Interview With Liberal Democrat Politician, Willie Rennie MSP
By Taylor Sheppard, Shay Pritchard, David Mcdougall and Cameron Sweeney
Earlier today, we interviewed Willie Rennie, ex-leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, to ask him his thoughts on certain climate issues. Below are the questions we asked him, as well as his response.
We asked: On August 27th, you partly lodged a motion that the parliament recognise the helpfulness of species-rich grassland in combating climate change. If you were to see more grassland restored in the UK and species reintroduced, how do you see these areas being used to further minimise greenhouse gas/methane output as opposed to beef production which is harmful to the environment?
His response: “A big part of the climate change battle is trying to get agriculture into a climate friendly state and right now there is quite a lot of production that contributes quite a lot of emissions. So there is a big target that by about 2030 in which we need to reduce the climate emissions from agriculture. But also how we can make sure that the bits of land farmers have are fully utilised to try and counterbalance the emissions from other forms of productions. There’s also an active debate about that because we make whiskey from barley and grow things like sugar beats for anaerobic digestives. We grow trees for biomass plants to produce energy and some people say that we should just be using productive land for food purposes. My motion was about grasslands because I think the recognition of what grasslands can contribute towards cutting emissions needs to be properly understood.”
We asked: The Paris Agreement states that planetary warming must be kept well below 2 degrees Celsius. However, current policies are set to produce a 2.7 degrees Celsius increase by the end of the century through current commitments under the Paris accord. This therefore indicates that the Paris commitments are not enough. What more do you think world governments can do to assure that the temperature remains well below a 2 degree temperature rise?
His response: “Part of this is getting countries to act together because we are competitive economically and sometimes the measures that we might take on the environment might have an impact on our economic competitiveness. So countries, particularly those who have quite significantly large numbers of poor people, feel the need to try and improve the well-being of their citizens. So there’s a case of making sure that we spread the finance to allow them to cut emissions whilst not damaging the economic prospects of their citizens. So that’s the complex mix, again, of making sure that we work in partnership right across the globe. If you look at places like India, the levels of poverty in India are significant, but India is making a massive contribution overall to climate emissions even though every individual citizen doesn’t produce as much per head as we do in the UK. So India might say why am I not allowed to be getting economic gains when you’ve caused this problem in the first place, pointing the finger at the UK, the US and the western world… The Chinese/American agreement yesterday was a big step forward as these are two big colossus of countries that are major contributors to climate emissions. So if we can get them to be more fully committed to change then we have a better chance overall of meeting our targets.”
We asked: As part of the Green Recovery Plan, the Liberal Democrats pledged to upgrade insulation in all existing homes by 2030 and require all new homes to become eco-friendly. With only 9 years to spare in what is now almost 2022, how successful has this pledge been and how many homes, to this date, have been insulated up to an eco-friendly standard?
His response: “I don’t know the exact numbers, but Scotland and the UK overall has made significant difference to their housing, stocked with approved insulation standards. The next challenge is about how we heat our homes, the more insulated they are the less important social heating is as we will need less of it. I find it still staggering now that we are still installing gas boilers in new homes, when we are meant to be getting rid of gas boilers in about ten years or so. So we are not making the right decisions, the planners aren’t enforcing with the developers the right kind of conditions for the construction of there homes. I know that standards overall have improved from what they used to be, but there are some easy wins that we could have by not putting gas boilers in and that we hook up to district heating systems, that we put solar panels on roofs. But too often, developers of houses want the lowest cost possible option and the planners aren’t actually prepared to enforce stricter conditions upon them, partly in fear of not being able to meet housing targets overall as homelessness is a massive problem and we do not have enough housing overall. We need to make sure we are imposing the right rules and conditions one those who are building the homes and heating the homes, to ensure we meet their standards that we all want to achieve.’
We asked: At first, advancements at COP26 pointed towards a temperature increase of 1.8 degrees Celsius, but a new analysis carried out by Climate Action Tracker discovered that the pledges made so far will only limit warming to 2.4 degrees Celsius – a clear representation of the inaction of all government bodies throughout the world. Do you believe that the Scottish Government consider the climate crisis as a top priority? What do you think our main priority should be when tackling the climate emergency?
His response: “Of course Scotland should do more, we have quite good targets- we are not particularly good at actually delivering. That’s the massive challenge for all countries, politicians can talk a lot and make grand promises for the future. But often we don’t deliver on those promises, and that is the biggest challenge now it is not really about the promises we make it is about the delivery and there’s just not enough delivery on the promises that have been made. For instance, it has taken a long time for us to get the money together to invest in developing countries to allow them to adapt to climate change pressures. We have not transferred that money as quickly as necessary. So those are the kind of things that we need to start delivering on much more effectively if we are going to meet those challenges. The tracker is only counting the commitments that have been made so far, my hope is that in the last few days of this conference we get many more commitments like the one from China and America which I don’t think are included in the tracker. If we can get those extra commitments now and deliver them, then we have got a much better chance of meeting those targets.”
We asked: Finally, to conclude, do you believe that the Scottish government has failed its young people through their lack of action taken against climate change?
His response: “I think the Scottish government, and other world governments, are failing to actually deliver on the promises, I think that’s the biggest neglect and the biggest failure on young people. Because we are good at talking and very poor at delivering, and I want to see some action change, so that when we make the promises when can deliver with action. That’s my big clear message to everyone. We have some great new technologies in Scotland and around the world, particularly in universities, we should be using those technologies quickly, its less the promise and more the delivery that I really want to focus on using the technology that is out there already. And that is what frustrates me endlessly, we make promises for 20/30 years ahead, well actually we need promises delivered now in order to make that difference.”
Overall, we found Mr Rennie to be very informative as he provided us a clear opinion of his views on the climate crisis.
