Two years on: would Arnie still back Scotland's action on climate change?

In 2009, the Scottish government passed world-leading climate legislation when the Scottish parliament voted for climate change targets of 42% emissions reductions by 2020 and 80% by 2050. For a short time, Scotland made headlines, with praise for the achievement arriving from across the globe. Climate campaigners in Scotland, myself included, were especially pleased when the ‘Governator’ himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger, then Governor of California gave the Act his thumbs-up, quoted as saying that ‘Scotland’s ambitious and comprehensive targets...sends a message to the world that we must act now and we must act swiftly’.

But, three years on, would Arnie be able to say anything positive about climate action by the Scottish government since the Act was passed? Are we as climate campaigners happy to use the same e-postcards in 2011 that we designed then, with pictures of Mr. Universe himself showing off his honed physique and proclaiming ‘Scotland’s climate change act has muscle!’?

During the Scottish parliamentary debate on the climate change bill, the opposition environment spokesperson at the time, Sarah Boyack MSP, asserted that ‘Our challenge is not passing this bill but implementing it’ – a prediction that, as you might expect, has proved accurate. Since the Act was passed, a second SNP government has been voted in with a landslide majority, but decisive action to make the climate targets attainable is yet to be evident. Progress is slow, with the UK Committee on Climate Change recently stating that it was likely that Scotland would miss its climate change targets for 2010.

With only a short time-frame to reach the 42% target, it’s essential that action on climate change is made a priority in the upcoming Scottish budget for 2011-12, to be considered in the Scottish parliament over the next few months. The Scottish Government has recently published an action plan to reach the 2020 climate change targets – at the very least this needs to be fully funded in the budget if we are to have any chance of reaching our targets in less than 10 years’ time.

As a Scottish citizen and a climate activist, I’m very proud that a small country such as ours is leading the industrialised world with our ambitious climate legislation – and that other small countries such as Finland, Ireland and Pays Basque are following our lead. As an industrialised country, that has derived huge economic benefits from its emissions of greenhouse gases and its exports of fossil fuels, reaching our 2020 targets is also about paying out climate debt. So we must be able to follow through and reach the 2020 target through action in Scotland.

That’s why we are working with Stop Climate Chaos Scotland during September on a letter-writing campaign to make sure that climate action is a priority in the forthcoming budget. We are also using this opportunity to call for a Scottish climate adaptation fund – over and above the Scottish Aid budget - to help countries more vulnerable than ours to adapt to the impacts they are feeling now. This was something that the SNP included a commitment to in their last election manifesto and, as they were voted in for a second term with a large majority, we hope to see some positive steps towards this fund in the near future.

If you live in Scotland, please support our campaign by writing a personal letter to your MSPs during September.

Find out more by reading the webpage and briefing paper