For their campaign post on the climate crisis, Scottish Labour filmed a video ad advertised on social media. In the video, the Scottish Labour leader LightningMinion was seen in a bakery in Kirkcaldy buying some bread, after which he turned to the camera and said “I have just bought some bread, but did you know that this staple of our meals is being threatened by the climate crisis?”

The video then cut to LightningMinion sat behind a table in some office. On the table was the bread he bought, along with a pack of tomatoes, a bowl of cereal, and a bottle of olive oil. LightningMinon then continued the script:

“Bread isn’t alone - all of the foods on this table are also threatened by the climate crisis. This summer, the UK may have been lucky to escape the scorching heat wave we experienced last year, but mainland Europe hasn’t. This has had an especially detrimental effect on farmers, with many crops either dying out or having lower quality harvests as the crops struggle to cope with the extended 40 degree weather.

Cereal production this year is down 60% compared to last year. Yes, 60%: that is a very drastic drop in the production of the grains from which we make bread, with which we feed livestock, from which we make breakfast cereals, et cetera. Tomato harvests are also expected to be lower this year than forecasted, and olive oil producers have also suffered greatly due to the heat: there is a risk that olive trees will drop their fruit to preserve moisture, which would be catastrophic for an industry already suffering from a shortage of virgin olive oil with new produce not expected before November. Last year, farms in the UK similarly saw lower harvests and crops dying out in the extreme heat.

The sweltering heatwaves responsible for this fall in production of essential foods are being exacerbated by human-caused climate change, and it will only get worse if governments fail to act. In the worst case, Scottish households may face shortages of food, whereas in the best case lower supply may cause the price of food to increase, further eating into household budgets in the middle of a cost of living crisis.

Scottish Labour has an ambitious but realistic plan to tackle the climate crisis and prevent the extreme heatwaves decimating crops. We will reform the agricultural subsidy system to incentivise sustainable agriculture by making it so that farms which are more sustainable and farms which require money the most to make the switch to more sustainable farming methods get more subsidies. Our reforms will not only decrease the carbon footprint of Scotland’s farms, but will also make them more resilient to the global boiling our planet is experiencing.

Our homes and businesses also need to become more sustainable. Poorly insulated homes have higher energy costs during cold winters, and its residents suffer the most during extreme heat in the summer. However, improving the insulation of your house can be expensive, which is why Scottish Labour has committed to a Green Grants Scheme to give households grants to improve insulation and also to replace inefficient household appliances with more efficient appliances, and to replace gas boilers and other heating systems fuelled by fossil fuels with low carbon solutions, such as heat pumps or solar heating. By making our buildings more energy efficient, Scottish Labour will not only tackle the climate crisis but will also reduce energy bills.

That brings me onto the final topic: energy generation. It is not Holyrood which decides whether to build a new power station: that is Westminster. However, it is Holyrood who grants the permission for a new power station to be built. A Scottish Labour government will work together with the Westminster government on this and will grant planning permission to renewables and to nuclear to enable the decarbonisation of our electricity grid.

Scottish Labour has a plan to tackle the climate crisis. All we require is your vote on Friday the 4th.”