Target to cut car use 20% by 2030 ‘not realistic’, Hyslop tells MSPs

A key climate change target to cut car use in Scotland by 20% by the end of the decade is being dropped – with Transport Secretary Fiona Hyslop telling a Holyrood committee the goal is “not realistic”.

Ms Hyslop said the Scottish Government “won’t be able to deliver” on its previously announced target to reduce car kilometres by a fifth by 2030.

It comes after a report earlier this year from watchdogs at Audit Scotland and the Accounts Commission criticised the Government for having no clear plan towards meeting the “ambitious and challenging” target.

In the wake of that report, Ms Hyslop appeared before Holyrood’s Public Audit Committee, telling MSPs the 20% target was being reviewed.

The Transport Secretary said ministers would take advice from experts at the Climate Change Committee on what it should be – with this expected in May.

But Ms Hyslop told MSPs: “We will have more realistic targets.

“I’m reviewing the target, we won’t be able to deliver 20% car kilometre reductions.

“We are reappraising what we are doing.”

She was asked directly by Conservative Graham Simpson if the Scottish Government – which previously ditched its 2030 emissions reduction target – had “dropped the target” for cutting car kilometres.

The Transport Secretary said: “We will need to drop the target, or change the target from 20%.”

She stressed the Scottish Government will “still want to support car use reduction”, but added: “I think the figure of 20% is not realistic and will need to be changed.”

She accepted “car use in Scotland is currently contributing significantly to carbon emissions, and that must change”.

The Transport Secretary cited figures for 2022 showing car use accounted for 39% of all transport emissions and 12.4% of total Scottish emissions.

She stressed the Government is committed to its goal of reaching net zero emissions by 2045, telling MSPs: “We can still make the difference that is needed to achieve our climate change targets.”

She said the goal of cutting car kilometres by 20% by 2030 had been a “very ambitious target” which would “require transformational change”.

The ambition had been included in the Government’s climate change plan update issued in December 2020 – with Ms Hyslop saying at that time Scotland had been in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, with “car use dropping off a cliff” as a result.

“At the time it was set people might have seen a more substantial change in car use,” Ms Hyslop said.

“It was not unreasonable that the world could change and we could try and see this target.”

Car use is 3.6% lower than it was in 2019, Ms Hyslop added, but she accepted: “I don’t think the step-change many people would have like to have seen has happened.”

Ministers are now working with local government body Cosla and regional transport partnerships to take forward the recommendations made by Audit Scotland, Ms Hyslop said.

She stressed “this is not something national government can do alone”, adding a renewed policy statement on car use reduction would be published jointly with Cosla later this spring.

Cosla environment spokeswoman Gail Macgregor accepted authorities “haven’t done as much as we should have done”.

She told the MSPs: “We know we’re behind, there has been many factors to that but what is key now is to look forward and ensure our route map is as it should be.

“We’re looking at a more phased approach now, so we probably won’t be delivering as ambitiously as we originally would have intended, but I think that is a reality check that we have to do that.”