Scotland to ditch key climate change target

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 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 – required under the act – detailing how they were going to meet the targets.

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 to cut emissions by 68% by the same date.

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.

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.

What went wrong?

The new legislation required ministers to set annual targets for reducing emissions.

In a sense it was a hostage to fortune with the yearly totals heavily influenced by the winter weather which determines how much gas we use to heat up our homes.

But the trend was clear as eight out of 12 of the targets were missed.

With the closure of Scotland’s last coal-fired power station at Longannet in 2016, politicians conceded that the low-hanging fruit had all been picked and any future progress would require big changes to how we live our lives.

But the Greens believe the current system has fundamentally failed with too much emphasis placed on targets rather than policies.

That might be how the Greens try to convince their voters that scrapping the targets will be the right decision.

The short answer is yes, but not by enough.

By 2021 greenhouse gas emissions had fallen by 49.2% compared with the baseline level in 1990.

That’s a massive half of our planet warming gases which have already been eradicated from the economy.

But the law required a 51.1% fall by that date to keep on track.

Some industries have seen huge changes that have driven down emissions like the energy and waste sectors.

Others have remained stubbornly unmoved such as transport and agriculture

It is likely the Scottish government would replicate the system of “carbon budgets” used by both the UK and Welsh governments.

Rather than annual targets, ministers would be told how much greenhouse gas could “safely” be emitted during a parliamentary term and have to come up with a plan to achieve that.

It would mean an end to the legal requirement of successive environment secretaries having to explain to parliament why the targets have been missed.

There is an argument that the annual targets are a distraction because emissions are influenced by many factors including the weather and that the overall trend is more important.

Former first minister Nicola Sturgeon saw her administration as world leaders on climate change, 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 yet environmentalists believe the emergency response never came.

So scrapping targets will be an embarrassing retreat.

Ministers have a conundrum; they are legally required to produce a “climate change plan” which details how they will achieve their targets.

That plan is now long delayed and the Climate Change Committee confirmed last month that the flagship 2030 target was now beyond reach.

So, it is just not possible to produce that plan any more.

An option would be to set new targets within the existing legislation and then produce a plan.

But one official described those annual targets as nothing more meaningful than a straight line on a graph.

So abolishing them altogether – and perhaps setting a lower 2030 target – seems the most likely course of action available.