Highland councillor: ‘I’ve wedged door open for Greens’
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THEY say it’s always good to stand out from the crowd but Highland Council’s only Scottish Green Party member Pippa Hadley has been feeling like a Billy-no-mates.
Now the 47-year-old mum-of-one who almost single-handedly pushed the environment to the top of the local political agenda last week believes she’s beginning to bridge some of the divide.
The determined councillor persuaded full council to declare a climate and ecological emergency, going way beyond action originally proposed by council leader Margaret Davidson.
Cllr Hadley said it was a great boon for the future of the environment in the Highlands but also a “notable” achievement for her, personally.
“Being the only Green councillor has been quite lonely because I don’t have a team of people to advise me in chamber, I’m not able to reach out to a group, so this is notable. It feels like I’ve wedged the door open now for other Greens go follow.”
The member for Badenoch and Strathspey, who has until now only observed the tabling of motions and amendments, was catapulted into the arena by the Inverness Area branch of the London-based Extinction Rebellion movement.
The protesters now occupying the city’s Town House and Falcon Square with banners most Fridays, asked if she would submit their motion. The over-riding request on its wish list was a request for the local authority to declare a climate emergency and make the Highlands carbon-neutral by 2025.
They were “delighted” when councillors agreed to declare a climate emergency and to “work towards” zero-carbon status by 2025.
“I couldn’t have done this without calling for a little bit of friendly help in the chamber,” said Cllr Hadley.
Critics believe the 2025 deadline to hit carbon neutral status is too soon and could spell the end of livestock farming in Scotland.
But the world’s leading climate scientists say there is only a dozen years for global warming to be kept to a maximum of 1.5C, beyond which even half a degree will significantly worsen the risks of drought, floods, extreme heat and poverty for hundreds of millions of people.
