Seòmar agus comataidhean

COP26 is finally here and I am sure that many of us in the chamber will have mixed emotions. Perhaps we feel a sense of relief that it is finally happening, or a sense of hope and belief that we can deliver better agreements through the Glasgow talks. However, I hope that there is also a sense of collective guilt that no Government around the world has taken sufficient action to tackle the crisis.

The Paris agreement provided a skeleton of the framework that is needed to keep the increase to within 1.5°C. The Glasgow COP must now flesh that out with ambition from all nations acting in solidarity with those who have contributed the least to the crisis but who will inevitably suffer the most.

The pledges that states have made so far simply do not add up. We are heading towards an increase of nearly 3°C in global heating, which would be a huge climate injustice—a crisis that is based on the idea that some people are worth more than others, as Greta Thunberg described it.

The voice of the marginalised and colonised global south needs to be heard loud and clear at COP26. I look forward to the Scottish Government amplifying that voice using the Glasgow dialogues communiqué.

The focus on how we cut emissions is critical, but it cannot crowd out discussion and agreement on how to compensate for the vast amount of loss and damage to life and the economy that is already happening in the global south.

The annual $100 billion-dollar pledge that was made in Paris to help countries to adapt is just the starting point and it must be delivered in full. That is just the first bill from the cleaner half of the world to the developed nations such as ours for using our shared atmosphere as a waste dump for generations. It must be paid in full.

I suspect that many different COPs will take place in Glasgow, in the blue and green zones, on the streets, and in private lobbying spaces. For many of the businesses that will be providing the products, services and, I hope, fair work of the future, COP is a great opportunity to build confidence that rapid change is possible now. There is a first-mover advantage for Governments to drive recovery through investment in innovation supply chains while creating entirely new markets. However, we must also recognise that, for many fossil fuel corporations, COP26 is a further opportunity to steal the narrative around just transition, just as it tried for years to control the narrative about whether climate change was real.

Many corporations continue to spin the myth that maximising the economic recovery of every last drop of fossil fuel reserves is totally compatible with climate objectives, while parading false solutions, such as negative emissions technologies, as being capable of allowing their business models to continue largely unchanged. The time has come for all Governments to stop copying and pasting drivel from fossil fuel corporations into their energy strategies. For example, the concept of a net zero basin in the North Sea is utterly meaningless when the industry wants to scale up from 6 billion to 20 billion barrels of oil and gas extraction.

Last week, the UN production gap report showed how states are planning to allow the extraction of double the amount of fossil fuels that we can afford to burn if the heating increase is to stay under 1.5°C. Then we wonder why young people are so angry about the failure of Governments to address that basic fact of physics.

The cabinet secretary is aware that our parties do not have a shared vision for the role of CCS, which is a technology that is repeatedly overpromised on and underdelivered around the world. Relying on CCS to cut a quarter of Scotland’s emissions is risky. All the parties in the previous session of Parliament agreed that there needs to be a plan B for meeting our climate targets and delivering a just transition that does not rely on CCS. Does the cabinet secretary recognise the importance of working out that plan B now, rather than pinning all our hopes on a technology that might turn out to be neither credible nor ready in time?

You have given a hint about what a cultural recovery could look like and what the benefits could be across society and the work of Government. I want to push you a bit more on that. The national outcome for culture says:

“We are creative and our vibrant and diverse cultures are expressed and enjoyed widely”.

That is a great outcome, but it perhaps does not describe what, for example, an organisation such as Sistema Scotland does, which is much more about community regeneration, health and ensuring that there are excellent outcomes for school leavers. How do we ensure that the wider work of organisations such as that is captured in the way that budgets are constructed, as well as in the national performance framework?

I am interested in what you said about the phenomenal opportunities that exist to bring production to Scotland. I am thinking about the rest of your portfolio and the Scottish Government’s aspiration to develop its footprint and its linkage to the rest of the world, particularly through the new hubs that you plan to set up. Does that work feed directly into the work that Screen Scotland needs to do to reach out and bring in production, as well as ensuring that the best of Scottish talent can move and take part in productions abroad?

Sistema has been an incredible success. I have been aware of it and its work in Stirling from the outset.

Many creative and innovative organisations throughout Scotland, particularly social enterprises, are working on town centre regeneration, for example, by turning empty shops into hubs for creatives. They are doing some incredible innovative work, but it does not always fit the criteria for charitable giving or even Creative Scotland funding. I know a number of organisations, such as Made in Stirling, which the First Minister visited a year or two ago, that have struggled to access funding from Creative Scotland because they do not easily fit the criteria, as what they are doing is holistic—they are working on regeneration and multiple outcomes.

I sense that that could be the case for other organisations that are working on, say, health through music or other group activities that benefit people with autism and do not necessarily fit any single set of funding criteria. That is where the buck stops. I am interested in how the budget and cultural strategy will unlock that creativity. For me, it is about 20-minute neighbourhoods, urban regeneration and everything that we need to happen in our communities.

I have one final Post-it note, convener.

A lot of what we have been discussing has been about wellbeing, and you have heard a lot of comments from members on that. I am interested in finding out how, in future, the Government will reflect on culture’s contribution towards a wellbeing economy and whether that will happen through the wellbeing bill or consideration of, for example, a future generations commissioner. Indeed, I have been very struck by the work of the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales on the Welsh language. That is perhaps for further consideration and reflection, but do you have any early thoughts on those two pieces of work, which the Scottish Government has committed to looking at?

I welcome this transformative strategy and, in particular, the commitment that the minister has given to work across the chamber. I hope that that will set a better tone for the rest of this parliamentary session.

I want to ask the minister about the commitment to a renewed ambition for decarbonising public sector buildings. Does he recognise that there is often a lack of capacity and skills in councils and other public sector organisations to bring forward new projects such as heat networks and the complex innovation that will be required to meet targets? How does he envisage us building capacity over time so that we can innovate and deliver?

With regard to revenue income, your research points out that we might not know what rail patronage is going to look like for another 12 to 24 months. I am wondering whether now is the right time for ScotRail to do a timetable review, when we do not know what the long-term trend is going to be. I am on the train every week, and I see marginally more people coming on each week, but it is not clear whether levels of patronage are going to go back to what we saw pre-Covid, when the trains were completely packed.

I want to ask Professor Docherty about his report on the future of rail post-pandemic. That remains controversial, because one of the recommendations was that there should be a reduction in revenue requirement. Clearly, that has raised alarm bells with staff unions and those who are concerned about cuts to services that might come on the back of that. Do you see a reduction in revenue requirement as compatible with designing a rail service that is competitive with private car usage?

I will give a quick example of that. Last week, I held a public meeting at which ScotRail told the public about the proposed changes that it wants to make to the rail timetable. Arguably, that has come on the back of your recommendations to the Government. ScotRail described the Perth to Edinburgh rail service as, in effect, not competitive with the private car, because people can use the M90 and the Queensferry crossing cheaply. ScotRail’s response to that is, in effect, that it does not really matter if journey times are increased, because very few people use the rail service anyway.

What are your thoughts on the compatibility of reducing that revenue cost with maintaining competitive services? Is there a danger that, if we cut too fast too hard, we will end up with a service that people will not use any more because there is nothing left to use?

I will follow up on that point. Recently, Scotland has upped its ambition for onshore wind, with a potential target of up to 12GW of onshore wind generation by 2030. The offshore wind target is sending a very good signal to offshore wind developers, and ScotWind is coming on as well. Do you not see the transmission charging regime acting as a block to the delivery of that? How cognisant are you of those targets in your forthcoming review?