by Councillor Chris Cunningham

DO YOU believe we should take action to address climate change? If your answer is yes, I suspect you are in the majority as most people I meet think we have to make changes to safeguard our planet’s future.

Do you believe that this is an emergency, as Glasgow City Council has recently agreed? I suspect more than a few of you may be less clear, partly because you’re not sure what this means and partly because the word “emergency” suggests drastic action and you’re less confident of the need for it.

It’s easy to see the need for change, less easy to accept that this change will directly impact on us. That’s entirely natural but it highlights the challenges facing all of us and, in particular, facing politicians and policy-makers.

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The Scottish Parliament recently agreed that local authorities should be able to charge a levy on employers who provide parking at the workplace. Most commentators assume this will be passed directly on to their employees. The aim of the policy is to help move people away from using their cars and towards public transport.

I suspect we would all agree we need to reduce car journeys (CO2 emissions from cars remain stubbornly high in Glasgow) but there have been many calls for this to only happen when public transport is both greatly extended and made much cheaper – in other words, at some unspecified day in the future. And some say it is nothing more than a tax on workers.

So, we are all in favour of change – but possibly not this change, not right now. It’s the job of politicians to square this circle while at the same time keeping voters on side – that’s the democracy bit.

This won’t be easy – for councillors in Glasgow or world leaders, who will hold a summit in the city next year. But we can be sure of one thing: somehow we are all going to have to give up some things we take for granted if we are to save the planet.