Action on emissions must ‘ramp up’ if 2045 target will be met, MSPs told

The Scottish Government must “ramp up” its action on reducing emissions if it is to avoid a repeat of being forced to drop its climate targets, expert advisers have told MSPs.

The Government is removing its existing legal target of of cutting emissions by 75% by 2030 after the Climate Change Committee (CCC) said it was “beyond credible” to achieve this.

However, the SNP Government is not altering its target of Scotland reaching net zero by 2045.

MSPs are considering new legislation which also moves away from yearly carbon targets – which Scotland has missed for eight out of 12 years – to a system of five-yearly carbon limits.

Dr Emily Nurse, head of net zero at the CCC, told a Holyrood committee that it is still unclear when the Government will be setting these five-year budgets.

She told the Net Zero Committee the CCC is “deeply disappointed” the 2030 target is being dropped but ultimately there was no plan for how it would have been met.

On the 2045 target, she said the Government must set out such a plan, including details for rollouts of measures like heat pump installation and the uptake of electric vehicles.

Other countries are “way ahead” in terms of heat pump installation, she noted.

She also said that delays in planting trees, which can capture carbon from the atmosphere, is starting to have an impact on what is achievable in 2045.

Dr Nurse added: “Things really do need to start ramping up now.”

She was pressed by committee convener Edward Mountain on whether the 2045 target had a “serious health warning”, noting that most of the targets for tree-planting in the last six years have been missed.

Dr Nurse said: “In terms of these longer-term actions, we really need to get going.”

She said there needed to be more “urgency”, adding: “Some of the sectors that are the dominant emitting sectors now – buildings, transport – they need to be either at zero (or) close to zero emissions by that point.”

SNP ministers have said that Scotland is already halfway to meeting the net zero target and is ahead of the rest of the UK in reducing its long-term emissions.