Yesterday in Parliament, Graeme Dey MSP spoke in is a members’ business debate on WWF earth hour 2017.
You can watch Graeme speaking in the debate here: http://www.scottishparliament.tv/20170425_members_business?in=00:07:04&out=00:11:13
Alternatively, you can read Graeme’s speech below.
Graeme Dey, MSP for Angus South: As the member who led the Parliament’s last earth hour debate in 2015, I congratulate Maurice Golden on opting to make his members’ business debate on this subject. He joins a select band of MSPs. Much to my surprise, I discovered today that he, I and Shirley-Anne Somerville are the only members to have highlighted this hugely significant and symbolic event through a members’ business debate—and earth hour is a hugely significant, symbolic event.
The 11th annual earth hour took place on 25 March—11 years of people, businesses and landmarks around the world turning off their lights at 8.30 pm to focus minds on climate change. This year, as we have heard, an unprecedented 187 countries and territories took part, more than 3,000 landmarks switched off their lights, and millions of individuals, businesses and organisations across seven continents took part.
Yes, this is a symbolic gesture that needs to be backed up by firm action, but whether through the act of turning off their lights or by walking past homes, businesses or landmarks without their usual glow, it makes people stop and think, and if considering the issue leads to behavioural change—individually and collectively—earth hour has achieved its purpose.
Buildings in my constituency that participated this year included the iconic Arbroath abbey and a multitude of schools. I am of course delighted that we here in Scotland are making good progress on our climate change targets and that the Scottish Government is committed to raising the bar still further through the climate plan and the forthcoming climate change bill, because far-reaching action is required across the planet to safeguard it for future generations.
Our generation was slow to react. We are playing catch-up. We need to ensure that the next generation is fully alive to the challenge that the planet faces. That is why the participation of young people in earth hour is so important. I recognise of course that pupils—and staff, for that matter—will not have been in schools on a Saturday night. However, there will have been lessons educating pupils about why their schools were participating. There will have been important classes about the potential impacts of climate change, encompassing the message that they can do a little, change a lot.
Members who have heard me speak before about tackling climate change know that I am a firm believer—as others are—that behavioural change is a key component. As we are aware, participating in earth hour is a voluntary act—it is about people taking action because they believe that we as a society have to do so.
WWF, the campaign group behind earth hour, has on its website a number of what it sees as earth hour heroes. I want to tell the story of one such hero—Ahmed from the Maldives. As members may know, the Maldives is a nation that is made up of a number of low-lying islands. It is majorly threatened by climate change. In his day job, Ahmed crunches numbers at a broadcasting company. He first found out about earth hour in 2009 and quickly worked out that it could become an ideal platform to revive a much-needed national debate on the climate.
Ahmed secured partnerships with the Government, with organisations and with the Scout Association of the Maldives and, over the years, he has engaged schools on every island in the Maldives. Who can forget the sight from 2009, when the Government of the Maldives held a cabinet meeting underwater to highlight to the world the threat that climate change poses to their country? The Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform will no doubt be relieved that I am not calling for our cabinet to spend half an hour on the sea bed communicating with whiteboards and hand signals in order to conduct Government business, entertaining though that might be. However, that action by President Nasheed’s Government highlighted the whole climate change issue in a memorable way.
Here’s to 8.30 pm on 24 March 2018—next year’s earth hour—by when we should have a much clearer picture of how the nations of this planet are going to live up to the commitments that they made in Paris to tackling climate change. Of the 195 signatories to the agreement, only 143 countries have indicated thus far what they will be doing up to 2030, so as well as celebrating the symbolism of earth hour, let us be clear that progress needs to be made on the actions planned across the globe to tackle climate change.
