The role of parliamentarians in strengthening the climate change agenda: Scotland report

Climate change is one of the most serious threats facing the world. Parliamentarians can and should play a crucial role in addressing this challenge - ensuring government accountability and effectiveness as well as providing a vital knowledge link with constituents, both aspects being important in ensuring a country’s resilience to climate change. Parliamentarians also have opportunity to promote the voice of citizens at home and at international negotiations and to ensure mitigation responses, including at the local level within their constituencies.~To address this The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), together with the Association of European Parliamentarians with Africa (AWEPA)1 has commissioned a project to promote an informed debate on climate change within regional and national parliaments. This project extends to a number of countries and to date has reviewed the effectiveness and challenges of the Parliamentary process across Southern Africa as well as Bolivia and Nepal.~To include a comparison with a developed nation Scotland has been included in the project. Scotland was selected due to its robust parliamentary approach to the climate change agenda. This report provides a summary of the Scotland study conducted during Summer 2010.