Tynwald will today look at two of the most important reports ever placed before the Court on climate change, one by external expert Professor James Curran, one from the Council of Ministers.

We asked the Climate Change Coalition for its views.

Here’s what it had to say:

The CCC welcome Prof Curran’s in-depth report, and commit to giving our support to vital changes, initiatives and investments on the route to net zero carbon by 2050. The report lays out a higher and lower ambition plan to reduce our carbon emissions.

Given the comments of the Chief Minister on the urgency and necessity of action to combat climate change, it would be inconceivable for our government not to adopt the higher ambition scenario outlined by Professor Curran.

Low ambition will lead to low achievement, which would not be true to the Chief Minister’s promises to the people of the Isle of Man.

The CCC strongly endorse the professor’s reference to the United Nations recent statement: ’Accelerated climate solutions can strengthen our economies and create jobs, while bringing cleaner air, preserving natural habitats and biodiversity, and protecting our environment.

’New technologies and engineering solutions are already delivering energy at a lower cost than the fossil-fuel driven economy.

’Solar and onshore wind are now the cheapest sources of new bulk power in virtually all major economies. But we must set radical change in motion.’

We must not place too much reliance or blind faith in new technologies coming on line at some point in the future. We have an abundance of natural energy sources and mature reliable technologies to make use of.

An ambitious climate change action plan for the island is so much more than a requirement to act, it is a genuine opportunity to create jobs, reduce power bills, provide warmer homes, and deliver on our UNESCO Biosphere responsibilities, and the CCC will play our part in getting this hopeful message out to the public.

We strongly welcome the Chief Minister’s foreword with his commitments to ’urgent action, leaving a responsible legacy, a just transition, the imperative to play our part, the opportunity to take global leadership, that we commit to a range of important actions that will immediately start to impact our emissions, to do the right thing’ amongst others.

We would go further than a commitment that there will be a fair transition to a different economy which does not harm the most vulnerable.

Of course this must be a guarantee, but we can improve the circumstances of our most vulnerable fellow citizens, and we also believe the average person need not be penalised or disadvantaged while the Government leads us through changes for the better.

We applaud the Chief Minister’s promise to ’embrace the ambition of James Curran’s report and commit to accelerating the work he proposes’.

It is very welcome that a Council of Ministers commitment is for ’government to lead with large scale changes to reduce emissions"’ as the public will look for hard evidence that government is genuinely committed to action, which will make it more likely the public will follow.

We particularly welcome the commitment to launch a pre tender notice for an onshore wind farm, which will provide about 15% of our current electricity demand.

An entire decade has been lost since Tynwald voted for exactly this 20MW windfarm in 2010, we can no longer afford to drag our feet when some solutions are in front of our faces.

The CCC supports strongly the additional ambition to provide 75% of our power from renewable energy sources by 2035.

Wind and solar energy are already cheap options for us to make use of energy sources surrounding our island.

The Action Plan is rather light on dates for actions, for example when to order hybrid buses, when to start the transition to home heating from cleaner energy sources, when to issue the revised support scheme for energy efficiency and others.

We look to the promised update to Tynwald in July to produce evidence of progress made on undertakings to take specific actions such as these, as well as undertakings to ’review, assess, create and develop’ various policies and plans referred to throughout the document.

There are some important omissions in the Action Plan.

There is inadequate action to incentivise purchase of electric vehicles, and lack of detail concerning how the Electricity Act should be amended, particularly regarding community electricity generation.

Crucially, there is no recognition of the fact we are constantly adding to the huge legacy problem of home heating emissions by allowing yet more new builds with inadequate thermal efficiency and insulation.

However, the CCC wants our politicians and the public to focus on the opportunities this watershed moment in island life provides.

We look forward to the introduction of a Climate Bill in the next few months, a Bill which will, in the Chief Minster’s words, bring us into line with countries around the world in setting statutory targets.

It is essential that there is a legal framework not only to ensure that our planned initiatives are actually delivering the crucial emissions reductions, but to provide continuity of commitment through the policies of successive administrations.

We sincerely hope that the Action Plan phase one will deliver many concrete actions, as well as building a more comprehensive phase two for 2021; each passing year without radical change makes the task harder, and risks losing public confidence and momentum.

As the Chief Minister sums up: ’Now is the time for us to act together, to do the right thing and to make the generations that follow us proud of what we were able to achieve.’

The Isle of Man Climate Change Coalition (CCC) is a network of 30 grassroots voluntary organisations with a membership of thousands of island residents, formed to take forward a shared concern about action on climate change and loss of biodiversity.

It is a broad mix of groups identifying variously as environmental, humanitarian, civic, political, religious, with a common goal.