We welcome to the 10th meeting of the Net Zero Energy and Transport Committee I remind members that social distancing measures are in place at Holyrood Please follow the common measures when to enter and exit the committee room Apologies from Natalie Dawn, coleg Stefancent pleslon a assistance payment On agenda time, we have consideration of whether to take agenda items 5 and 6 in private Item 5 is consideration of correspondence from the Scottish Government, proposing the re-appointment of four Scottish land commissioners and the contents of a possible report to the Parliament on this matter. Item 6 is consideration of the committee's work programme. Are we all agreed to take items 5 and 6 in private? Yes. We are agreed. Thank you. Our first item today is an evidence session on the outcomes of the conference of the parties in Glasgow, which ended on Saturday, and early views as to the implications on Scotland's climate change policies. I welcome Professor Jim Sgea, chair of the Just Transition Commission, Malini Ann Malini-Mera, secretary at CEO, non-executive board member, India Globe International. We are delighted that both of you can join us after a very busy couple of weeks at COP26 in Glasgow. When you were last here in front of the committee as a former chair of the former Just Transition Commission, but since then the commission has been re-established to report annually on the progress that Scotland is making towards net zero and you have been re-appointed as chair. So congratulations and the committee looks forward to working with you again. Ms Mehra, congratulations for all your successful work on the Globe 26 legislative summit held here in the Scottish Parliament on 5 and 6 November, as well as the many other events that you were actively involved in over the past few weeks in relation to COP26. I understand that both of our witnesses wish to make short opening statements. Ms Mehra, can I suggest that we start with you and I'll hand the floor over to you. Thank you. Thank you very much, chair, and good morning to everyone. I begin by extending the warmest thanks from Globe International to the presiding officer and the Scottish Parliament for so kindly hosting the COP26 legislative summit just 10 days ago. It was a very unique experience for us, not only given the beautiful elegance of the building, but the fact that it was a hybrid event. It was the first time that we had held a virtual event, and we were able to welcome digital delegates from world and in fact reached 5,000 people over the course of the two days. In hosting COP26, Scotland has been rightly lauded for its hospitality and given our experience in both Glasgow and Edinburgh, that praise is very richly deserved. Now to COP26, and thank you very much for this opportunity to share some early reflections, and I have to add the caveat that these are early and these are personal reflections on the outcomes of COP26. COP26 has been variously called a thousand piece jigsaw, the Glasgow climate pact, a suicide note, or in the words of the executive secretary, Patricia Espinosa, a bridge between the promises that were made in Paris and what still needs to be done. I think that there's going to be a lot of commentary in the coming days to unpack what's actually in the Glasgow package, but I think that the UN Secretary General, Antonio Gutierrez, put it best when he described the text as a compromise, reflecting the interests, the conditions, the contradictions and the states of political will in the world today. We know that success in Glasgow was not a foregone conclusion, and the negotiations were literally right up to the last minute, especially after the intervention by India, but the deal, however imperfect, was clinched, and the Paris agreement has been built on and multilateralism has survived. In terms of what was agreed at COP26, just a few highlights. Glasgow agreed a so-called Glasgow climate pact of formal UNFCCC decisions, which have now become part of the UN international climate regime, and these include the Paris rulebook and, importantly, article 6 of the binding Paris regime. We've got the cover text from the COP, which was the conference of parties, but also from the other two bodies, the CMA and the CMP, which refer to the outcomes of the Kyoto protocol and the Paris agreement. These are political declarations, but they give forward commitments of action on the key issues of mitigation, adaptation and finance. Glasgow also saw groups of countries agree plurilateral initiatives to accelerate action on coal phase-out on methane reduction, stopping fossil fuel finance, stopping deforestation and the internal combustion engine vehicle phase-out, the so-called zero emissions vehicles. Importantly, however, Glasgow put nature on the agenda for the first time, and the joint climate and biodiversity crises were brought together as never before. Science was also on the agenda as never before, with a clear commitment for the first time to 1.5 to stay alive much stronger language than we had in the Paris agreement. Glasgow has set itself an aggressive agenda of work from next year, potentially to deliver at 26 Egypt next year. It has hired 20 the NDCs, the national climate pathways, to show that 1.5 degree is still possible, so that the ratchet mechanism at Paris has worked, it has proved itself, can deliver and the annual reviews have been agreed to. We have seen climate finance mobilisation of the £100 billion plus by 2023, with a caveat added in the cover declaration that developed countries showed deep regret that it hadn't been delivered by 2020, as was already agreed more than a decade ago. Another first was the doubling of finance for adaptation by 2025, using 2019 as the baseline. I look ahead to the global golden adaptation and post-2025 finance goal to be decided at COP28. Potentially, we will also see a global facility or some kind of financing mechanism on the important subjects of climate loss and damage. We also saw historical language on coal and fossil fuel subsidies. There is also, importantly, a recognition of the need for transformation on global financial system and institutions, the need for an alignment of why the international development of finance with the Paris agreement, one, which is from Mark Carney, pledging £130 trillion of private finance around the world. We have a technical issue with Ms Marra's connection. Can you hear me now? Yes, we can. Please continue. Great. In conclusion, the two weeks saw a barrage of pledges and packs being made to address the nature and climate emergencies. These are very welcome, but they will remain paper tigers unless parliaments such as yourselves enact laws to bring them in the purview of national legislation. What do we expect? We know that since Kyoto in 1997, national climate laws grew from more than 50 to more than 2,500 globally. Glasgow will see another surge of lawmaking to ensure that net zero and other pledges are anchored in domestic legislation with clear targets, timetables and resources, because without laws there is no credibility. As the UN Secretary General said in his closing speech in Glasgow, COP 27 begins now. It also begins with national governments bringing their deals back to parliaments to review to ensure that rhetoric is translated into reality. Much more to say, but thank you very much for the opportunity to share those initial reflections with you. Well, no, thank you very much, Ms Marra. That is a very comprehensive overview and insight into a very complicated agreement that was just reached less than two days ago. Professor Kea, could I hand over to you for your opening remarks? Yes, certainly. Thanks for the invitation to come before the committee again. I am grateful for the opportunity to come back. I will start with a confession that I am not a professional COP watcher. I was in Glasgow for most of the time, but I was there with my role as a co-chair of IPCC working group 3 on mitigation and also spent a lot of time presenting the works of the Scottish Just Transition Commission at various side events. I can just say where we are with the Just Transition. As the chair said, the commission has been reconstituted and I have been reappointed as chair of the commission. We have a terms of reference moving forward, which is to provide scrutiny advice on the development of the Just Transition sectoral plans and the application of the Just Transition planning framework. We are due to advise on the most suitable approaches to monitoring and evaluating progress, and we are to engage and collaborate with other sources of expertise and undertake meaningful engagement with those most likely to be impacted by the transition to net zero. We have a clear set of tasks. I have already heard a number of meetings with Richard Lochhead, the new minister for Just Transition employment and fair work. In terms of appointments, the discussions are almost concluded on the membership of the new commission. A new and larger secretariat is being appointed, and we would hope to have a first meeting of the new commission before the end of the year. Just to say in terms of how this sort of related to COP26. As I said, there was an absolutely huge amount of interest in the Scottish Just Transition experience at COP26, and I was on panels or chaired events at a number of meetings in the blue zone during the week. It is worthwhile flagging that paragraph 85 of the Glasgow Pact also specifically identifies the issue of Just Transition, the promotion of sustainable development and the eradication of poverty, and the creation of decent work and quality jobs. Just Transition and the way that Scotland has dealt with it has actually got quite a lot of international attention. I also say that, with my other hat on, as co-chair of IPCC working group 3, there are several mentions of IPCC in there, acknowledging the report of working group 1 on the physical science that came out in August, and inviting the other parts of IPCC, which would include ourselves in working group 3, to present our results to COP27 or to the intersessional next year once our reports are finished. Just to say where we are on that—I came off from another call on that—we are currently concluding work on the working group 3 mitigation contribution to the sixth assessment cycle, and we are expecting to go to an approval session in late March 2022, when our report would then be published. Working group 2 on impact will intend to approve at the end of February. One thing that I might say was that, in the run-up to Glasgow, we had some big questions about how relevant our report would actually be, given that the Glasgow conference was going to take place first. However, I think that with the annual return to the nationally determined contributions, it means that our report is going to be very, very pertinent to what happens at the intersessional next year and at COP27 in Egypt when it comes. Basically, although I am not, as I said at the beginning, a professional COP watcher, there was an awful lot of interest there that was relevant to both the roles that I currently occupy with IPCC and the Scottish Just Transition Commission. Thank you very much, Professor Skea. Thanks for those opening remarks and perspective, both of which are very valuable for the committee. There are clearly a number of different views about the headlines and takeaways and implications of the Glasgow pact. Senator John Kerry described the final deal as imperfect but widely welcomed. He also said that the world is now closer than it has ever been to the goal of limiting temperature rises to 1.5 degrees. I would just like to ask both of you briefly in terms of Senator Kerry's take. Do you think that his take overall is a fair summary in terms of a headline takeaway? Ms Marra, perhaps I can start with you. Yes, I think absolutely. Let's remember that the US has only really been back in the game this past year. Let's remember that the US was dealing with an insurrection just at the beginning of the year on 6 January. The US had removed itself from the Paris agreement. Given where we are right now, we have an agreement that has been concluded that we had literally two to three days before the conclusion of COP26, an extraordinary rapprochement between the USA and China, with John Kerry coming together with China's lead negotiator Shia Shenhua, and issuing a joint declaration. These are quite unprecedented moves. Given where we have been in the last few years, given that we are two years overdue, given the recognition of the severity of the climate crisis that we do have a deal, and that we were able to clinch it at the last minute, I think that John Kerry, and as I remarked earlier, the Secretary General Antonio Gutierrez have described it absolutely correctly. It is a good deal, it is an imperfect deal, there is much more to be done. Professor Skiw, do you agree with that sentiment as summarised by Senator Kerry? I think that I would. There have been so many different judgments on the degree of success of the Glasgow COP that I do think that it depends on how high you set the bar at the beginning. If you were anticipating that there would be a deal that would place 1.5 square within reach, those expectations I think were inflated. I do think that it is a good deal, I think that we have made a lot of progress on different aspects. Obviously, we are interested in the headlines. Is it 1.5? Is it 1.8? Is it 2.4 degrees or whatever? The key thing for me was the progress on what you might call the more technical and boring bits of finishing the Paris rule book was really, really, really important. I think that because that builds the platform for progress in the future and that was the part of it that I think that most impressed me. Thanks very much. I would like to move on to the subject of finance and mobilising the necessary levels of finance globally, especially to make finance available to developing nations. Mention was made of the Mark Carney announcement of the Glasgow financial alliance network, with $130 trillion available to be mobilised to fight climate change across the world. What is your understanding of the final agreement reached at Glasgow in relation to the levels of finance available for mitigation and adaptation? It would be good to get your take on what needs to happen now after the agreement. John Kerry again said that it was all about implementation. What needs to happen next in order to get finance to developing nations to help them to meet their own NDCs? Again, Ms Merra, maybe I can start with you. I think that it is important that there was a recognition that the current finance architecture, both through the international financial institutions, public finance, multilateral finance and private finance, was very underdeveloped. Glasgow has really given a huge boost to the different arenas of finance, bringing them together. Hopefully, what we will see in the coming months is moves towards a much more comprehensive finance architecture globally, so that public finance can move with greater alacrity to those communities and vulnerable parts of the world, where public finance in particular has a very important role to play. That is one of the key demands that had been made by the least developed countries and by the vulnerable countries in their formations, whether it was the Climate Vulnerable Forum or the Alliance of Small Island States. There was a recognition that private finance needs to move much quicker. The headlines really were made with Mark Carney's announcement early on in the week in week 1, where he mentioned this very grandiose figure of £130 trillion in private finance being available. But to whom it goes, how it goes, that is the big question mark, how that can align now with the Paris Agreement goals and 1.5 now big question mark. In terms of adaptation finance, I would say some real breakthroughs. We had already the adaptation fund and we saw more than a doubling of the adaptation fund. It went from what it was roughly £150 million before Glasgow to £350 million. We had a number of countries making pledges but, importantly, we also had a number of sub-national governments making pledges. The province of Quebec, for example, the Belgian provinces of Wallonia, the Brussels capital region, we have begun to see capital for grants in particular move into the adaptation fund in a way that we have not seen before. Overall, it is incredibly encouraging and incredibly important that we have also had the recognition of loss and damage. However, the fact that we now have a pledge to double adaptation financing as part of the £100 billion, which will be £100 billion plus over the course of the next two or three years, is a very important progress. Much to be welcomed. Thank you very much. Professor Skear, the globalisation of climate change finance also feeds into the global just transition, so I would welcome your views on the question as well. This is not something that I have been following in the negotiations and I confess that it is not my area of expertise. I would say that the sums needed for adaptation and mitigation are in the trillions, but they are not in the billions. The question of moving the private finance as well is critically important, but what Mark Carney's remarks make clear is that there is enough money available out there and there are lots of cost-effective projects waiting to be implemented in the developing world. The big trick is how you get the money to move, how you mobilise the savings that are available in the developed world and how you get those directed towards investment in worthwhile projects. I agree with Malini that it is the methods and the how for that to happen that is absolutely critical. We talk to private fund managers who do not get out of the bed in the morning for less than $100 million. On the other hand, many of the projects that are needing to be implemented are a few thousand dollars at the level of households or small farmers. There, the big trick is how you aggregate those projects, how you get that bridge between what is needed on the ground and the large sums of money that are available without incurring huge transaction costs and getting that money shifted. That is the big challenge. Professor Scott, I completely agree that that aggregation of projects, in a way that is both fair for the public sector, the taxpayer and attractive enough to mobilise private finance, is going to be one of the key challenges. Before I bring in Liam Kerr to Ms Merra on finance, you said that one of the key questions is now who the finance goes to and how it is allocated. Just for my understanding, how will that be agreed? Is this part of the UK COP26 presidency over the next 12 months to go into that level of detail in terms of which multilateral banks are going to be involved, how the finance will be allocated, how it is going to be monitored? Is there a road path set for how that will be agreed? Yes. Ahead of Glasgow, there was a paper published on the delivery plan for finance, and that was jointly with Canada and Germany. I think that that delivery plan, as it was articulated pre-Glasgow, so before COP26, is going to be worked on. We are going to see in the next few months a great deal of collective engagement between the international financial institutions, other parts of the global public finance sector, the private finance sector, the OECD donor governments. A lot of talking in the coming months about how the alignment will work between the different forms of finance. It is the responsibility of the UK presidency still to chart out that pathway. It had commissions, the delivery plan that we know has been published now, but the follow-up now is conversations that are taking place as we speak about what that is going to mean in practice, what it is going to look like. That is very helpful. Thank you for that clarification. Let me bring in Liam Kerr to be followed by Fiona Hyslop. I just want to pick up that second question that the convener asked. Ms Marra, in your opening remarks, you said that targets will remain paper tigers unless parliaments enact them. My question is how great is the influence of the market here, because is it not the case that governments, parliaments can only do so much and what will ultimately decide success or failure are things like investment decisions by businesses and consumer choices and behaviours? If that is accepted, how do we, as a Parliament, drive those changes in investment decisions and consumer behaviours? I suggest that one looks at the role of the investors community in directing private finance. The public policy changes that we have seen over the past few years have had the task force on climate disclosures, which now requires companies to disclose whether they have a climate change risk strategy in place, such that private capital is encouraged to go to those companies which are Paris agreement aligned. There have been some very important moves by the big asset manager companies such as BlackRock, for example, to ensure that the $11 trillion that it holds amongst its extended fund network globally is driving towards decarbonisation strategies in the countries in which the companies are investing. Those are the key mechanisms driven by the private sector itself. What can governments do? Governments can ensure that they are providing incentives and, of course, a governance structure to enable private finance to move into net zero strategies and net zero pathways. One of the very important ways in which that incentivisation has taken place is through transparency. The Bank of England had played the very important role in this through a TCFD to send a very clear signal to private capital markets that there is an expectation now that you will be Paris aligned and that we are on the pathway to getting out of fossil finance. You begin to see that in particular through the collapse of financing for coal, for example. There are a number of things that the Glasgow climate pact is now going to set in train. It is precisely this kind of conversation about what is the role of government policy and what can the private sector itself do to ensure— Seem to have a slight technical pause. Professor Skea, did you want to come in on Liam Kerr's question on the role of markets and governments in mobilising finance? Well, just very briefly, I think that governments and the private sector and the finance sector do very much interact with each other. Clearly, it is the private sector that needs to put up the money for the largest part, but it will only do so if government sets the tone. Government sets the tone in two different ways. One is setting the overall mood of music for the change of direction. Do people expect to make money or lose money out of investing in high-carbon activities or net-zero activities? I think that the Paris agreement, some of the IPCC reports and Glasgow over the past couple of weeks is one of those things that does change or set the mood music. As well as the mood music, there is also the very important thing of the specific kind of incentives, the greater detail in the sense of direction. That, for example, is where the idea of the Just Transition Planning Framework and the Just Transition Plans, the recommendations that have been accepted by the Scottish Government come into play as well, the fact that people have a sense of where we are actually going to go in specific parts of the economy, giving a sense that there are profitable activities within net-zero. I think that Mark Ruskell had a supplemental in this area. It wasn't directly on finance, but I might take the opportunity just to ask Jim Skear about the line in the agreement around inefficient fossil fuel subsidies. Obviously, we are seeing private finance coming in, hopefully that will lead to Just Transition eventually, but we are also seeing a lot of public finance coming in through tax subsidies for fossil fuels for other forms of direct support. I think there is an issue there around what is inefficient fossil fuel subsidies. I am interested in both your points of view on this, about where you would draw the line in terms of what is an efficient fossil fuel subsidy and what is an inefficient one. I am afraid that I was not following the negotiations really closely on Mark Ruskell. Obviously, words like inefficient have coded significance that I must be aware of. I know from Indian colleagues that there is a lot of sensitivity that fossil fuel subsidies are used to address social issues in many countries and to deal with inequities within countries. Those could be deemed to be perhaps an efficient way of dealing with social inequities, which might explain the coding, but maybe Malini has more insight on that, because I, frankly, did not follow the negotiations closely. Thanks very much, Professor Skear. We are trying to reconnect to Ms Merrill, who has got a slight technical issue at the moment. While we try to reconnect, Fiona Hyslop has a question for Professor Skear, so I will hand over to Fiona. I was interested, Professor Skear, in what you were saying about the Paris Agreement and the technical aspects of the rulebook being finally established and set, and what that might mean. That is probably an area that has less coverage in terms of the outputs in the past few days. I am very conscious that your reflections are very early, and I thank you for sharing them so quickly. Do you want to impact that a bit more as to what you think the implications of that will mean? Of course, under the Kyoto protocol, we had mechanisms such as the clean development mechanism and the emissions trading that evolved under the EU scheme. What the article 6 is allowing you to do is to share the ITMOS, the internationally transferred mitigation outcomes that are adding another acronym to the list. It has got to be a key mechanism to help to start shifting that money that is available in the developed world, the unused savings, and to get them into projects in the developing world. Again, I have to confess that I am not an avid cop watcher, so I did not follow the details on that, but the key thing is that until the article 6 issues were resolved, you could not move forward in terms of international sharing. There are many cities and companies that are setting net zero targets. I undoubtedly need offsets to get to net zero, because it is simply impossible to get your gross emissions down to zero. What the article 6 does is provide the mechanism to get offsets in place that will allow projects in the developing world to be funded. The warning is that if you are using offsets, you have to have the absolute assurance that those are real offsets and that there are real reductions in emissions taking place as a result of them. The measurement, the reporting and the verifiability of the offsets will be very important. It is a critical part of it. Without article 6 being completed, a major part of the original Paris agenda could not be pursued. The Glasgow pact has moved the clock. As Alex Sharma said, that is a solution that has eluded people for six years, and it was a big achievement to get it done in Glasgow last week. Can I maybe follow up? I was hoping to ask Ms Merham on the multilateralism aspect, and I understand that she might be back. Maybe I will come to you first, Jim, just to talk about the mitigation work in the workshops that you were involved in. What does multilateralism mean within that? Were there particular geopolitical alignments taking place in those discussions that were of concern or were helpful? Multilateralism, as we have been discussing, in terms of finance and the rules for that multilateralism from private finance in offsetting, how do we make sure that the transparency and accountability of it means that it is real offsetting as opposed to greenwashing presentation? What was your perspective of that, as opposed to the multilateralism being within companies, not just within the governmental arena? That was to Jim, and then I will come to Melina. I think that we should pass straight to Melina. You are taking me beyond my expertise at the moment, sorry versus Lop. No, that's fine. I was trying to make sure that we had a link into that agenda. I am interested in Melina. First of all, thank you for your work with the globe parliamentary event. I was there throughout the two days. It was extremely useful. I was interested in your take on the geopolitics of what has happened and what that means for COP 27. Clearly, you said that the multilateralism was effective in COP 26, but there were also side deals both in subjects but within different governments. Obviously, the US-China one and we have seen the premier of China meeting with the President of the US in recent days. I am interested in India and China, that arrangement, the EU and perhaps the lack of presence in some of those issues. I am interested in your take on the geopolitics of that. Thank you very much. It was a pleasure to have you at the summit also. Thank you for your engagement there. Let me offer an example. An example of the new geopolitics is South Africa. The new deal that we heard of, whereby £8.5 billion in financing will now move to help South Africa to transition out of its dependence on fossil fuels. That came about because there is a very different geopolitical mood now. You had countries like South Africa that previously were in blocs such as Light Basic, which have moved away from the orthodoxy of those blocs and are realising that they are extremely climate-vulnerable. In South Africa, that process of recognition of vulnerability and moving to embracing a fossil-free future was led by the Presidential Climate Commission. We saw the fruits of that through unprecedented announcements that you had a number of developed countries and international financial institutions and the private sector who were going to be working with South Africa in helping to set it along a pathway to net zero. That was very new. What was also very new is that we had so many more countries who were making net zero declarations very unexpectedly. India's net zero declaration of net zero by 2070 caught everybody by surprise. President Buhari's declaration that Nigeria would go net zero by 2060 was another big surprise. We now have 90 per cent of the world's GDP, which is covered by net zero commitments. That was a bit unheard of in the past two years, let alone a pipe dream in 2015. It is an indication of how much things have changed. With regard to the European Union, a number of people were criticising it for being missing in action. There has to be a recognition that a number of countries within the EU that one would have expected to have played a much stronger role, Germany in particular, still do not really have a functioning government, that recent elections across Europe have played a role. We had very strong engagement by Prime Minister Draghi, however, from Italy, especially on securing the climate finance deals. Let me stop there. I am not sure if you are hearing me either, because my connect is quite shaky. Yes, we are hearing you. It is extremely interesting. If I may just say one thing, I reconnected as Jim was talking about article 6. I just wanted to add the importance of securing the article 6 rulebook. Of course, it is not finished. We still have a lot of work to do to ensure that companies cannot get away with greenwash, that there is environmental integrity. The reason why people are so concerned about environmental integrity is because of the abuse of previous systems that we saw. For example, the clean development mechanism, which was subjected to a great deal of abuse. It was one of the market mechanisms that was part of the Curator protocol. Nobody wants to repeat that experience. Everybody wants to see the real economy moving ahead but moving with environmental integrity. Thank you. Fiona, let me bring in Mark Ruskell. Yes, thanks, convener. I think that you dipped out earlier on when I was asking about some of the text that is in the agreement on the need to move away from inefficient fossil fuels. Jim was just answering that from his perspective. I wondered what your thoughts were around that in terms of how we move that debate forward in terms of what is an inefficient fossil fuel subsidy and when it may be acceptable and when it is not. Yes, that is code. It is extraordinary. Everybody has to recognise the historical nature of having a reference to fossil fuel subsidies and to phase out, phase down in the Glasgow Pact. It is a mark of great achievement to people who have been working to secure this recognition and this language for decades now. Where is the conversation going to take place? It has to take place in national capitals. In particular, those countries that are still relying on fossil fuels, getting off fossil fuels, is not a picnic. It requires a great deal of planning, sincere commitment to a just transition, because many workers, communities who are dependent for their livelihoods on fossil fuels, states that are reliant on income revenue from fossil fuels have to chalk out the pathway forward. First and foremost, this is a national conversation in every country that is implicated as a producer or as a consumer of fossil fuel. I think that we may have lost Ms Meddra temporarily again. Professor Skead, on that question, do you have any thoughts? On the question of inefficient or inefficient fossil fuel subsidies, just to say what I meant before, fossil fuel subsidies are used in some countries as an instrument of social policy, not necessarily as climate or energy policy. As Malini said, those are coded kind of statements. I think that the question of whether something is efficient or inefficient is with reference to wider social and economic concerns. It is not specifically about climate mitigation. I am guessing as much as anybody else. It is very difficult to understand specifically what was intended and it might have been very different for different countries. Perhaps it is disappointing that we have lost Malini there, but particularly in terms of the UK context, if we are effectively offering tax breaks for development of North Sea oil and gas fields, is that a social subsidy? It seems to be that you are saying that there is a social requirement, a social development that might be accepted in terms of maybe alleviating fuel poverty or subsidising fuel for consumers, but what about something like a tax break to enable continued exploration and development? The question is whether subsidies on the supply side and the demand side are rather different in nature. The international energy agency has for a long time been complaining about the use of fossil fuel subsidies on the supply side. That is genuinely a concern. The other thing to put it very much in a UK and a Scottish context is the way that we have, to an extent, subsidised renewable energy to get it off the ground. It has been extremely successful in a policy sense, but, as we pointed out in the just transition, those costs have fallen largely on electricity consumers, which has significant regressive effects in terms of the way that the burden falls on different parts of the community. Every country needs to look at itself in the mirror in terms of fossil fuel subsidies, because they come in many forms. They can address the supply side and the demand side, and I think that we all need to face up and be honest on it. Can I just ask one more question before we move on, if that's all right, convener? I was wondering what your impressions were about the launch of the Beyond All and Gas Alliance as well. I'm afraid I know nothing about it. I'll need to pass to Malini. Which is very good timing, because we've just been rejoined by Ms Merrill. Mark, do you want to repeat your question for the benefit of Malini? Yeah, which one? Malini, I was asking earlier on about the wording around inefficient fossil fuel subsidies and where we draw the line. Have you got perspective on that initially? We seem to have some technical issues again. Is Professor Skea still online? Yeah, okay, great. I think we can now move on. Malini's back. Yeah, should I attempt to respond to that question? Actually Malini, perhaps if it's okay, I can just sort of wrap up that question and other questions. First it was about the text around inefficient fossil fuel subsidies and how that's defined, and Jim earlier on was speaking about whether they can be used in a social context or an economic context and what your perspective is on that. The second point that I'd like to ask you directly, if you can still hear me, is really just about some of the geopolitics in relation to India, because I think what we saw quite quickly after the agreement and the kind of breakdown process at the last minute was India then being blamed for effectively watering down the commitment in there for fossil fuels. It's whether you perhaps see that there's an inequality there, perspective particularly from those states who are still developing oil and gas, but perhaps putting pressure on India to reduce coal, having had all the benefits of development of oil and gas for the past 200 years. I'm interested in your perspective on both those issues, which are really about global equality and where things sit geopolitically. Yeah, so thank you. I tried to answer that question also earlier about inefficient subsidies. As I was saying, this is a conversation that really needs to take place in every national capital, because when Wabiliad of the Indian Minister spoke about his country's objection to the phase-out language, he used the example of subsidies and he used the example of what he sees as a positive subsidy, which was the subsidy for poor households for LPG. These are exactly the kind of subsidies that are designed to support energy access for the poor. Obviously, a national discussion has to take place about how you will ensure energy security and energy access while moving out of fossil fuels. There's a strong recognition that coal is history, coal is on its way out. Every country that is fossil fuel reliant either as a consumer or a producer has to address that dilemma themselves. Over the coming months and years, this is where I think the big political struggles are going to take place, whether it's in Scotland or whether it's in India. Were you able to hear that? Yes. Mark, did you have any follow-up questions or a refund? I was just finally just around the geopolitics of it, particularly in relation to how India was seen, but the commitments to matching commitments from those states that are reliant on oil and gas compared to those that are dependent on coal, whether you think that if more commitments had come from those countries of oil and gas, might have shifted the dial a bit when it came to commitments on coal? I think that the whole conversation is shifting, but it's really interesting. As I said earlier, I'm not sure if you caught it, but when it came to India and China's objection to the language of coal phase-out, it was actually coal producers like Colombia and Indonesia that supported the language being kept in. That's a marked shift. I think that these discussions within OPEC are going to be very interesting in the coming year, because you've had Mexico take some very unorthodox positions on the phase-out of fossil fuel, which, as a fossil fuel producer and member of OPEC, one would not have expected to see. Within OPEC, a really interesting conversation is going to get really interesting. We'll begin to see even further splits between those countries that are retaining, which are cleaving steel to fossil fuel dependency and those that are embracing the future, such as South Africa, like Mexico and like Colombia. Thank you, Mark. Let me bring in Collette Stevenson, please. It's to Jim Skea in light of the outcomes of COP as well in Scotland. Where do you see that we can deliver further on the NDCs, Jim? Just to say that Scotland already has one of the most ambitious net zero targets globally, the one for 2045. I think that it is going to require an awful lot of effort to get that target met. The big challenge for countries in a place like Scotland is what happens in the short term in terms of getting on with it. There's an enormously ambitious target for 2030, which in some ways is relatively more ambitious than the one for 2045. The thing that Scotland can do is get on with it, quite frankly, picking out the major areas such as expanding renewables, the critical issue of addressing retrofitting the housing stock. If you look at it more globally as well, the question of where Scotland sits in terms of oil and gas production is obviously a critical issue. We can probably produce oil and gas from the North Sea with a net zero footprint territorially. The question is the more moral obligation for the emissions that occur from the production from the North Sea. I think that coming back to the previous question, those are major, major challenges that every country is going to have to face up to. I suppose that I should have said then what is more to the barriers rather than pushing our outcomes then. The barriers are very obviously in terms of things like retrofitting the housing stock. The big issue is going to persuading people who in a sense can't afford to pay for some of it. The who pays question is going to be absolutely critical there, which was part of the Just Transition Commission's recommendations. I think that there are big challenges in land use and agriculture in Scotland. Again, one of the things that we picked up in the Just Transition Commission report was the issue about patterns of land tenure and the way that it influences those possibilities. In terms of the land and agriculture side, the social and economic implications of some of the kind of changes that might need to take place if agricultural land is converted to woodland raise particular challenging questions. We are not short of barriers and challenges, that is for sure, and that is part of the job of the Just Transition Commission in its next phase. Can I just comment on that in terms of whether Milena can come in more on a finance? In light of the private finance and land tenure and what not. They are talking about the returns and how they are more measurable from a sustainability point of view, but from an ECG perspective, when do you anticipate that they will be implemented? Will they be consistent globally? I am not sure that I can answer that. I did not hear the question completely, but I want to note that in terms of the whole discussion about land, it is very important to recognise that in developing countries, in particular, land tenure is a major impediment. The lack of title to land in particular for women farmers who are affected by climate impacts is reducing their ability to access capital and public support. That is one of the areas of unfinished business since the Beijing platform for women in 1995, and that is a critical governance of land that needs to be addressed. Professor Skea, I just wanted to follow up your point about the retrofitting of the housing stock in Scotland, which is clearly a big challenge because we have one of the oldest housing stocks in Europe. It brings into play your question about scale, what you mentioned before, in terms of the scale required to incentivise and mobilise private sector finance. That will involve Governments, local authorities, packaging up some of those projects in a scale and in a manner that would incentivise private sector finance. Have you seen good examples of that in Scotland, across the UK or in other countries, or is that in the work-in-progress bracket? Well, it has definitely got to be in the work-in-progress bracket. One of the areas in which Scotland has been quite successful and has been acknowledged as such by the UK Committee on Climate Change in its reports is on the social housing aspects, where the capacity to bundle up projects together has been much bigger, which is a very important signal. Where you can bundle things up and where you have the institutional mechanisms, it is possible to do it. The big challenge, frankly, is the owner-occupied sector. Quite simply, the Government or the taxpayer cannot afford to step up for the kind of level of intervention that is required, so people who cannot pay would need to pay if you are going to put yourself on that pathway to net zero. There, the question is designing incentives and whether, for example, the role of the national investment bank can help to provide the leverage that tips people over the edge, because people will get financial benefit from those measures when they are put in place. Therefore, it is quite reasonable and fair to expect people who are getting that benefit to put up some of the upfront costs. It is absolutely work in progress, but I think that the owner-occupied sector is probably the most challenging part of it. Thank you very much for that idea. There is clearly a huge job of work to be done there. Let me bring in Liam Kerr to be followed by Monica Lennon. Thank you, convener. Just on that point, and pulling back out very slightly, Professor Skea talked in response to Collette Stevenson's question about the ambition and the barriers and the challenges. Many of those are not new, so the question I have is, do you see sufficient planning and strategy overall in the Scottish Government's approach to which both acknowledge the challenges but, crucially, address how we can achieve what we all wish to? I think that no Government in the world has done enough to induce the kind of changes that we need. I have to say that there appears to be a political will in Scotland to address those issues, which now needs to be converted into a genuine set of plans for implementing things and taking it forward. Implementation is just got to be the key message. I think that that was one of the reasons why the First Justice Transition Commission recommended the sectoral planning as a way to take things forward, because unless people have a sense of where they are going to go, the implementation will not take place. My view is that, when we were presenting the Scottish experience that caught, we have developed 24 world-beating recommendations, but now what we need is world-beating action to put those recommendations into practice. Implementation is everything. We have only just started the journey. We are at the end of the beginning with the Just Transition Commission phase 1, and there is so much more work to do. This has been a really interesting discussion so far. We have heard a lot about 1.5, its own life support, its got a faint pulse and so on. We know that good intentions are not enough to keep 1.5 alive. I hope that Malini can still hear, but I was interested to develop what she said earlier on about the role of parliaments, particularly for us in the Scottish Parliament, because people do want to see all of us in Parliament roll up our sleeves and get on with the actions that need to happen. I wondered if our panel has advice for members of this Parliament on what we need to do in the short term, and if Malini cannot hear Professor Skea perhaps. I can hear. If you can hear me, let me just take a quick, the first bite at that. I think that more of what you are doing today is excellent that just three days after the COP has concluded that you are having this committee invites people like us to share our reflections with you. I think that this needs to take place very regularly. 1.5 is an extremely ambitious target to meet. It is not what we in Paris in 2015 that right now in 2021 we would have a COP that makes 1.5 absolutely and mandates it for every country and this is now universally accepted. As Jim has said already, this COP was defined as the ambition COP and now we have to deliver. That delivery can only be through parliaments because parliaments have to scrutinise plans, policies and genders and raise finance for them. Without a financed plan, there is not going to be any implementation. The devil is absolutely in the detail but you are absolutely on the right path. Just to say, a lot of the evidence from different parts of the world is where people are making progress is that Governments need constructive challenge when they are actually delivering their policies. The Just Transition Commission in its next phase has been deliberately set up to scrutinise and provide advice to Government on the progress that it is making. We will be producing an annual report that looks at the Government's progress. I hope that there is almost a triangle here. There is the Government, the Parliament and the independent advisory bodies. I think that triangular relationship can help to provide the kind of helpful challenge, not undermining challenge but critical positive challenge that will enable Governments to up their game. I think that is the role and I completely agree with Malini that doing this two working days after COP finished goes how keen you are to do it, so I will strengthen your arm. We know that the COP presidency will continue with the UK until COP 27 in Egypt next year. We have seen, even though Scotland did not have a formal seat at the table, that we have been able to lead through the action that has been taken on loss and damage. I know that that has been very well received and that has been a catalyst for other contributions. We also have an opportunity to lead on Just Transition. I know that COP 26 agreed a Just Transition declaration, but so far that has been signed by the US, the UK and the 27 EU member states, Norway, Canada and New Zealand. What more can we do as a devolved nation in the run-up to COP 27 to relay, try and mainstream and embed the concept of Just Transition and what can we do to demonstrate that we are making progress towards that here in Scotland and the UK? Can I come in this one, maybe? Just to say that there is a committee, a standing committee, within the framework convention that looks at Just Transition commission issues that is rather clumsily called the Katowice Committee of Experts on the implications of the implementation of response measures. This body has been working for a couple of years and the Scottish Government put a piece of evidence into that committee about a year or 18 months ago when it did a call for evidence. My understanding that that committee is pretty bogged down at the moment and has been bogged down on procedural issues rather than substance. One thing that would be helpful in engaging with the convention process is to make sure that Scottish institutions and bodies and the Government itself can help that committee to up its game and advance its agenda. Just to flag that, as well as the conference of the parties that take place annually, there are also the inter-sessional sessions that take place in May or June each year in Bond specifically. Those are important events as well. They do not get 30,000 people like Glasgow did, but they are also important places to advance the agenda and the negotiators come back to those inter-sessionals as well. Looking for ways to participate there would be effective, I think. I am not sure if Mellini wants to contribute at this point. I just want to add to what Jim has said that Scotland's experience not just with the Just Transition Commission but also with the climate assembly that the world needs to take note of. Those are excellent models. As Jim mentioned, we have the UNFCCC mechanisms, but the major group of the local government and municipal major group that the Scottish Parliament is an active contributor to. We have networks like Globe and we can all help to platform the Scottish experience because we need the national conversation on Just Transition and the experience of climate assemblies that take place in every country. It is a really good and valuable model that should be promoted worldwide. I am pleased that Jim mentioned the climate assembly. The Scottish Government will be responding, I believe, next month to the recommendations. I am very proud of the role of children and young people in the lead-up to COP26. I want to pay tribute to the Children's Parliament and the Scottish Youth Parliament. It was lovely to see young people involved at the Globe summit here in the Scottish Parliament during COP26. We have talked about the role of Parliament and I think that there has been good public engagement during COP26. Perhaps not everyone is an avid cop watcher if Professor Skea is not. What chance do the rest of us have? What happens next for those citizens who have been paying attention, perhaps not to all the details, but just want to see progress being made? How do we ensure that the public do not lose heart, do not get disappointed and do not feel there is no point if certain countries and the world are not doing their part? What happens next for the participation of all of our constituents and how do we make sure that they have a role in holding all of our feet to the fire out with election times? If I can just come in first on this, Monica was fantastic to have you participate so actively in the moment. It is such an important exercise in democracy and public education about how democracies work. We are completely committed to that at Globe and the reason that we started the MP and young person surgeries is because it is very unique that you have these surgeries in the UK context. This is not a practice that is there in representative democracies around the world. In terms of next steps, for us at Globe we want to see those conversations at a very local constituency level between parliamentarians and young people to take place in every country, from Uganda to Brazil. We will work on that with you. Fundamentally, now that the conversation has started, it is structured at the local level between the member of Parliament, the local councillor and the young person. It needs to continue because only if there is confidence must be built that this is not just a five-year cycle of there is a cop, we are going to have an event, but this is an ongoing conversation and it has to be built the confidence that it will deliver. I am so sorry, I keep dropping off here. That conversation between young people and their elected representatives is absolutely vital to rebuilding the trust and creating the delivery mechanisms. The people of the world are going to keep up their pressure. They will keep watching. Just because cops finish does not mean that the attention of the world has moved on. Following up on Monica's points about the role of young people, the Glasgow pact itself later on refers to the role of young people, the position of women and the position of Indigenous people. In your view, is that something that was expected to come out of the Glasgow pact? Or was it reinforced by the experience and indeed the physical presence of many young people, but also by different NGOs and representatives of different communities? Is that something that you think has real impetus and was it anticipated? I absolutely agree with that. You are absolutely right. I think that the engagement of young people since 2018 has been an absolute game changer and that we are where we are with the adoption of 1.5 and the ambition that we have seen because of the engagement of young people. They have been recognised in the text and the part of the text that is called ACE, the action for climate empowerment, very rightly acknowledges their central role. It calls on Governments to hold annual meetings where young people are not just brought along for show, but their voices are actively engaged and their aim is to recognise young people at the decision table and young people feeling empowered that they themselves can make a change in their communities, in their countries and globally. We have really strong text in the Glasgow agreements that recognise the role of young people and I very much expect them to see them play a much stronger role in the coming years. Thank you. I don't know if Jim has any reflections on that. Yeah, well, just to say, I mean, young people obviously did not take a passive role outside the fence at the blue zone, so I think they were very, very effective. And just to say, you know, I think I've got the message very strongly that, you know, young people are also going to need to be engaged with the Just Transition Commission as well, and I'm sure that the Scottish Government has also got that message. So we look forward to taking forward that agenda in Scotland as well as at other levels. And can maybe reflect that both of you have been, I suspect, reasonably positive about the outcome of COP26, but obviously a lot of the media and the coverage has not been as positive. Bearing in mind that we understand there is agreement on the science now and that the science wasn't in dispute in COP26, why do you think more progress wasn't made and to perhaps provide more of a sobering reflection on COP26 than we've perhaps had so far? Well, maybe I'll dive in first and just to say I'm somewhat constrained because the IPCC role, we have delicate positions to get to before we approve our report next March. But I mean, it seems to me it's quite simply, you know, there's a lot of interest at stake when we come to saying goodbye to the high carbon economy and, you know, potentially people are going to hang on to that because there will be stranded assets. This isn't a fiction, you know, investments will prove not to be successful. We've seen it in the coal industry, you know, with big, huge companies going into administration. So you can quite see it, it's economic interest quite frankly. Mili-Ve? I think that science has been fundamentally recognised in a way it never was before at COPs. I think that the code red report was transformative in focusing political leaders' minds about the need to address this really as a climate emergency. We, of course, we've had the climate emergency declarations, but what we don't need is the climate emergency mindset from leaders. And I think that that is what we are beginning to move towards because of this language of climate crisis and the role of science in driving science-based targets. So that is very new and very much to be welcomed. Thank you. Thank you, Fiona. Mark Ruskell, very briefly. Yeah, there's a lot of discussion obviously around nature-based solutions at COP and some of that as reflected in the agreement. Could you just briefly say how you think that now leads into the biodiversity COP? Because there have been concerns around the credibility of market mechanisms, article 6, particularly from indigenous leaders. Yeah, just to say on that one, I mean that there have, you know, IPCC and the sister organisation, the intergovernmental platform on biodiversity and ecosystem services, you know, have been engaging with each other a lot on these issues to look at coordinating activities. So there was a joint workshop between IPCC and BESS, as it's called, which resulted in a recent workshop report. Certainly IPCC colleagues will be going along to the CBD to talk about biological diversity. It's a huge piece of the working group to report on impacts and vulnerability when it comes out and there are a lot of conversations taking place across the different IPCC communities that are taking a full account of nature-based solutions or ecosystem-based approaches, as some countries have delicately wanted to phrase it. I don't know if Malini caught that. Yeah, if you can hear me. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, this was a COP which brought climate and nature together for the first time. That was a reflection precisely of this close working that Jim refers to between the IPCC and IPCC and the Convention on Bidiversity and the UNFCCC. In fact, the UN system has worked to bring these discrete issues together, recognising the fundamental interlinkages between ecosystem integrity and climate change. In terms of your question about nature-based solutions, I think that there is a very strong recognition of the needs to learn from practices and knowledge and traditions of indigenous communities. That's also another first in the way in which indigenous communities have been foregrounded as holders of knowledge. I think that the key issues will be around how they're engaged and how their title to land is also recognised in strategies to which they use nature-based solutions to protect ecosystems and improve climate adaptations. I very much look forward to part 2 of Cunming next year. As a globe, we are going to be organising the legislative summit at Cunming in May next year. For those of you who attended the summit that we organised at the Scottish Parliament, you'll know that we are working very closely with the Convention on Bidiversity. We had the deputy head who spoke at the summit, so this is something that we're committed to ensuring that legislators are working on in an integrated fashion and not in the silo as it was addressed prior to Glasgow. Thanks very much, Mark. A very brief final question from me. If I may, COP26 obviously brought together people from across the world to share best practice, including a number of technology experts. I wonder if either of you got a sense of or were in discussions where you got a sense of emerging technologies or new technologies that got more prominence in this COP or more prominence in the discussions. For example, I was at a number of meetings where hydrogen was the centre of discussion, or perhaps is this question of new technology a matter for another discussion. Yeah, just to say, this is theoretically something I'm supposed to know all about. In fact, I didn't follow any of these discussions at all because I didn't have time, but I was very much aware, certainly from some of the meetings I had more with the business side rather than the environmental NGO side, of a lot of interest in hydrogen and carbon capture and storage and these kind of big technologies as forming part of the solution. I should say, I would also say that the smaller scale modular technologies like solar cells, batteries and potentially electrolyzers for hydrogen as well have a long play to go. A lot of the technologies that we would need to deploy in the latter half of the 21st century still need more work on them. Obviously, there's a set of initiatives taking place that are actually encompassing quite a wide range of companies and countries at the moment. I would just flag that we saw some really exciting announcements around green steel and just in line with the need for sector transformations that's been led by the race to zero, the race to resilience and the breakthrough technologies efforts under the Marrakesh programme. These are really transformative technologies. We saw a very different conversation around vehicles, so we know that the internal combustion engine is now on its way out. There was a very important announcement about zero mission vehicles. I think that as one looks across the sector space, one sees the rise of new technologies and innovations that have the potential to be transformative. That's really positive and exciting and one to be watched. That brings us to the end of our allocated time. I'd like to thank you both very much for joining us today for your fascinating insights. Soon after the conclusion of the Glasgow climate pact, there's been a fascinating discussion and it's given the committee a lot of good groundwork for us to take forward in our work programme. Thank you again. Apologies for the slight technical issues that we experienced, but we got through the session and enjoyed the rest of your day. Thank you. The committee will now suspend briefly and move into private session. We'll reconvene in around 10 to 15 minutes' time. Thank you. Welcome back to the 10th meeting of the Net Zero Energy and Transport Committee. Agenda item 3 is consideration of three instruments as listed on the agenda. The first instrument is the traffic regulation orders procedure, miscellaneous amendments, Scotland regulations 2021. The instrument was laid under the negative procedure, which means that its provisions will come into force unless the Parliament agrees to a motion to annull it. No such motion to annull has been laid. I refer members to paper number two. In this paper, you will see that the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee considered this instrument on 26 October and determined that it did not need to draw the attention of Parliament to the instrument on any grounds within its remit. A question of policy was however raised at that meeting about experimental road traffic orders and the convener of the DPLR committee passed those comments on to the committee. I put on record that SPICE provided this committee with advice on this matter. This advice clarified that the experimental road traffic orders have been possible in Scotland since the 1980s but have rarely been used in practice. SPICE advises also that the proposals in those regulations largely bring the Scottish regulations and the approval process into line with that already used in England and Wales. I give that background for transparency, given that the letter from the DPLR committee is in the public domain and in our papers today. Do members have any further comments on this instrument? I think that it was useful that this was referred to this committee. I think that there is a wider issue about traffic regulation. Order process is being pretty cumbersome and time consuming, particularly for council officers. I note the fact that, with the reform of this particular type of order, it will enhance the ability for members of the public to offer their views as to experimental orders that are being put in place once they have been enacted. That can form the decision making with councils about whether they are taken forward or not into the future. It is a welcome first step in amending the orders and making them fit for purpose. Thank you very much. Does any other member have any comments? Given that background, I suggest that this committee, right to the Scottish Government, requesting that updates be given in relation to how and when these powers are exercised in order that this committee can better understand and monitor the application of the orders. Is that agreed? Thank you. I finally invite, in relation to this instrument, the committee to agree that it does not wish to make any further recommendations in relation to this instrument. Are we agreed? That is agreed. Thank you very much. The second and third instruments that we are considering today are both subject to negative procedure and were made under powers under the European Union Withdrawal Act 2018. The amendment definitions, references and expressions related to EU law which require updating or correction following the UK's withdrawal from the EU. SSI 354 corrects deficiencies in the storage of carbon dioxide, licensing etc. Scotland regulations. SSI 383 corrects a technical drafting error in SSI 354 before it comes into effect on 1 December 2021. I refer members to paper number 3 in respect of both instruments which provide further background. Again, the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee considered both instruments on 9 November and determined that they did not need to draw the attention of Parliament to the instruments on any grounds within its remit. Do members have any comments on either of these instruments? No comments from members. I therefore invite the committee to agree that it does not wish to make any further recommendations in relation to these two instruments. Are we agreed? We are agreed. The next agenda item is consideration of a proposal by the Scottish Government to consent to the UK Government legislating using powers under the European Union Withdrawal Act 2018. This is in relation to the following proposed UK statutory instrument, the waste and agriculture legislative functions regulations 2021. I refer members to paper number 5 for background. The proposed instrument cuts across a number of policy areas. However, with respect to this committee, we are focused on the environmental waste legislative functions set out in the instrument. By way of background, the notification is a type 1 consent notification. That means that the committee's role in relation to a type 1 notification is to decide whether it agrees with the Scottish Government's proposal to consent to the UK Government making regulations within devolved competence. I remind members that when we considered our work programme on 26 October, we agreed to write to the Scottish Government to clarify the background to this instrument and we received a reply on 8 November clarifying the Scottish Government's response on this matter. The question that we are being asked as a committee is whether we agree with the Scottish Government that the environmental provision set out in the notification should be included in the UK statutory instrument. Are we agreed? We are agreed, thank you very much, and with that, the formal public session of the committee comes to an end, and we will now move into private session. Thank you very much.


At Audiology Associates of Prestonsburg, you can live your life the way you want and find the freedom of better hearing. You'll experience patient care that is specific to you with exceptional follow-up care that ensures your hearing and balance needs are being met. Audiology Associates at 1428 Northlake Drive in Prestonsburg. Memorial services were held at the Mountain Arts Center Friday for Drago, a canine with the Fully County Sheriff's Department. Drago was killed in the line of duty during the shooting in Allen, June 30th. The lobby was filled with canine units from other departments, members of the community, and their dogs. Deputy Dustin Newsom and Justin Shemshack, Drago's handlers, both spoke of their memories with Drago. Before I went to training, I met up with this canine handler. I don't know if he was a canine handler in the 80s or not, but he set me up for failure. He's like, what I did, man, is I just took the cage part out of my car so the dog, you know, he could jump up front and if I needed him, he could come out the window. I was like, man, that's a brilliant idea. That's excellent. Well, we get to training and we're sitting there laying tracks and I turn around and my locks are on. And the next thing I know, my car was shaking and moving. I run over there and Drago decided that he was going to paint my seat right off the back. I was like, well, I don't know how I'm going to tell the Sheriff. It was an amazing feeling spending time with him riding around in the car, just knowing that he was there and I was riding with the most feared deputy in the county. I can't count the nights that I was working on and the other guys, they would call me and say, do you need help? Do you need me to come out? I'm just saying no. If I can't take care of it, Drago will. Drago, when he would put a vest on, he knew it was time for business. However, when our shift would end and I got him home with the vest coming off, he was the sweetest dog that anybody could ever know. I was only with him for a short time, but those will probably be some of the best times that I can remember if my career would get older. K-9 Drago was with the Fully County Sheriff's Department for six years after being trained by Jordan Pigman. At the end of his watch, Drago had helped remove an estimated $500,000 of drugs, $300,000 in cash, and over $150,000 in firearms from the streets. He's been just a tool and an asset to us ever since we've had him and a best friend pretty much to our guys. Everything we've done, Drago's been a part of it. In some of our biggest drug busts, he's done our biggest seizures, whether it's anything drug-related, apprehension-wise. He's helped us track people.  I spent a lot of time in law enforcement prior to my being sheriff. I was never a dog person in law enforcement. I wish every car had one now. I've watched it over the last four or five years and Drago has changed my mind, but just in today's time in society, that extra help, that partner to have with you. Our officers today obviously minus the ones we've had tragedy over the week. But over for the last four or five years, we're healthy and safe a lot of nights because our dog has gone in front of us to clear a house, catch a bad guy that took us out of harm's way. So I'm a very opponent of our canines being on our force and we will have a couple more in the future. The Floyd County Sheriff's Office Donation Fund is currently accepting donations for a new canine and for Deputy Darren Lawson. To donate, contact the Floyd County Sheriff's Department at<PHONE_NUMBER>. For Mountain Top News, I'm Breanna Robinson.