The world desperately needs leadership on climate change.

Last week the Scottish Government missed an opportunity to step up to the mark. In 2009 the Scottish Government – deservedly – won international acclaim for passing the Climate Change Act. The legislation put in place world-leading targets to significantly reduce the country's greenhouse gas emissions.

Four years on the Scottish Government has published its second climate action plan. For those who thought Scotland would set out how an industrialised nation could quickly and substantially reduce its emissions, it is a significant disappointment. The plan contains few new policy commitments and insufficient detail to offer any assurance that Scotland will reduce its emissions in line with its climate legislation.

This is particularly disheartening as Scotland has good stories to tell and much to build on. Communities across Scotland are establishing schemes to reduce their carbon footprints while Scottish businesses are actively engaging their stakeholders in the debate. The Scottish Government has supported many of these initiatives in addition to promoting large-scale renewable projects. However, addressing climate change is about more than wind farms. It means having clear policies for key sectors – transport, housing, land and energy – that will enable Scotland's businesses, public bodies and communities to become more energy efficient.

The aspiration to see Scotland move to a low carbon economy is out there. The climate change legislation was strengthened in part thanks to the input of Stop Climate Chaos Scotland, a coalition of disparate groups – unions, faith groups, environmental agencies and international development organisations – united in their belief that urgent action was needed on climate change. The coalition boasts a combined membership of more than 1.5 million people.

Individuals are moved to lobby on climate change for different reasons. For some, it is concerns about the increasing loss of habitat for wildlife, and the wider consequences for the environment. For others, climate change is a social justice issue, a recognition that adverse weather is literally destroying the homes and livelihoods of the world's poorest communities, people who have contributed the least to the problem. And yet others are compelled to act on the basis of a simple moral imperative: to leave the planet in a fit state for future generations.

Regardless of their background, anyone who understands the basics of climate change knows it is a global problem in need of an urgent global solution. While international negotiations to find a successor to the Kyoto protocol have dragged on, greenhouse gas emissions have continued to rise. The UN's climate chief has called for urgent domestic action, saying: "Domestic legislation is critical because it is the linchpin between action on the ground and international agreement."

Civil society, across the globe, believes the time for talking is over. It is time for an industrialised nation to step forward, to state that it is willing to take its fair share of the global effort required to reduce emissions and to commit to the action it will take to achieve those reductions.

In 2009 Scotland stepped forward. It set out legally binding targets which were ambitious but fair. Scotland now needs to take the next step. It needs to put in place a more credible climate action plan which will illustrate in detail how emissions will be cut in line with those targets. In outlining the recent action plan the Climate Change Minister, Paul Wheelhouse, made a commitment that further spending in this area would be announced in September. That is to be welcomed. The world is still watching and waiting to see how the Scottish Government will follow through on the promises it made in 2009.

No-one is under any illusions that this is easy territory, but Scotland was right to aspire to lead the world on tackling climate change. Scotland may be a small country but it has the potential to be an international example on carbon reduction. There is still time for Scotland to be at the forefront of global action on climate change but we have to act now.

Una Bartley is a board member of Stop Climate Chaos Scotland.