In June 2022 the Conveners Group, made up of the MSPs that convene each of the Scottish Parliament’s 15 Committees, and chaired by the Deputy Presiding Officer, agreed a package of proposals to strengthen cross-cutting scrutiny of climate change, as part of Session 6 strategic priorities. You can find out more about this in the SPICe blog on Developing a model for parliamentary scrutiny of climate change. The actions agreed include producing a series of blogs to illustrate how climate change impacts on policy areas across subject committees, to support scrutiny.
This blog is one of a series that illustrate how climate change relates to policy areas covered by each subject committee. It has been produced by Dr Kirsten Jenkins, Senior Lecturer in Energy, Environment and Society at the University of Edinburgh and current Adviser on climate change and net zero targets to the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee.
As with all guest blogs, what follows are the views of the author and not those of SPICe, or of the Scottish Parliament.
Whilst the remit of the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee (CEEAC) does not explicitly include climate change, its engagement with international policy and constitutional matters has direct relevance, particularly in the context of scrutinising Scottish Government policies on international development. This blog provides an overview of the links between climate change and CEEAC’s remit, focusing on international development and climate justice. A separate SPICe blog considers the relevance of climate change to CEAAC in relation to arts and culture.
Climate and international development
There are multiple, clear links between international development – where resources and expertise move between developed and developing nations to improve wellbeing –, climate change and climate justice concerns. Evidence from the Scottish Government to the House of Commons International Development Committee inquiry on UK aid for combating climate change in 2019 stated that:
“International development is a key part of Scotland’s global contribution within the international community. The objective is for Scotland to act as a good global citizen… Key to Scotland’s approach to international development is the concept that Scotland can be a global leader in international development, providing ethical leadership on issues such as climate change”.
Just as greenhouse gas emissions profiles vary internationally, the impacts of climate change are felt unequally. A 2023 summary report from the International Panel for Climate Change noted that vulnerable communities, particularly in least developed countries (LDCs) and small island developing states (SIDS), were “disproportionately affected” despite having “historically contributed the least” to climate change. The nature of these impacts raises international justice considerations. The UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office identifies impacts for developing nations including severe weather events, rising sea levels and disruptions to agriculture and water resources.
According to a definition from the London School of Economics and Political Science, the “polluter pays principle” (which is integrated into the Scottish Government’s environment guiding principles), states that those who cause environmental damage should bear the costs of preventing, controlling, and mitigating that damage, rather than society as a whole. For this reason, climate-led international development approaches recognise uneven contributions to, and uneven impacts of, climate change – as well as a moral obligation to respond. This logic underpins international agreements, regional and national policy approaches, and international development responses.
The Paris Agreement and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) link climate action with poverty reduction, food security and economic stability and SDG 3 Goal 13 on Climate Action recognises the need for international support for climate-vulnerable countries. There are various forms of response, including compensatory measures for prior incidents, and financial investment and technological support for mitigation and adaptation. For Scotland, international development approaches to climate change are partially mobilised through a climate justice lens, including through the Climate Justice Fund.
Climate justice
Climate justice focuses primarily on assisting those affected by climate change; sharing the burdens and benefits of climate change; mitigation and adaptation; and reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and other greenhouse gases. This includes concern around (1) who benefits from the activities which produce climate change emissions and how should they bear the burden for mitigation, (2) recognising the vast divergence in capabilities to respond to global climate change, and (3) addressing the issue of adaptation, the burdens of which are unequally focused on the world’s poor.
The idea of climate justice also highlights other often intersecting factors contributing to who is most disadvantaged, including geography, ethnicity, indigenous or minority status, disability and gender. According to UN Women, for instance:
“The climate crisis is not ‘gender neutral’; women and girls experience the greatest impacts of climate change, which amplifies existing gender inequalities and poses unique threats to their livelihoods, health, and safety.”
Inequalities also occur intergenerationally, recognising that younger and future generations will face the most severe climate change impacts. Climate justice approaches suggest that these injustices or inequalities should be addressed directly as part of attempts to tackle climate change impacts, whilst empowering people and increasing accountability and responsibility.
The Scottish Government’s National Adaptation Plan (2024-2029) (SNAP3) includes a focus on climate justice and enhanced global action on adaptation as one of five long-term outcomes. The Conference of the Parties (COP) meetings – the meetings of signatories to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change or UNFCCC – offer a platform for discussing climate action. Over several sessions, including in the lead up to the 26th UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow in 2021, where the Scottish Parliament hosted the GLOBE International Legislators Summit, and COP29 in Baku in 2024, the CEEAC committee has convened to discuss climate justice, with testimonies from climate justice experts.
Climate Justice Fund
The Scottish Government has three primary international funding mechanisms: the International Development Fund, Humanitarian Emergency Fund and the Climate Justice Fund (CJF). On the launch of the CJF in 2012, Scotland became the first country to commit funds directly to climate justice. The CJF is introduced as “a people-centred, human-rights based approach to supporting communities in the Global South to respond to the material and social impacts of the climate crisis”. The CJF is an additional measure that aligns with Scotland’s International Development Principles, which state that:
“Recognising that we are facing a global climate emergency, we will support increasing resilience to climate change and to transition to becoming, as appropriate, net-zero economies in a way that is fair, just and leaves no one behind”.
Since 2021, the CJF has focused on participatory, community-led and resilience-building approaches. The latest £36 million CJF is being delivered over the course of the current parliament (2021-2026) and has been allocated to a range of projects, including: Climate Justice Communities Malawi, Rwanda and Zambia, Scotland’s Humanitarian Emergency Fund, the Non-Economic Loss and Damage Fund and Scotland’s Loss and Damage Conference.
Climate Just Communities (CJC) is the main delivery mechanisms for the CJF. The £24 million programme being delivered between 2023 and 2026 is equally split across three countries: Malawi, Rwanda and Zambia. Within each, funding targets a variety of areas, including water, sanitation and hygiene, disaster risk management, climate resilient agriculture and gender and inclusion.
The CEEAC committee has previously undertaken scrutiny of the CJF through dedicated evidence sessions and follow-up correspondence. A letter sent to the Cabinet Secretary for Constitution, External Affairs and Culture in November 2024 highlighted the work of the committee in gathering evidence and insights relevant to the Scottish Government’s preparations for COP29 in Baku. The evidence considered themes of Scotland’s credibility, progress and funding, who finance is for and who it is reaching, monitoring and evaluation, and policy alignment. Recommendations included the need for clarifying language around climate justice and enhancing broader political leadership, including the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund asking the Scottish Government to show “courage on fossil fuels and the just transition”.
The CEEAC committee evidence session on climate justice in October 2024 followed an independent evaluation of the CJF completed in 2021 and related committee work. This evaluation delivered a series of findings on the outcome of the CJF, including that it had been broadly effective with success in mainstreaming climate justice in the Scottish Government and building climate justice knowledge and experience through supported projects. Outcomes varied across projects, with some indications of increased adaptive and absorptive capacity in vulnerable communities and in some cases, improved equity. The review emphasised the need to share lessons and delivery on all three pillars of climate justice: namely distributive justice, procedural justice and transformative justice. Large-scale public-facing evaluations for the current CJF allocations are not yet available.
International leadership on loss and damage
The Scottish Government emphasises the importance of international leadership on climate change, including through knowledge exchange and transfer and in international climate debates. This includes through international meetings such as the Conference of the Parties (COP) – the meeting of signatories to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change or UNFCCC. In a speech in December 2023 then First Minister Humza Yousaf said that:
“At COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland became the first developed nation in the world to commit funding to address loss and damage. That £2 million commitment ignited a debate and showed global leadership. Despite being a relatively small amount in the context of the overall challenge, that commitment now shows that the voices of small nations are crucial for climate justice and can make a big difference”.
The Contribution to International Development Report 2021-2023 (the subject of a SPICe blog on How has the Scottish Government been supporting international development?) reads:
“As a small Global North donor, we are at our best when we use our platform, in close partnership with the Global South, to push for meaningful change, as we did when we became the first Global North nation to commit funding explicitly to address loss and damage caused by climate change at COP26. This, and our continued focus on loss and damage, has helped galvanise an ongoing global ambition on the issue, with the creation of a Loss and Damage Fund and global commitments to funding loss and damage now over $700 million”.
There are no universal definitions of loss and damage, though the UN Environment Programme defines it as “the negative consequences that arise from unavoidable risks of climate change.” UN Climate Change states that “in being “unavoidable”, loss and damage covers the negative impacts of climate change that cannot be avoided through “mitigation” (reducing the emissions that contribute to climate change) or “adaption” (making adjustments, such as flood defences or sowing drought-resistant crops)”. Alongside quantifiable loss and damage, allocations are made to so-called non-economic loss and damage (NELD), which refers to climate-induced loss and damage that is not easily economically quantifiable, such as loss of life, indigenous knowledge, and/or territory.
The loss and damage funding has been distributed to a range of countries, recipients and schemes, including (non-exhaustively): communities in Zambia, Kenya, Ethiopia and Pakistan to undertake gender-responsive work to rebuild after climate-induced extreme weather events; research on operationalising loss and damage finance (2022 to 2023); support for Malawians facing loss and damage in the wake of tropical storms, and contributions to the Climate Justice Resilience Fund (CJRF).
The CEEAC Committee has a role in scrutinising the Scottish Government’s international performance and reputation, including through the loss and damage mechanism. According to academic research, this should include considerations around whether international development exacerbates climate change and whether foreign aid reduces energy and carbon intensity in developing economies.
Through international development and leadership concerns, the remit of the CEEAC committee overlaps with other committees. This includes, for instance, the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee. The NHS Scotland Global Citizenship Programme operates the Quality Improvement for Health Partnerships Programme between NHS Scotland and the Health Ministries of Malawi and Zambia – recipients of the CJF –, whilst the NHS Scotland Global Citizenship conferences that have included a focus on climate change. Such links provide an opportunity for collective scrutiny on international development, climate justice and climate change leadership.
Dr Kirsten Jenkins, University of Edinburgh
Featured image by the Scottish Parliament.