For the past two weeks, and with their usual and characteristic generosity and friendliness, the people of Glasgow have hosted COP26 at the Scottish Event Campus (SEC), one of the last chances we had to create a collective, global response to the need to limit warming to 1.5°C. While progress has been made, we need greater urgency internationally to meet this goal.
This was the first UN Climate Change conference I’ve attended, and the scale of it was extraordinary. Delegations from around the world, observers from organisations like the RSPB, businesses and citizens all in one space making connections with each other and working toward a final agreement that by all accounts and despite a massive amount of effort has fallen short.
Nevertheless, there are reasons to be optimistic. As with anything that requires consensus and large-scale change, progress is slow. And while we know we need to keep pushing for faster and more significant action, the simple fact that every country in the world agrees that our climate is in crisis is itself a remarkable feat. And, for the first time, the agreement also includes language on nature protection and restoration, and the role of nature in achieving international climate goals. There were also many announcements from the UK and the devolved governments of Wales and Scotland that may have an impact on nature. From all this activity, I took away a few lessons:
We’re not tackling the nature crisis The climate crisis is a nature crisis. We will not solve one without addressing both and Scotland must be part of the global effort. Scotland sits in the bottom 12% in the Biodiversity Intactness Index world rankings, owing to huge historic losses of nature. The State of Nature report shows that these losses continue, with one in nine species at risk of national extinction. Scotland is one of the most important countries in Europe for seabirds – and yet our seabird populations have halved since 1986, with climate change as a principal driver.
It is positive to see nature addressed more during COP26 than in any previous climate conference, with a ‘Nature Day’, several statements on nature and importance of nature reflected in the cover decisions in the COP26 ‘Glasgow Climate Pact’. However, overall, the Glasgow Climate Pact does not go far enough to drastically reduce emissions and stop irrecoverable loss and damage, and in order to achieve the goal of limiting warming to 1.5C, we must take strong action.
We know that healthy ecosystems not only foster biodiversity, they also store carbon and have benefits for people. Parties to the conference like the UK outline their plans for emissions reductions before every UN Climate Change Conference, and these plans should be required to include biodiversity protection and restoration.
While we are delighted by the Scottish Government’s announcement that the Nature Restoration Fund will be transformed into a permanent multi-year fund, with investment of £55m over the next five years, it is critical that Scotland now invests in a programme of ecosystem restoration at scale that will move Scotland out of the world’s lowest ranks for Biodiversity Intactness.
The last 10 years was a Lost Decade as countries around the world collectively failed to meet Aichi Targets on saving nature. Since then, no new targets to halt the loss of biodiversity or protect it have been set. The Convention on Biological Diversity will meet in May 2022 and they must emerge with a plan to both stop biodiversity loss and create the conditions necessary for healthy ecosystems.
The ideas are there From renewable energy to forestry, peatland restoration and blue carbon, we know what we need to do to stop the climate and nature crises. The next challenge for the world is to put these ideas into practice quickly and at scale.
Forestry and Tree Planting: One positive development from COP26 was the Glasgow Leaders Declaration on Forestry and Land Use, strengthening shared global efforts to conserve and restore forests, announced on the second day of COP26, was echoed by the Scottish Government commitment to restore and expand Scotland’s rainforest. This commitment will need funding to support it, and the Scottish Government must follow through by creating more native woodlands, with the right tree in the right place, ensuring the outcome is nature positive and contributes to climate targets.
Partnerships and Peat Restoration. Scotland has made an ambitious start restoring peatlands, a key climate and biodiversity challenge, with RSPB Scotland leading efforts to restore Europe’s largest blanket bog in the Flow Country, and more recently the Scottish Government assigning £250 million to peatland restoration across the country. This is just a beginning however: around 80% of our peatlands remain drained, ploughed and degraded – and are therefore losing species to local extinction and carbon to the atmosphere. We must scale-up urgently to meet the challenge, with sustainable finance mechanisms that support this restoration and cannot be used as greenwashing.
Renewable Energy: We know that communities want better access to renewable energy, but they also want nature protected, restored and enhanced. We must empower people, including decision-makers, to recognise and demand nature positive developments if nature is to return and thrive. We need open access to data and more data sharing between developers, governments and NGOs if we’re to assess the impact of renewable developments on nature, including and especially on seabird populations.
The people are with us Across the world, people are calling for action on nature and the climate. When they speak, they don’t just call for a decrease in global temperatures: people want green space for their children to play, a healthy environment that promotes their own physical health and a just transition from the dying fossil fuel industry to greener, more renewable technologies.
On Saturday 6 November, I marched with over 100,000 people in Glasgow calling for action on nature and the climate. It was one of the biggest protests Glasgow has ever seen, all the more remarkable for the absolutely bleak weather conditions: rain, wind and cold. Much has already been written about the rainbow that framed the SEC during a break in the clouds, but the biggest reason to hope was right at the front of our group marching for nature: young people. For six hours at the march, in the worst weather, dozens of young people lead the way and they did not falter. Among them were our own Forsinard Flows volunteers, Amelia Hayward and Rob Knott, who spoke with Scottish government officials over the two weeks on the need for restored peatlands; youth nature activists from Nigeria, Oluwaseyi Moejoe and Udochukwu John Anuta, who pushed for urgent global action at the SEC; and Flock Together founder, Nadeem Perera, who knows that we cannot do this without each other.
And that, perhaps, is the most important takeaway from the conference: we know where we need to go, young people are already there, and now we must push the rest of the world to catch up.
Nick Hawkes
Cover photo: A rainbow over the climate march Andrew Stark