Declaring a climate emergency is no small thing. Not only does it acknowledge the scale of the threat, it also calls us to arms, saying that a piecemeal approach of a little bit here, a little bit there is no longer sufficient.
Nothing could be truer when it comes to the massive shifts in investment needed. The Finance for Nature Summit hosted by the Scottish Government in Edinburgh last week was a timely response to the declaration of emergency, recognizing the critical role finance must play in driving the change and innovation needed to transition our economies to a post-fossil fuel future within a generation.
Roseanna Cunningham, the Climate Change Secretary, recently said that responding to this crisis means rewiring the nation’s psyche. And she’s right. Eliminating Scotland’s contribution to global warming by 2045, five years earlier than the rest of the UK, will be no easy feat. It will require big economic, social, political and financial shifts to rapidly and dramatically reduce the amount of greenhouse gases poured into the atmosphere. But, as the saying goes, nothing that’s worthwhile is ever easy. Scotland is showing the world what climate leadership looks like and many others need to follow +our lead.