Dear Highland Councillors 

The latest IPCC report makes stark reading: time is running out. Their message is clear: to limit global warming, strong, rapid and sustained reductions in CO2 and greenhouse gases are needed now. 

You have a civic responsibility to grasp the importance of the Climate Crisis, and your key role in making Climate-aware decisions around transport. The climate we and our children will experience in the future depends on our decisions now. This means decisions about how we travel - they are decisions you are making on our behalf. 

We need to make it much easier for people to walk, wheel and cycle rather than drive for short journeys - not just in urban areas, but also in rural communities. This is not only an essential step to mitigate the environmental crisis, but also a well proven solution to many health problems, and therefore beneficial to our health system as well.

We need good and affordable public transport. We need to move away from road building for cars and invest in our infrastructure and rail network, particularly to connect neighbouring rural communities. Trains and buses need to be much more able to carry bikes. 

This will lead to some difficult and unpopular decisions, and some bumpy transitions. But we cannot afford to waste time in going backwards. As an example, in Inverness, the Spaces for People measures fall far short of allowing for safe and effective journeys across the city and into town from surrounding communities, particularly for those with trailers, children or adapted bikes. They have been in places unpopular.

However the solution is not to remove - but to improve; and we've actually got a long way to go before people can make an effective transition from cars to public transport or walking, wheeling and cycling safely. There is no place for short-term decision making here. 

These are complex problems: they need expert, complex solutions. Giving up trying just because the first attempts haven't worked is not the solution: getting expert help and a whole system's approach is. Many other places have built up this expertise - there are so many examples in Scotland and further field -  Augsburg, the city twinned with Inverness, is just one example among many.

Do not let a vocal minority and their immediate interests sway you - this is about the long term and the interests of our children and grandchildren. The loudest voices are not always the right voices to listen to. Seek out the voices of those with disabilities, to make it safer for everyone to walk, wheel, cycle and take public transport.

We are already behind the curve - there is no time for timid decisions.

This is a time for brave and wise decisions. Do not go backwards - get external expert support, improve what is there, do more, and do it fast.