The Scottish Government has announced that it will bring forward a new Climate Change Bill, including an ambitious new 2020 target of reducing actual Scottish emissions by more than 50%.  The Scottish Government will be consulting on proposals for the Bill, based on the advice of the Committee on Climate Change, in the first half of 2017. The draft Climate Change Plan is available to view at: http://www.gov.scot/isbn/9781786527431

Ambitious Climate Change Targets Need 

Detailed proposals to achieve a 66% reduction in Scotland’s greenhouse gas emissions have been published by Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform, Roseanna Cunningham MSP.

Ms Cunningham has said the Scottish Government’s draft Climate Change Plan demonstrates “a new level of ambition” in its work to build a prosperous low carbon economy and a fairer, healthier Scotland.

Scotland has already exceeded its 2020 climate change target by achieving a 42% reduction in emissions six years early. The draft Climate Change Plan raises ambitions higher still by setting out how Scotland can reduce emissions by 66% by 2032.

The proposals could lead to wide-ranging changes in transport, logistics, buildings, heating, power, agriculture and land management. The draft plan sets out that by 2032:

• Scotland will have a fully decarbonised electricity sector able to remove CO2 from the atmosphere
• 80% of domestic heat will be provided by low carbon heat technologies
• The proportion of ultra-low emission new cars and vans registered in Scotland annually will reach at least 40%
• 250,000 hectares of degraded peatlands will be restored (against 1990 levels)
• We will have increased our annual woodland creation target to create 15,000 hectares per year.

This comes at a time when MEPs in the European Parliament are about to vote on proposals aimed at reducing oversupply and boosting prices in the energy market.

The vote this week is on plans to reform the EU’s emissions trading system (ETS), a scheme set up to help reduce greenhouse gases, which is not working as expected.

The EU is the world’s third largest CO2 emitter but also has the most ambitious climate target: to cut emissions by at least 40% by 2030 compared to 1990 levels. It is intended that the plans voted on in the EU Parliament this week should help achieve this target while maintaining Europe’s industrial competitiveness.