Impassioned plea for councillors to take climate change seriously

This week the full council received a report from John Curry, director of Infrastructure and Environment, on the local authority’s climate change priorities, including a commitment to Net Zero by 2045, or earlier if achievable.

But Mr Curry also confirmed, after the question was posed by Tweeddale West ward councillor Drummond Begg, that less than half of elected members in the council chamber had attended climate emergency training sessions made available in October and November.

It is a statistic that alarms Selkirkshire’s Councillor Elaine Thornton-Nicol, who said: “An appeal was sent out for councillors to undertake the climate change training and we started ours yesterday – three of us, three of us. This is real, this is huge and this is terrifying.

“We’re sitting here in an emergency. Mr Curry is trying to say we need to get this right, we need to get better at it, everybody as an individual, as a councillor, as a committee member, as council, as a community member, and, I’m sorry, as a member of the planet. If you have not done the training, please do it, because it is going to terrify the pants off you.”

Councillor Begg praised the efforts being made to tackle climate change within the council, particularly over recycling rates – the fourth best in Scotland – but stressed that “we must do better”.

He said: “I do remain concerned that climate change issues are still too low down on this council’s agenda. I note that this is item 11 and on page 461 of the papers that we have just gone through, maybe that is just a physical reflection of where we put things.

“I do note that other councils in the UK have approved a depute leader specifically tasked with climate portfolio, that’s maybe something we should consider. I would like to think that everyone in this chamber will be putting climate as the top issue. I would really like to get the sense that we are dealing with an emergency as a collective.”