An historic debate on a motion of climate justice was held by the Scottish Parliament on 1 March 2012. The Scottish Government motion on climate justice was passed unanimously by the Parliament
An historic debate on a motion of climate justice was held by the Scottish Parliament on 1 March 2012.
The Scottish Government motion on climate justice was passed unanimously by the Parliament. The motion agreed that the Parliament “strongly endorses the opportunity for Scotland to champion climate justice, which places human rights at the heart of global development, ensuring a fair distribution of responsibilities, and welcomes the Scottish Government’s commitment to ensuring respect for human rights and action to eradicate poverty and inequality, which are at the heart of Scotland’s action to combat climate change both at home and internationally and strengthening Scotland’s support for developing countries on climate change as part of Scotland’s international profile”.
Mary Robinson said she believes the Scottish Parliament was the first “to expressly debate a motion which recognises the injustice that the poorest countries in the world are responsible for less than one per cent of the greenhouse gas emissions and yet they tend to be the worst affected”.
Last October, Mary Robinson delivered the prestigious Magnusson Lecture at Glasgow Caledonian University during which she praised Scotland for the leadership it had already shown in the area of climate change. Mrs Robinson believed that the Scottish Parliament, which passed a Climate Change Act in 2009, is among the few countries in the world to have adopted climate legislation, “the most meaningful signal of a nation’s commitment to act”.
Mrs Robinson then challenged both government and civil society in Scotland to “become champions of climate justice”. She said that climate justice “forces us to confront difficult questions and to make difficult decisions – both nationally and internationally”.
Referring to the the the Foundation definition of climate justice, the Scottish Minister for Environment and Climate Change, Stewart Stevenson, announced the launch of a Climate Justice Fund in response to the impact of climate change on the world’s poorest communities. Mr Stevenson said: “It is a travesty that it is the poorest people in the world’s most undeveloped countries who are hardest hit by climate change… This situation cannot continue and the onus is on the international community to take action.”
Mary Robinson said: “I am delighted that Scotland is putting itself forward, as increasingly Ireland is, to speak openly about climate justice and to say that that we have to deal with these issues because we have to work together on climate.”
Related:
The Office Report of the debate and the full text of the motion
MSPs in ‘world first’ climate event – Press Association, 02 March 2012
Scottish Human Rights Commission
Climate Justice – Challenges and Opportunities Remarks by Mary Robinson – Magnusson Lecture 2011