The Scottish government is to ditch its flagship target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 75% by 2030. The final goal of reaching “net-zero” by 2045 will remain, but BBC Scotland News understands the government’s annual climate targets could also go.
Ministers have missed eight of the last 12 annual targets and have been told that reaching the 75% milestone by the end of the decade is unachievable. A statement is expected at Holyrood on Thursday afternoon.
The Climate Change Committee (CCC) – which provides independent advice to ministers – warned back in 2022 that Scotland had lost its lead over the rest of the UK in tackling the issue.Last year ministers failed to publish a plan it promised – required under the act – detailing how they were going to meet the targets.
At Holyrood, parties were trying to outbid each other on how quickly the country could go, eventually settling on a pace far beyond what experts had planned for.
The Scottish Greens – who are now in government with the SNP – proposed aiming to cut emissions by a whopping 80% compared with the baseline year of 1990.
But parliament settled on 75% – still 5% more than recommended – and the Climate Change Bill was agreed by all parties except the Greens, who abstained.
One former minister told me there was a “lack of realism” at the time. Then in March of this year the CCC said for the first time that the 2030 target was unreachable.
Former first minister Nicola Sturgeon saw her SNP administration as world leaders on climate change when the targets were introduced in 2019, often asserting that Scotland had the “most stretching targets in the world.”
Hers was the first government in the world to declare a climate emergency and Glasgow hosted the COP26 climate summit in 2021, yet environmentalists believe the emergency response never came.
So scrapping the targets will be seen as an embarrassing retreat for the SNP and the Scottish Greens, their partners in the Scottish government.
Scotland’s emissions reduction target for 2030 was tougher than for the UK as a whole, which was for a reduction of 68% by the same date.
Where did the targets come from?
There was a febrile atmosphere around back in 2019 when the Scottish Parliament passed its landmark legislation to speed up the rate of decarbonisation
It was the height of the school climate strikes and just a few days earlier thousands had taken to the streets in support of Greta Thunberg’s calls for more action.
Source: BBC
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