WITH little more than a week to go until the opening of Cop26, the most significant international gathering on the environment yet assembled and – according to campaigners, perhaps the last chance to implement policies to deal with climate change – this week’s special reports by The Herald give an indication of what a monumental task we face.

Our in-depth analysis of the climate challenges Scotland faces, and the record of government and business in dealing with them, gives stark examples of how far the country still has to go to match even its own rhetoric and targets, let alone the aims that many experts and activists regard as a bare minimum.

We revealed that the Scottish Environment Protection Agency has officially damned more than 400 industrial sites across the country as “unsatisfactory” on pollution; that more than 1,100 natural habitats and wildlife species have been judged at risk or in “poor” condition; that dozens of protected sites have been damaged by climate change; that almost a third of Scotland’s streets have higher levels of toxic air pollution than they did before the pandemic began, and that our rivers and lochs are in the worst state on record, with the number of waterways categorised as “bad” having doubled in the past couple of years.

These failings are to be found in almost every part of the country, and every corner of life: not just oil and chemical plants, cement and sewage works, an airport and a nuclear base, but distilleries, a crematorium and even a golf course have come in for criticism for environmental breaches. All this would be dispiriting enough, since all that is being measured is compliance with the existing norms; at a time when the consensus is that much more needs to be done, it is profoundly depressing.

As it prepares to host Glasgow’s landmark summit on precisely those issues, it may embarrass the UK Government, which has trumpeted the environment as its chief priority and produced a set of policies that (even while criticised as insufficient) are eye-watering in their scope and potential cost. It may be even more painful for the Scottish Government, which should have policed these issues, since it actually includes the Greens in its make-up and frequently declares that its ambitions go further than Westminster’s.

Yet the truth is that, while both are guilty of substantial failures, there is no doubt both Holyrood and Westminster governments are acutely aware of the scale of the problems we face. Nor do we dispute their fundamental commitment to tackle them. Both have outlined programmes considerably more ambitious than the vast majority of other nations, even by the standards of rich developed countries with reasonable records on the environment.

The underlying problem, revealed by the examples brought to light this week, and thrown into sharp relief by current issues such as the energy, supply chain and cost of living crunches, is the colossal and all-encompassing scope of dealing with global environmental issues that all of us have dodged for too long, and which we can no longer ignore.

Even among those who think talk of a “climate emergency” is an exaggeration, or are confident of technological solutions, there is no dispute about the seriousness, urgency or scale of those challenges. Bar a tiny number of cranks, everyone acknowledges that substantial changes must be made, and as quickly as possible.

What the cases we have reported this week illustrate is just how difficult and expensive it will be to implement those changes, and what a profound transformation will be required in the way governments, businesses and individual citizens conduct every aspect of their day-to-day lives. Despite the often shocking failures our reports have documented, there are real examples of improvement already enacted, and constant, apparently sincere, declarations of yet more ambitious aims.

Whether Cop26 can elicit similar acknowledgements of the need for change from other world leaders, our governments must do their utmost to strive to make such commitments a reality. There is a long way to go, on a very difficult road, but it is an essential journey.