Sturgeon shamed as Glasgow underwater days before COP26 – despite £420m commitment

Glasgow Council blame Thatcher for bin crisis

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Shocking pictures show parts of the city completely underwater – with cars stranded, roads closed and some people even swimming and fishing in the flood. Meanwhile, dozens of train services have been cancelled or are facing delays in Glasgow and southwest Scotland. The Glasgow light show at the Botanic Gardens was also cancelled last night.

It comes as Prime Minister Boris Johnson is preparing to host more than 100 world leaders in the city for the COP26 climate change summit.

He will hope to get them to commit to “keep 1.5 alive” — to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Otherwise, experts warn of a future of storms, floods, droughts and heat waves that become increasingly severe, and potentially deadly, with every fraction of a degree of warming above that mark.

It will no doubt leave Mr Johnson red-faced if the current flooding is not cleared up.

Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said COP26 needs to see a “significant uplift” in the ambitions of leading nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions from the world’s most polluting countries.

She added that the conference must recognise growing levels of anger at inaction, particularly from younger generations.

But it is her own plans that appear to be causing chaos this week.

In 2016, Ms Sturgeon committed to funding £420million over 10 years to prevent flooding.

It was part of a 10-year flood prevention strategy to protect homes in the most at-risk areas, which the Scottish Government says will benefit more than 10,000 families.

The support of £42million a year was to be used for 40 new flood protection projects and to support local risk management plans.

More than 130 flood protection studies were promised to be carried out to find potential solutions for another 26,000 homes.

Ms Sturgeon said the agreement would give local authorities the certainty they need to deliver local flood management plans.

The Scottish Government provided councils with funding of £42million a year to invest in major flood protection schemes through the local government settlement since 2008.

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It comes as it was announced yesterday that the Scottish National Party (SNP) failed to hit its climate targets ahead of the key summit.

Only 6.4 percent of non-electrical heat was met from renewable sources in 2020, despite Edinburgh’s 11 percent target.

And making it worse, the Scottish Government’s progress has been on a decline since 2019, when 6.6 percent of non-electrical heat demand was produced from renewable sources.

A Government report said that in 2020, “an estimated 2.14 GW of renewable heat capacity was operational in Scotland, producing an estimated 5,074 GWh of useful renewable heat.

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