There is disappointing news on greenhouse gas emissions reductions in 2022, from the latest published statistics. The greenhouse gas emissions include international aviation and shipping.
The Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Act 2019 specifies a target reduction of 53.8% reduction over the same period.
The reductions calculated for each country were as follows:
- Scotland: 50.1%
- England: 49%
- Wales: 36.5%
- N. Ireland: 25.9%
In 2022 there was a very large reduction in emissions in the Buildings and product use. There were modest reductions in Agriculture and Industry.
Unfortunately those positive moves were offset by increases in emissions in all other sectors : International Aviation, Shipping and Domestic Transport – as we came out of the Covid pandemic – and the new normal went back to being same old. There were also lesser increases in emissions due to Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry, and Electricity supply.
When International Air Travel and Shipping is excluded – Domestic Transport was the largest source of net emissions in Scotland in 2022, 11.5 MtCO2e. Followed by Agriculture (7.7 MtCO2e); Buildings and product use (7.5 MtCO2e), Industry (5.5 MtCO2e) and Fuel supply (3.3 MtCO2e).
MtCO2e refers to million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. This is a consistent measure of assessing the contribution of greenhouse gases to global warming.
