commitment of the 4 main parties to the issue.

I told them that I believe that there is no greater issue for politicians of all parties to grapple with than the environment and global warming. It will affect all that we do and all that we are and we don’t have much time to get it right. I also believe however, that even if the climate change deniers are right , (and I don’t for a minute think that they are!), the world is a precious thing and we should learn to live on it much more lightly than we do for its own sake and ours.

I have tried to do this myself in a number of ways:

When I was leader of the Council I made sure that Edinburgh was the first Council to sign up to the 2050 local authority Zero Carbon Emissions commitment.  Scotland’s Capital needs to lead by example.

For the last three years I have been chair of Eco Congregations Scotland, an ecumenical organisation made up of over 260 congregations all over Scotland committed to changing their lives as a faith community to a more environmentally friendly lifestyle and being a catalyst for change in the wider community for the same objective.

I put a great deal of effort in because I believe that its is a huge priority to get communities active, aware and responding.

Eco Congregation Scotland was instrumental in lobbying amending the Climate Change Act (Scotland) to include a community engagement strategy because I believe that only by creating a movement that is bottom up as well as top down can we reach our objectives of carbon reduction. Eco Congregation Scotland is a significant participant is the Stop Climate Chaos Scotland  (SCCS) a civic society coalition that has had such a significant influence on political and civic debate in Scotland over the last 5 years.

For example, I reflected on the fact that even since the last election, “green issues” if I can use that short hand, have shot right up the agenda of all the political parties and SCCS can take a large part of the credit for that.

Scottish Labour has put the environment front and centre. We would;

• Implement a Green New Deal to tackle fuel poverty and drive down carbon emissions, offering whole-house energy efficient retrofits and creating micro-generation opportunities for 10,000 homes and businesses, creating jobs, trainee-ships and business opportunities for local firms across Scotland.
• Set the expectation that green procurement is the norm, particularly for food provision, and help to generate new markets and supply chains for low carbon products.
• End fuel poverty by 2016 by target resources at the most fuel-poor, especially older and more vulnerable people and continuing to invest in measures to reduce fuel poverty and reviewing the effectiveness of the Energy Assistance Package and the Home Insulation Scheme.
• Make walking and cycling become a more convenient, attractive and realistic choice for many short journeys and will retain the target of ensuring that 10 per cent of trips be made by bike by 2020. To achieve this, we will ensure that active travel receives a higher proportion of the overall transport budget

In addition we would prioritise the environmental agenda by ;

• Making best use the new feed-in tariff to promote the expansion of household renewables and investigate further council tax discounts, grants and incentives for householders and businesses who make green changes.
• Making Scotland is a net exporter of electricity to the rest of the UK, with a target of at least 80 per cent of our electricity to come from renewables by 2020.
• Creating 10,000 pints for electric cars
• Setting up Energy Scotland to drive forward Scotland as a renewables world leader.
• Seeking to expedite applications for new renewable energy developments within nine months of them being lodged.
• Creating a policy framework to further encourage private sector investment in offshore wind, wave and tidal power.
• Supporting the continuing contribution of the offshore oil and gas industry to our economy, whilst also seeking the transfer of skills and expertise in offshore renewable.
• Commit to doubling the Saltire Prize.
• Increasing the production, distribution and use of community-scale heat and power,
• Continuing Energy Savings Trust loan scheme to allow businesses and local authorities to take advantage of cost-effective opportunities.
• Recognise that local bulk purchasing leads to lower prices; support community organisations, co-ops and social enterprises who pursue community renewable projects.
• Requiring local authorities to produce heat maps, to assist in the identification of potential community and public renewable heat schemes.
• Increasing energy efficiency within our energy system and will tackle heat loss in energy generation by seeking to introduce schemes to capture and use surplus heat from the power stations via new ‘smart’ heat grids.
• Supporting of the development of renewables in Scottish Water’s estate, and will enhance powers so that it can fulfil its renewable energy potential and use its assets more effectively.
• Not consenting to new, non- replacement fossil-fired power stations unless they can demonstrate effective carbon capture and storage technology from the outset

It’s a huge agenda covering a great many bases, but it needs to be.  “Green issues” are no longer some nice wee add on, (not that they ever were, but they were treated as such).  They have to be the driver for the next 20 plus years or the consequences will be much more dramatic than who will win or loose an election!