Advisers have warned that Scotland has lost its lead over the rest of the UK in tackling climate change.
A recent report from the Climate Change Committee (CCC) shows that progress on cutting greenhouse gas emissions has “largely stalled” in recent years. The independent assessment also said that Scotland’s targets – some of the toughest in the world – were “increasingly at risk”.
However, the Scottish government has insisted progress was being made in many areas.
The Scottish government has set a legally-binding target to cut greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2045, five years ahead of the date set for the UK as a whole. As a staging post, it legislated in 2019 to cut emissions by a massive 75% from 1990 baseline levels by the end of this decade.
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The latest CCC report points out that since its Climate Change Act became law in 2009, the Scottish government has failed to achieve seven of the 11 legal targets.
The figure for 2020 was a 58.7% reduction from the 1990 baseline but the previous year it was just 51.5% – well short of the 55% target.
Among other things, the CCC report recommends lowering the annual targets so that the 2025 aim would be to reduce emissions by 61.7% rather than 65.5%. The report describes the target to cut emissions by 75% by 2030 as “extremely challenging” and suggests a 65% to 67% cut is more feasible.
The report further showed that the Scottish government lacked a clear delivery plan and had not offered a coherent explanation for how its policies would achieve the targets.
Story was adapted from BBC.
