Mr. Stewart Stevenson:

While anaerobic digestion is not a key part of our policies, it is worth mentioning that 75% of the income from landfill now comes from the sale of methane, rather than from the charges imposed for the provision of the service. It is quite interesting that existing industries are moving into new economic models. The same thing is true in the climate change world.

One of the early drivers for our debate was the report by Sir Nicholas Stern on climate change, which, I think, was commissioned by the UK Government. His estimate was that in the long term, the cost of doing nothing was about from ten to 15 times the cost of responding to the climate change agenda. This is because of extreme weather events and the costs associated with them and because of the health impact. Five or six years ago, for example, huge numbers of older people died in France because of the heat. The heat is part of what will happen. There are also costs attached to global migration. Sir Nicholas was taking a global view, which is not necessarily applicable to local jurisdictions. Like Ireland, Scotland is quite small and only has one 1/700th of the world's emissions. Therefore, if we shut up shop tomorrow, it would make no difference. That is the reason I want to engage internationally and work with others to try to help.

In regard to how to deal with this and how much it will cost, the Scottish Government is quite clear-----