SCOTLAND and other countries need to “double down” on climate action in the wake of Donald Trump’s success in the US presidential elections.
Speaking before leaving for the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan, Ben Wilson of the charity SCIAF, said allowing a Trump-led US to drag down global efforts was not in anyone’s long-term interests.
“The Trump election is certainly bad news for global efforts to tackle climate change, not to mention human rights, democracy and global peace and security,” he said.
“However, it doesn’t change the scientific reality of global warming and it doesn’t change the economic reality that the green transition makes long-term economic sense.”
It is feared that Trump may again pull out of the Paris Agreement to cut carbon emissions as he did when he was last president, but Wilson said this would not halt global action on climate change as long as other countries stepped up to lead.
“More than ever, we need countries who oppose Trump and what he stands for to double down on climate action,” he said.
The aim of this summit is to agree upon a financial package, primarily funded by the global north, to help poorer global south countries with climate change-related costs.
Wilson said that the US was already very cautious about signing up to a big financial goal and Trump’s election was likely to make this worse.
“He won’t technically be president until January but the US delegates know he will have the power to veto any commitments and it might make them even more cautious about signing up to a really ambitious target,” he said.
“I don’t think it will make them completely derail it as they will probably try to agree to something, then have that fight with him when he comes into office.”
This is the first COP since Scotland failed to meet its climate targets and Wilson said the summit had the potential to be “a little bit embarrassing” for the Scottish Government.
“Scotland does have a good reputation on the international stage on climate so therefore when the headlines came out that the Scottish Government were going to change their targets to move the goalposts, it did receive international attention,” he pointed out.
“My message to ministers attending COP is that they need to own up to their mistakes and not try to pussyfoot around them and say the targets were too high to begin with.
“I think they need to own it and say ‘yes we failed’ and be honest about what they got wrong but commit to learning from those mistakes and not making them again in the future.”
A veteran of six COPs, Wilson (above) was part of the Vatican delegation in 2023 and is insistent that the cost of inaction on climate change will be high.
“It is already here and is going to get worse,” he said. “In Scotland, we are seeing much more flooding and look at the cost of the recent flooding in Spain.
“The lives of people in countries like Malawi have been decimated already and that in the long term has an impact on the global north. People should care about this, not just for humanitarian reasons, but for the huge disruption this has caused.”
Ongoing climate change will mean more global economic disruption and more forced migration which is “not in the interests of the common good of the whole planet”.
“We don’t want anyone to be forced to leave their homes but it is interesting to see that both Labour and the Tories are saying we need to increase our defence spending – but neither of them are saying we need to get back to the level of UK aid we used to give,” said Wilson.
“Global security is really important but we need to remember that international development and acting on climate change contributes to global security.
“Conflicts around the world will only be exacerbated by increasing conflicts over resources which are likely to happen because of climate change.”
It is often argued that the money should be spent on a just transition here, rather than sending it abroad, but Wilson said both were necessary.
“Acting on climate change is in the long-term interests of workers and people living in poverty here, as well as people living in poverty overseas and it is right we send money overseas to help support people really bearing the brunt of it.”
Wilson added that a just transition here would not need huge injections of money from the Scottish Government.
“It just needs some sensible policy and decision-making,” he said. “There are companies from all around the world dying to get into Scotland to get access to the renewable energy potential that we have here.
“So when you give them licences you put in guarantees and conditions to make sure they are providing opportunities for people in Scotland rather than bringing in their own workforce.
“There are smart ways of doing it so that it won’t cost the public purse too much.”
With regard to the recent, much-criticised ScotWind licensing round, Wilson said there was a “broad acknowledegment” that it had not been carried out as effectively as it could have been and that lessons had to be learned ahead of the next licensing round.
The Scottish Government also needs to provide clarity on its position on North Sea oil and gas, he said, and should publish their energy and just transition strategy as quickly as possible.
“Hopefully this will give us a clear pathway for making sure we can transition in a just way and give people the certainty they need that they will have a prosperous future,” said Wilson.
“We have to have a just transition here as the last thing we want is for working people being disregarded and having their lives torn apart in the way we saw in the 1980s under Margaret Thatcher when they shut the coalmines,” he added.
