Recommendations from the latest Climate Tech report that ScotlandIS collaborated on with Scottish Council for Development and Industry (SCDI) have secured the backing of MSPs in the Scottish Parliament.
Willie Coffey MSP (SNP) (Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley) has lodged a motion in the Scottish Parliament welcoming SCDI’s recent Climate Tech report as an ‘exciting contribution to Scotland’s net zero journey’ and calling for ‘further action to address climate challenges’ by harnessing the ‘power of digital technologies’ like AI, 5G and data analytics.
Innovation Critical: Scotland’s Net Zero Mission and Climate Tech Opportunity was published by SCDI in partnership with BT, the Royal Society of Edinburgh and ScotlandIS in June. It outlines how Scotland can become a leading innovator and exporter of technological solutions to climate change challenges with ten recommendations to nurture the Climate Tech ecosystem – including a call for a new organisation to provide enhanced and integrated funding and support for Climate Tech start-ups.
The report finds that Scotland should launch a ‘Climate Tech Moonshot’ before COP26 to inspire and coalesce ambition, action and collaboration around a national innovation mission and achieve at least one Climate Tech unicorn in Scotland by 2025. Innovation will be critical to achieving net zero in Scotland by 2045 and will create new green jobs, boost exports and attract inward investment.
Mr Coffey’s motion – which has been backed by Paul Sweeney MSP (Labour) (Glasgow) – agrees that Scotland is ‘well placed to harness new and emerging digital technologies… to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate the impacts of climate change’ and that Climate Tech ‘represents a growing global market and presents a major strategic opportunity for Scotland’s economy’. It also congratulates the partners on their collaboration to produce the innovative report.
You can read the motion here or download the report here to find out more.