Virus fighting spirit should now focus on climate emergency - Dr Sam Gardner

Through lockdown many of us have worked from home, avoided the congestion of rush hour, taken time to ride bikes with our children or breathe in the fresh air on a local walk.

We have become more invested in our communities, supported our local shops and looked out for our neighbours.

While the continued easing of lockdown measures means we will all be glad to see more of our loved ones and many of us will be happy to get back to the gym, a restaurant or the shops, we have a chance to decide what type of city we want to build back.

City leaders, the council and businesses big and small are working together to safely reopen the roads, offices and public spaces in the city. They have an opportunity right now to lock in the benefits we have seen during the pandemic. They can enable more working from home, a better work life balance with less travel. They can keep the cycle paths open and encourage active travel.

And as the city leaders face the consequences of the pandemic for our economy and our jobs, they can decide to invest in plans that don’t return us to the world we had.

Instead they can choose to invest in businesses that are committed to carbon reductions and industries willing to create sustainable jobs in the low carbon economies of the future.

They can also choose not to support decisions that pollute the city, the air we breathe and our green spaces.

They could do this and I, along with my fellow commissioners, believe they must do this, because while we are living through a public health crisis we are also still living in a climate crisis.

The climate emergency needs urgent action of the same scale as we have just seen if we are to protect this planet and the lives of our future generations.

That is why the Edinburgh Climate Commission is calling on Edinburgh’s leaders and its businesses to choose a green recovery.

A green recovery is not only the right thing to do it also makes business sense.

A green recovery for Edinburgh needs to be adopted by the whole city and it needs to run through every decision that is made if we want to realise better jobs in a more competitive economy. It can’t be an add on, or a single project, or a single scheme.

We must learn from what worked during the pandemic and take collective action at a scale that reflects the urgency of the crises – ensuring that the moves we make in the short term benefit our city in the long term.

A green recovery is the right recovery, we must now move forward, faster together to build a better future for all.