New climate change targets for Scotland unveiled

A new set of targets to tackle climate change in Scotland over the next 20 years has been unveiled by the Scottish government.

Annual targets were abandoned by Scottish ministers last year after they were repeatedly missed but the pledge to reach net zero by 2045 was retained.

The new target states emissions need to fall by an average of 57% over the next five years and by 69% by 2035, when compared with 1990 levels.

The targets will be met using a carbon budgeting system and the proposals will be voted on by MSPs in the autumn.

The Scottish government want to move to a system of measuring emissions using carbon budgets over five-year periods instead of annual targets.

Ministers say this will make measuring progress less prone to annual variations such as extreme weather or a global pandemic.

The approach is used in other parts of the world including France, England and Wales.

If the targets are agreed then the Scottish government will publish a new plan on how it plans to achieve them.

The most recent data, for 2022, shows that planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions in Scotland fell by 50% against the 1990 baseline year.

Gillian Martin, cabinet secretary for climate action and energy, said: “Scotland is now halfway to our 2045 climate change target and is ahead of the UK as a whole in reducing long term emissions.

“These carbon budgets will set clear limits on emissions for the coming decades in line with the independent advice of the UK Climate Change Committee.

“When we publish our draft climate change plan later this year, it will set out the policies needed to continue to reduce our emissions and meet our first three carbon budget targets.

“It will not ask the impossible of people. We will not sacrifice people’s health or wealth.”

Addressing farmers at the Royal Highland Show in Edinburgh, Rural Affairs Secretary Mairi Gougeon said the Scottish government will not be following independent advice to cut livestock numbers to reduce planet warming gases.

The Scottish government had set its original climate change targets in 2019 – which included reducing emissions by 75% by 2030.

Two years later, ahead of the UN’s COP26 climate talks in Glasgow, then First Minister Nicola Sturgeon described the targets as “amongst the most ambitious anywhere in the world”.

But they were ditched in 2024 after the government’s independent advisers, the CCC, warned that they were no longer achievable.

Claire Daly, head of policy and advocacy at WWF Scotland, welcomed the carbon budget approach but warned they would need to be backed up by action.

“These commitments will remain merely lines on a page without strong action to back them up, including measures to support clean heating in our homes and the transition to more climate – and nature – friendly agriculture,” she said.

“Future generations cannot afford any more missed climate targets and this carbon budget must be set for success with strong policies to reduce emissions.”