Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee

Meeting date: Monday, February 15, 2021

Official Report 630KB pdf

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Climate Change Plan

Good morning and welcome to the sixth meeting in 2021 of the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee. Under our first agenda item, we will conclude taking evidence on the updated climate change plan by hearing from the Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform, Roseanna Cunningham. The Scottish Government officials joining the cabinet secretary are Helena Gray, deputy director, climate change, domestic division; Sasha Maguire, senior economic adviser; Alison Irvine, director of transport strategy and analysis; Neal Rafferty, head of electricity policy and large-scale renewables; Ragne Low, head of heat planning; and John Kerr, head of agriculture policy division.

Cabinet secretary, it is fair to say that the targets in the Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Act 2019 are extremely challenging, and we pressed for them to be even more challenging than was originally set out. The updated climate change plan has to provide a pathway for meeting those challenging targets. How confident are you that you will hit them?

I am pretty confident. We said from the outset that we could not produce anything that would give mathematical certainty. The update to the plan has been drafted against an extraordinary set of circumstances, and it has been done in haste. The Committee on Climate Change recommendation was originally for a 70 per cent reduction by 2030, which it considered to be feasible—it felt that it had recommended the most stretching target. Given that the Parliament then unanimously decided to go further than that, we have been in somewhat uncharted territory right from the start. None of that is news to the ECCLR Committee, of course, because we have discussed it before.

We are confident that this package presents a credible pathway to the envelopes, bearing in mind all the significant uncertainties around issues such as the limits of devolution, technological advancement—without a crystal ball we can never be certain about that—the just transition and fuel poverty; there are also still scientific uncertainties around the measurement of emissions. We believe that what is in front of you provides a strong foundation and sets a pathway towards 2032—the climate change plan goes up to 2032 and contributes to the target of reaching net zero by 2045. It also gives a strong signal of intent, which is incredibly important, because the signals that Government gives are equally important in relation to delivering the rapid decarbonisation that we require.

I am as confident as I can be that the plan puts us on the right road. Can I be 100 per cent mathematically certain that it will? No, but, in truth, one can never be mathematically certain. Even if we had embarked on producing a full climate change plan, it could never deliver that kind of certainty, as we have seen from previous plans.

Obviously, certain policy areas are based on emissions calculations and others are not. Can you take me through the areas that are based on emissions calculations? For the ones that are not, what assumptions have been made about the reductions?

I am not quite sure what you mean. For example, an area that we have talked about a lot is peatland, and the reduction there has been based—in so far as is scientifically possible at the moment—on emissions calculations. We had to deal with a change in those calculations that was coming anyway, and that has been part and parcel of what we have tried to do.

We know the calculations on waste, so there is probably a bit more clarity around that, and we also know the calculations on forestry. I am using examples from my portfolio—well, forestry is not in my portfolio, but it crosses over a bit. Those are some of the areas that we can clearly identify as ones where we can calculate the emissions outcomes. Other areas are a bit less certain.

When we consider transport emissions, we can say with some certainty what reductions can and cannot be achieved with certain actions, but we are then slightly less certain about whether some of those things will come forward. For example, we have hydrogen-fuelled buses—I know that you will be aware of them, because they are in Aberdeen—but the extent to which they become a thing, if you like, will determine whether we get greater or not so great emissions reductions through them.

There is a mix in just about every area of endeavour. I return to my peatland example. What happens there is highly subject to continued scientific work, which may change the emissions reductions figures yet again. Even in those areas where we feel that we can calculate reductions at this point in time, there is no guarantee, because the science changes. That is one of the realities that we are all dealing with.

Good morning, cabinet secretary. May I dig a little bit deeper into the 2030 carbon reduction target? In his comments, Chris Stark agreed with that target, as the Parliament did, but he said that delivery of it was

“on the fringes of credibility”.—[Official Report, Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee, 2 February 2021; c 43.]

In your letter to the committee, you rightly point out that part of the problem relates to the pace of technological change. Will you tell us a little more about any concerns you have about that pace and what you are doing to monitor it? It is obviously crucial.

Absolutely. First, I want to pick up on Chris Stark’s point. As I said at the outset, the Climate Change Committee, which is our statutory adviser, recommended 70 per cent by 2030, and we chose to go beyond that, to 75 per cent. It would have been remarkable if Chris Stark had come to the committee and said, “Now you mention it, 75 per cent is okay—we were wrong.” I think that his comment was absolutely predictable because, in the CCC’s view, 70 per cent is at the outside of what we can achieve. We have chosen to go further than that. In those circumstances, I am not sure that I would get terribly stressed by Chris Stark’s comment, because it was highly likely that he would say something like that.

On the science and the technological change, because the two things go together—I have talked about the science of measuring emissions, but the technological change is also important—there are all sorts of areas where there are significant uncertainties. That is not something that I am qualified to make a huge judgment call on.

We do not have all the answers now—that is true. There is reliance on carbon capture and storage, and the CCC strongly recommended that that be part of what we include. Therefore, we have not departed from CCC advice. Although carbon capture and storage is not directly in my portfolio, I have had conversations about it. A lot of work is taking place, and we have the capacity to move forward—as we did some years ago when, unfortunately, the advances that were made in carbon capture and storage were not proceeded with.

It is about a combination of two things: the science—both research and technology—and the willingness to commit to the science. Commitment is important, because that is what gives the signal.

Thank you, cabinet secretary. I do not doubt the commitment at all.

In your correspondence with the committee, you said that you are monitoring the situation and you have pointed out that it crosses several portfolios. What is the Scottish Government doing to monitor areas where there might be serious issues with the technological advancements that are crucial to delivering some of the changes and targets that we want to see?

I am not sure what you are asking. As much as possible, we are staying across the research that is done and looking for opportunities that we think Scotland could benefit from.

I am not a scientist, but I know that there are potential technological changes out there that might not be particularly attractive for Scotland because of its geography, geology and urban-rural mix. Each country will carefully consider future technology to see what works best for it.

It is important that we continually watch the situation. I cannot speak about every portfolio, but I am constantly fed notable research in various areas, about either emissions measurements or some of the technologies that might work in my portfolio areas. I presume that the same is happening portfolio by portfolio.

I am trying to drive at the fact that we have spent a lot of time asking witnesses, including Scottish Government officials, about concerns and problems that we can spot with the pace of development. That is vitally important in making—

The pace of development is slightly different, because it is subject not only to technological change but, in many cases, to the commitment to that potential change. So—

Overall, there has been considerable progress in Scotland on some areas, and I give credit to the Scottish Government for that. However, there are other areas in which things have not gone quite so well. That is why the committee has to investigate exactly where the problems are. We are trying to get at what we have to do to ensure that we are keeping up the pace that is required in those difficult areas to ensure that we meet some of the targets more quickly.

09:15  

It would be helpful to talk about some specific areas. Technologically, some of the biggest potential changes will take place in the energy sector, in which Scotland has already been recognised as making enormous improvements. Although some of the biggest technological changes might take place in that sector, it has already been subject to far greater decarbonisation in Scotland than is the case in many other countries. Indeed, typically, when Scotland is represented anywhere, people want to drag us into an energy discussion because of that. Ironically, the one area in which there are lots of uncertainties about technological capacity is the one in which Scotland is already ahead.

I am trying to think of other areas where we might still be waiting on some technologies to change. There is still a bit of uncertainty about where, technologically speaking, transport emissions might best be affected. Will it be in hydrogen or electric vehicles? Indeed, it might be in having fewer vehicles overall, with private car owners having to rethink. There are things that are technologically doable, but the question is whether a mass roll-out of those would have the impact that we want. There is the example of the hydrogen buses in Aberdeen. Will we see hydrogen buses everywhere, or will a different approach be taken? That is a bit more uncertain.

I will finish on the point that there has been excellent progress on matters such as hydrogen and the scope for jobs in that field in future. However, there are sectors that are struggling more with the pace of change, such as agriculture and transport. I was trying to drill down into where the Scottish Government thinks that we—

That is a fair point. We have made enormous inroads in some sectors, such as energy, but, to an extent, some of that is always likely to happen, because we take a whole-economy approach. We set targets right across the economy, and we set emissions envelopes with indicators for each sector, but we do not expect that agriculture, for example, could deliver the same emissions reductions as the energy sector. By definition, agriculture is food production, and food production will always mean emissions. The issue with agriculture is managing emissions down as far as possible, and agriculture has made inroads on that. Obviously, there is more to do, but it is important to do that throughout the whole economy.

I presume that the committee will want to talk more about agriculture. Quite a lot of aspects are demand sensitive, so some emissions reductions will come about because of a shift in demand rather than technological change. As we all know, it is harder to put a figure on those aspects.

I will bring in Finlay Carson on agriculture, but Claudia Beamish has a quick supplementary question first.

Good morning. Has the Scottish Government been able to calculate the effect on emissions of the capital investment programme in the context of the updated climate change plan? If so, what period has that been calculated for? Is it up until 2032? I appreciate that it could change, but we have now had the commission—[Inaudible.]—and I wonder whether that has been or will be calculated.

Are you referring to the whole capital investment programme or to low-carbon investment?

What will be the effect of the whole programme on our emissions—high, medium and low? Has that been assessed? Of course, I have seen the assessment of high, medium and low, but my question is about putting that all together. Has it been possible to assess that? Is it possible to assess it?

I am not sure that we have done that for the entire carbon programme in quite the way that you are asking about. We consider what we have and some of the decisions that are made. What you are asking about is not the only factor, but it is an important one. Some of this will come up in the budget discussion later in the meeting but, as you know, we try to work that out as far as possible.

I am not sure what you are looking for from your question. I said at the outset that we do not have an absolute mathematical calculation for a lot of this, and it is important to understand that. In some cases, the answers will not be certain.

Given the time, I will leave it at that for now, and we will highlight the issue to you in writing in more detail. Thank you.

Before we move on to the aspect that I wish to focus on—the balance of effort—I return to something that we have already heard about and which you have already addressed: the suggestion by Chris Stark that

“The plan is on the fringes of credibility”.—[Official Report, Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee, 2 February 2021; c 43.]

I know that you are very passionate about peat—and that is fine.

You don’t want me to talk about that.

We have to have these passions in life. Peat—I am not going to say that it is a bad thing.

We have ambitious targets for 20,000 hectares of peat restoration. At the moment, however, we are only at about 6,000 hectares. I know that the Parliament voted to have reductions of 75 per cent by 2030 or whatever, and the targets are ambitious, but is the Government at risk of using unquantifiable carbon capture, just adding more and more peat into the equation from a desktop exercise to balance the books and make it look as though we can reach the target of net zero by 2045, even thought that is unrealistic? Do we need to be honest? Does the Government need to be honest and say that it is putting in figures to balance the books although it does not actually think that the target will be achievable by 2045?

That is an interesting theory. I do not know whether you challenged Chris Stark on the achievability of the target by 2045—since, after all, it was the CCC recommendation that we adopt a net zero target by 2045.

On the first part of your question, yes—I am passionate about peat. You are right to point to the slow uptake until now. In effect, that was why we put in the huge investment that we announced earlier this year. I am conscious that there are many barriers to peatland being restored. If we can remove such barriers, that will allow work to be done to scale, and working to scale will be incredibly important in this area.

Having a multiyear commitment is massively important, as is consistency, so that companies know what they will be able to draw down and what decisions can be made. It is a bit like flood management: we understand that a flood management system is not designed, planned and built within one year; that work must be spread. The same applies to peatland restoration.

Our view was that that commitment was about unlocking the potential. You are right that peatland restoration is a form of carbon capture, but it is not what most people think of as carbon capture. The carbon capture that we mostly end up talking about is the technology to deal with the fossil fuel side of the problem rather than the carbon capture potential in the wood of trees and in healthy or restored peatlands. In my head, I think of it not so much as carbon capture as actually delivering something beyond that, because it also delivers a lot of other benefits.

The commitment was made very much with a view to effecting a massive step change in that slow restoration programme by making it something that would work financially. I am in the process of having conversations with the sector to discuss the speed with which it will be able to move. The Government is active on this at the moment, as you might guess that it would be, given my absolute commitment to it.

In oral evidence to the committee, many suggestions were made that there are likely to be job losses in some industries, regardless of whether there is a just transition, and the pace of change will be important. Some witnesses in the agricultural sector suggested that it was not clear why agriculture is protected. I am not sure that I would say that about agriculture, because it is doing its bit.

On what evidence did the Scottish Government decide not to attribute additional abatement efforts to agriculture? By shielding agriculture in the short term and not moving as quickly, might it be hit harder in future?

I am afraid that I cannot really speak to the future, although it would be great if I could. However, there are one or two things in that that I need to respond to.

The decisions about the decarbonisation pathway for agriculture were based on the science that was available to us, which was an assessment of technically feasible measures that came out of research that was undertaken by ClimateXChange and the SRUC. We used work that was there to inform what we thought the decarbonisation pathway for agriculture should be.

If we try to reduce emissions more quickly, the danger is that we harm domestic production and risk damage across the sector. As Finlay Carson is probably well aware, that might have a disproportionately large impact on remote, rural and vulnerable areas.

There is another danger that, if we do not also change domestic demand, or if it is not impacted, reducing production for Scottish agriculture would just mean replacing it with like-for-like imports and the associated emissions in places that do not farm as sustainably as we are trying to do.

There is quite a lot to talk about in terms of agriculture and, as Finlay Carson might be aware, we are making of lot of progress with farmer-led groups. In those groups, farmers themselves get into the driving seat of what might be considered to be most important. The beef suckler climate group is making good progress and there are further farmer-led groups on arable, dairy, hill, upland and crofting to look at what each of those sectors can do. Each of them will be able to do different things. They will help us to deliver some of the key policies in the plan update, but they might also come forward with other ideas that will be useful and helpful for the future.

It is a question of striking a balance between managing what the science tells us is, from our perspective, the sensible decarbonisation pathway for agriculture and considering what might be available to us in the future. That is not a question that I can answer today.

09:30  

Have we got you back, Finlay? Are you there?

Yes. I am sorry, cabinet secretary, but I lost all of that answer. However, you will be pleased to hear that I will not ask you to repeat it.

I am sorry. The key takeaway is that research was undertaken by the ClimateXChange and the SRUC, on the basis of which an assessment was made of the technically feasible measures that were available. That is what we based our position on. We did not just pluck a figure out of the air, if that is what was concerning you.

Thank you.

My connection is a bit dodgy, so I will ask you two questions in one go; if I drop out, the committee will get your answers.

You mentioned the farmer-led groups such as the suckler beef climate group, but some witnesses suggested that the fact that there were so many groups meant that there was the potential for a mishmash of policies, and that we were not moving forward quickly enough. Chris Stark said that he was disappointed that the Government did not have a firm policy in this area. In the past few days, we have heard that the agri-environment budget has been cut. Are you frustrated by the lack of clear policies to address some of the uncertainties when it comes to carbon capture in the agriculture sector?

Given that agriculture, land use, land use change and forestry are expected to come closer together when it comes to carbon management, what justification is there for those areas to still be considered as separate, distinct sectors when, ultimately, they are all, to an extent, integrated?

I will answer the second question first. That is how the greenhouse gas inventory is designed. Notwithstanding the clear synergies between the agriculture and the LULUCF sectors, it is not in our gift to put them together in the way that you describe, because we must be able to measure emissions from each of them separately for the purposes of the greenhouse gas inventory. Unless that changes, some of that separation will still be baked in.

Your first question was about whether I was frustrated by a lack of clear policies in this area for the agriculture sector, but one could say that about almost every sector. The upside to the farmer-led groups is that they will not result in a one-size-fits-all approach. We have learned that such an approach is never appropriate. Although some people think that agriculture is all the same thing, it is not all the same thing, and a one-size-fits-all approach will not work in that sector. The farmer-led groups will enable us to get to the things that will work in each of the separate areas much more quickly. What works for a farmer with a highly productive farm in, for example, rural Perthshire, will not work for a crofter in the Western Isles.

Therefore, the approach that we are taking with the farmer-led groups is essential. The notion that it is slowing things down is mistaken. I suspect that, in the long run, it will actually deliver more, because we will get to solutions for the sectors concerned much more quickly. That is extremely important for agriculture as a whole—after all, agriculture is not just a word on a bit of paper; it is about food production, which is a pretty fundamental requirement anywhere in the world.

Mark Ruskell would like to ask a brief supplementary.

I see lots of initiatives in the plan to make things more efficient, but I do not see a big shift in the shape of farming and agriculture in 2030. I do not see any recommendations about diet either. Why is that? Does the Government not want to rock the boat or to annoy particular sectors? Does it not want to describe a pathway that could result in people shifting into different forms of production? Is the plan very much about keeping the existing shape of Scottish agriculture and dietary choice but making it that wee bit more efficient for 2030?

In the next session, the Parliament will have to do a brand-new climate change plan. We are not currently discussing a climate change plan in that sense; this was a fast, forced update to an existing climate change plan. From the perspective of the work that we have been able to do over the past year, the notion that we would introduce some revolutionary change in any sector or at least map a pathway to designing a revolutionary change in any sector was always an unrealistic expectation.

I remind committee members that we are updating an existing climate change plan. That is what was agreed. Some of it was discussed in generality when we were thinking about what the plan might look like and the different forms that it might take. It is not a complete climate change plan; perhaps that will be thought about for the next climate change plan.

I did not think that it would be manageable to undertake an assessment of the form of huge shift that you are talking about in the timescale within which we were operating. We have tried to bring forward what we consider to be feasible. I have flagged up the work by ClimateXChange and the SRUC, which people can see for themselves, and that was the basis on which we considered what we were delivering through the update.

The issue of dietary change is not so much about agriculture production, although I understand why it tends to come up in that context; it is more a matter of consumer behaviour and public health. It therefore needs a wider conversation. I presume that the question concerns meat and dairy. Just reducing production in Scotland would not mean that the public would eat less of it; it just means that people would source what they get from elsewhere. We would risk an impact on farmers, crofters and others all along the supply chain without delivering anything that we might want to achieve for public health or without reducing emissions.

Dietary change will need to be handled in a slightly different way, with rather different messages, than what could have been done in the update that we have been able to produce this year. Reducing consumer demand involves a very different type of public engagement from the one that we are discussing here in relation to the climate change update. From the perspective of my portfolio, that would involve at least one other major portfolio—health—which is somewhat preoccupied elsewhere, understandably.

I hope that Stewart Stevenson is still with us. I know that you have had connection problems this morning, Stewart. I will cross my fingers and hand over to you.

It looks to me as if my connection is working okay, although I have departed twice so far.

I would like concisely to tackle how we are dealing with the addition of peat to the international inventory of climate emissions. I am making a numerical point here, which happens to be about peat.

We have always wanted peat to be in the inventory, because we felt that it was an important contributor, but it has not been there. The addition of peat raised the amount of emissions in the inventory in 1990 and therefore changed the baseline and added to the emissions profile. However, clearly, our doing a lot on peat in terms of the international inventory also created the opportunity for us to make an even bigger contribution to the inventory than was the case before the change in the baseline that was caused by the addition of peat. In other words, although it is bad news in one way, is the addition of peat good news for the way in which our actions on peat will manage the numbers? Yes, I know that I am being a mathematician—sorry, cabinet secretary.

I suppose that the short answer is yes. I remember that, when we were embarking on the climate change legislation, our big panic was how we would manage the prospective massive increase in peatland emissions, which was not an actual increase in peatland emissions but a different measurement that scaled it back to 1990. We were worried about the impact that that would have. We were concerned about coming forward with a way to handle it that showed the difference between the two bits of effort: the 1990-to-present-day effort had the change not been made; and, sitting beside that, the calculation of the additional problem that developed.

On the other hand, you are right, because the capacity in Scotland—we should not forget that this is not just about our targets but also about those of the UK as a whole—to contribute massively to the targets is much higher because of the scientific measurement. My slight fear is that the scientists will keep remeasuring this and that we will constantly be dealing with moving goalposts. However, to an extent, I rest at the moment on the £250 million commitment to effect a step change in peatland restoration. There is a lot to unpack in that, because it means that some of the issues around peatland restoration have to be looked at again—not just the scale of it but even the where of it is important.

However, that gives us an opportunity to achieve massive reductions in both our emissions and those of the UK as a whole. In fact, if I recall correctly—forgive me for not having the reference—the CCC naughtily suggested that perhaps such was the potential impact of work done on peatland in Scotland that the UK Government itself ought to think about either subsidising some of that or directly investing in it, because it was going to be such a game changer all round if we got it right. I have not yet seen that happening, but who knows?

I want to ask about the trajectory of emissions, particularly for buildings, transport and waste. They seem to plateau—I do not know whether that is down to the TIMES model—halfway through the climate change plan update. There is a question about how we maintain that momentum beyond 2032. How were the decisions around that profiling made and what kind of assumptions and judgments were taken into account? How does that link into the much longer-term 2045 target? For example, I am aware that a discussion is going on about the Heat Networks (Scotland) Bill setting targets beyond 2030. How do we keep the momentum going and what kind of thinking was factored into the update and how it pushes the momentum towards net zero?

09:45  

Obviously, the climate change plan update takes into account the decision that Parliament made for the period up to the target date of 2030. We are keeping in mind the 2045 target, but we are focusing very much on the 2030 target. There is a lumpiness across the sectors, but the emissions profiles reflect the balance of effort across the sectors. There is a lumpy introduction of some technologies, which we are a little uncertain about. We are trying to prevent envelopes going down and then up as a result of carbon capture and storage coming on stream in 2029 or 2030.

Some of this is quite difficult. We have statutory targets for each year, but the emissions envelopes are not statutory targets; they are guides. They are not targets; they are just trying to keep us on the right track. There is some TIMES modelling, but that is just one tool in the box. We have discussed the fact that we could not justify everything in the update using TIMES. We are trying to reflect the balance of effort across the sectors, and there is some flatness on emissions reductions. We are trying to look over the slightly longer term rather than just year to year, because of the lumpiness of the technological change.

Has that plateauing been thought through? Has it just come out of the TIMES modelling, or are there specific reasons why the emissions abatement effort slows down? I am trying to work out whether we should take the figures with a pinch of salt. Is it just an aberration, or is it the reality that things will slow down because of X? It is difficult to get a sense of that.

That is because these things are difficult. There is no point in trying to persuade people that it is a simple exercise, because it is not. A degree of judgment has to be brought into all the decisions that we make. Our assessment is that we will make some serious and rapid progress early on, and then there is a pointer towards the later stages and the development of other technologies, which suggests to us the likelihood that there might be a bit of slowing up in the middle.

We have focused on what will deliver earliest and fastest, which in effect was the CCC’s recommendation. By doing that, we get to a point where a lot of the measures have been rolled out and we have a slight pause to rethink. We have a whole climate change plan to do in the next session of Parliament, so potentially massive rethinking will take place then. That climate change plan will focus far more on the long run than the climate change plan update has been able to do. The CCC asked us to focus on fast and early delivery and, in effect, that is what we have tried to do. That leads to that slight sense that the period from now to 2030 is a game of two halves.

Claudia Beamish has questions on a just transition and behaviour change.

How is progress on the just transition principles being assessed? It would be interesting to know how that has happened and whether there is evidence of it in the climate change plan. Is there a risk that a just transition will be undermined if it is not affordable to everyone? How can the Scottish Government try to ensure—I stress the word “try”—that low-carbon goods and services are available to everyone, and that the wealthy make their fair share of emissions reductions?

I know that we tend to simplify our language, but we are talking about an update to a plan, not a climate change plan. The update is not, and never could have been, an encyclopaedic version of a plan by any other name. I need to say that, because we will slide into misleading ourselves if we are not careful about what we are talking about.

It is fair to say that there has been much greater focus on a just transition over the past few years than there was when the original climate change legislation was passed. We are in constant contact with the just transition commission, so we get its advice and guidance on what we should do and how we should do it. That advice informs an enormous number of the more specific decisions that are made.

It is important to say that, even at a much more granular level than what we are talking about, we are thinking about the impact on a just transition. Work on heat and buildings cannot simply be about the measurement of emissions reductions; it must be about how we guard against exacerbating fuel poverty at the same time. Such thinking is now baked into just about everything that we do. It is important for me to say that. For example, one of the big benefits of peatland restoration is the creation of jobs, which is important for a just transition.

Claudia Beamish asked about affordability. There are different aspects of a just transition, a big one of which is jobs. Earlier, someone referred to job losses. There are always industries that go out of use. I hope that I am not insulting Claudia Beamish by saying that those of us of an older generation can remember job titles and lines of work that simply do not exist any more, because the world has changed. That always happens. The issue is not about job losses per se; it is about people being able to transition into different job markets.

A just transition is not just about jobs; affordability is a key but quite tricky issue. We know that we will not achieve a just transition if opportunities are not distributed fairly. In the past year, we have had a pretty abrupt lesson in how embedded unfairness and inequalities are. The co-ordinated approach that is set out in the plan demonstrates how the principle of tackling those issues is being embedded across Government policy. I have already given an example of that. I want to reassure committee members that, when each portfolio looks at the different policy issues, that approach is very much at the forefront of our thinking.

We also listened to the advice of the just transition commission that we should think more about bus travel. We have now invested £500 million in that, thereby supporting the mode of public transport that is most used by people who are on low incomes and providing them with greater accessibility to it. Any discussion about public transport right now will be completely different from the one that we would have had up until about March last year. I hope that it is also completely different from the one that we will be able to have once the pandemic has passed. We are currently in a profoundly difficult scenario. However, I assure the committee that such issues are being considered in every portfolio. I am involved in some such conversations, but for obvious reasons I will not be involved in every single one.

One of the key issues for policy making in the next parliamentary session will be a political decision about whether we have to be more punitive in our actions if we are to encourage and enforce behaviour change. In your first answer to me, you mentioned changes in demand, and tomorrow the committee will consider proposed changes to plastic bag pricing. Will the next Parliament have to be more punitive in its policy making as we try to achieve our targets?

I would not use the word “punitive”, which casts the situation in a negative light.

It is a word that one of the witnesses used.

Well, maybe. As much as possible, we have to continue to take people with us. If I might say so, that places certain sectors of society, one of which is politicians, in a leadership role.

I very much hope that, when some such discussions happen, we do not see people just taking an easy way out of the conversation. In the past, I have said that willing an end—such as by voting for a 75 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030—is of no use whatsoever unless we also will the means. Sometimes the means may involve having difficult conversations. One such difficult conversation that will have to be grappled with will involve demand management. It will be a case of having carrots and sticks. Demand management is not only about saying, “We will tell you what you are going to do”; it is also about removing obstacles to doing the right thing in the first place. People do not necessarily always deliberately do the wrong thing out of spite; they are often forced into it because they do not have much alternative.

Such issues will have to be grappled with by all Governments, everywhere in the world. There are some tricky conversations to be had, but it is only right that they be had. However, we politicians will have to think about what that will mean. If we just tell people what to do but do not bother doing it ourselves, that will get us all nowhere.

I have a brief supplementary on the back of that. Chris Stark said that what we might call “punitive” measures could include scrappage schemes. Do you see that as being an area that we need to go into? I am not quite clear how controversial a scrappage scheme for boilers, for example, would be. Should we be making more high-carbon assets redundant and supporting people to make that change?

Let us be absolutely clear: if the Government could write a big cheque that would enable everyone to do the right thing all the time, we would not attach the word “punitive” to any of it, because that would make things very easy. However, we know that the Government cannot always write a big cheque, and we have examples of times when writing a cheque did not necessarily mean take-up. As I recall—I do not have the detail—when the roof insulation policy was offered to people some years ago, people did not take it up, so just writing a cheque does not always work. That is an issue that we have to watch.

10:00  

In general terms, if the Government introduces such schemes, that makes it easy for everybody, but Governments have to worry about budgets and what is doable. They must ask themselves, “If we offered Mark Ruskell this scheme, would that be fair? Could the amount of money that we would be giving him be better put towards those people who are less able to afford such things?” There are still questions around that. Those are issues that the Parliament will have to grapple with in the next session. They are all very tricky issues and it will not be the same answer in every area; it will not be a case of taking the same approach across the board.

I should also say that Chris Stark has said a lot of things. I appreciate that the committee wants to focus on some of the things that it feels might create a problem for the Government, but he also said some very complimentary things. One of those was that he was very impressed with the Scottish Government’s engagement strategy, which was published at the same time as the climate change plan update and for which there is no equivalent at UK level.

You mentioned negative emissions technologies, and a 24 per cent cut in emissions by 2032 is quite a big bet. I know that you have already commented on this, but were other alternative investments considered? Is there a back-up plan? For example, there is evidence that using wood in construction or investing in natural capital might be an alternative way to get such a big chunky reduction. How risky is your approach?

To go back to the CCC again, it needs to be said that the CCC is confident that the NETs are a credible pathway to reaching net zero. Again, we have accepted the CCC’s advice on the matter, but we thought that it was worth putting into a separate chapter, which in a sense is not how it has been presented before, particularly because of some of the issues that you refer to. There are some uncertainties around the technologies, as I discussed earlier.

In relation to a plan B or a plan C, I suppose that what we have cast in the CCPU is our best estimate of how well we can achieve the reduction that we are talking about by the 2030 target date. We are confident that it is technically possible by 2030. That includes trial and demonstration projects that would mean large-scale installations by 2030, which is why we have put in the 2029 date. It will undoubtedly be challenging, but we are trying to set out the need for an urgent focus on such technologies by the Scottish and UK Governments, because both Governments have a need and an incentive to support and develop them. A lot of work will have to go on around that, and we will have to put a lot of thinking into it.

There are potential alternatives, but it is critical that we develop all the options for reducing emissions, including carbon capture and storage, hydrogen and negative emissions technologies, in parallel with the focus on other decarbonising areas. It is important to flag that up.

On the one hand, there is a big reliance on the nature-based solutions. As I have said before, I tend not to categorise those in the same space as carbon capture and storage, because what is being considered there is mostly to do with fossil fuel technologies in particular. There are alternatives already built into the climate change plan update, and we will continue with that approach. However, oil and gas is such a big part of our economy that we must work hard on the transition in that area and on that sphere of technological potential to deliver some of the big wins that, in a sense, we have already delivered over the past decades in the energy sector.

Angus MacDonald has some questions on the just transition.

I will follow on from the theme that Mark Ruskell pursued. We heard from Chris Stark that there is plenty of scope to supply biomass domestically, but there is only really potential for two decarbonised industrial clusters in the UK. If Grangemouth wanted to benefit from funding and investment, as it clearly does, it would have to lean in to capture the lion’s share of support.

The main internal competition seems to be from Teesside, which is engaging widely; Humberside has also been mentioned more recently. The suggestion seems to be that Scotland needs to up its game in this regard. That said, I know that the Scottish Government is liaising closely with Falkirk Council, Ineos and other major players in the sector in Grangemouth on a decarbonised industrial cluster.

While Scotland has a significant advantage in engineering expertise and geological storage for CCS, there is also competition—including from Teesside, as I have just mentioned. How can Scotland capture the economic and just transition benefits? How important is it that Grangemouth sits at the heart of a low-carbon industrial transformation for Scotland? What is being done to support that?

I have already talked about just transition benefits, which are threaded through the CCPU in a variety of sectors. We believe that NETs will offer opportunities that are similar to those that are offered by the other zero carbon and renewables technologies in the update. That is really important. Carbon capture, utilisation and storage—CCUS—represents an important transition opportunity for us. I have already referred to the huge role that is played by oil and gas throughout the Scottish economy, and it is a really important part of that. We are putting a lot of time and effort into developing the associated training and skills, supporting reskilling and retraining of skilled workers, and being part of the energy Scotland alliance.

As for the competition between Grangemouth and Teesside, I would hope that there is room for both, ultimately. It would be unfortunate if this was viewed as an either/or situation, since there is the capacity for both. If the CCC is of the view that there is room for two, one would hope that Scotland is one of those two.

We are putting an enormous amount of effort into what we are doing, and it is important that we continue to do so. The Acorn project should be viewed as an anchor project, which would enable the early establishment of CCU in the UK. I do not believe that the UK Government can ignore that reality. I think that the ambition in Scotland and across the UK should be able to encompass that. Grangemouth in particular is an important—indeed, a strategic—industrial site, and it must be harnessed as an asset in the energy transition. There is promising early potential for large-scale hydrogen carbon capture and utilisation, so it could act as a critical catalyst hub for wider decarbonisation across Scotland. It is a geographical priority for decarbonisation efforts, but it will take a continued commitment. That commitment will have to be continued not just through the next parliamentary session but beyond it, into the one after that.

We are in an area in which there is a balance of reserved and devolved responsibilities that will impact on the sector. I think that private sector investment is as much of a necessity here as Government intervention—and, by that, I mean intervention by both Governments. However, we are putting significant Scottish Government funding into it, and I am very hopeful that that will sow dividends.

We will move on to talk about waste and the circular economy.

This is not the first time that I have raised the issue with you, cabinet secretary, but we have had evidence from stakeholders who are concerned about the growth of waste incinerators. How does that sit within the climate change plan? There is a concern that it will lock in emissions and that we need much better national co-ordination of planning of incineration capacity. What consideration have you given to that? Stakeholders’ voices on the issue are getting louder, and you will probably have seen the negative comments from Zero Waste Scotland about the impact of incineration.

The truth is that we still need capacity to dispose of residual waste while we make the transition to a circular economy. I seem to recall a meeting that we had—back in 2019, I think—that you were present at, where we worked through all of that. There is a need for that capacity up until we make a complete transition. I guess that the concern is that, once we have built the need, people will want to keep feeding the need rather than making the transition, but that is certainly not how we are proceeding. We are preparing for the 2025 landfill ban and we have committed to extending it to include biodegradable non-municipal waste, although there will be a need for appropriate consultation and work on that.

It also needs to be said that waste incineration is strictly regulated in line with European Union standards and that, under those regulations, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency operates a rigorous permissions system for energy from waste operators.

As far as a new national approach is concerned, work is under way to provide a centrally supported procurement solution to help remaining local authorities to secure alternative residual waste treatment solutions to comply with the 2025 ban. We are already working across the country to do that. There are other, broader commitments on reducing the amount of waste that we produce and increasing the proportion of waste that is recycled. Through collaborative procurement, we aim to ensure that expected reductions in residual waste are taken into account when procuring energy from waste capacity. It is a case of dovetailing that to avoid local authorities procuring more capacity than they will need in the future; it is a question of managing the crossover point as effectively as possible. There is no intention to bake that into the future—that is not what we are setting about doing.

10:15  

Angus MacDonald has some questions about the circular economy.

The draft climate change plan update commits to embedding circular economy principles across sectors as part of the green recovery and prioritising areas with the biggest opportunities, including construction and procurement. Therefore, why are there no tangible commitments in the plan, for example to deliver circular economy strategies for priority sectors?

Stakeholders have called for a recommitment to a circular economy bill to set out a framework for a transition to a circular economy. Does the Scottish Government still consider that primary legislation is needed in that area? If so, why is there no commitment to such a bill in the plan?

I give my frequent reminder that the climate change plan update is not an encyclopaedic plan but an update to an existing plan over a short period of time. There was no expectation that we would cover every aspect of what could be covered. I need to keep saying that, because I think that there is a tendency to assume that everything has to be in everything. That was simply not going to be possible.

The update identifies that we will embed circular economy principles in our wider green recovery and that we will prioritise areas with the biggest opportunities—construction, agriculture, food and drink, energy and renewables, procurement, skills and education, and plastics. Work is on-going to develop work plans and associated policies for each of those areas, and that work will be made available in due course. I presume that your successor committee in the next session of Parliament will be on the receiving end of that much more specific work, which will fold out from the update.

On the question about a recommitment to a circular economy bill, everybody is aware that there was going to be a circular economy bill but that, because of the pandemic, we took a decision to delay its introduction. Because it was a year 5 bill, that has meant that it has not been introduced in the current parliamentary session. However, we remain committed to achieving circular economy outcomes. I have just described the proposals for work across a number of areas that are flagged up in the update. In effect, we will deal with an aspect of it tomorrow.

It will be for the new Administration to decide what legislation to introduce in the next parliamentary session and, indeed, when to introduce it. I cannot say what will be in the programme for government in September. As everybody knows, however, work has already been done on a draft circular economy bill.

I want to turn our attention to strategic land use and explore the further development of the regional land use strategy, and indeed the land use strategy itself, which has come up a lot in our stakeholder engagement.

I know that the Scottish Government is committed to a further land use pilot, but there is an argument that it might be more appropriate, given the climate emergency, to have a general roll-out. A concern has been expressed that those who are not involved in future pilots will be left behind. Will you comment on that, please, cabinet secretary?

A general roll-out right now, without establishing the best way forward, might lead to our making a lot of mistakes. The point of the pilots is to test different approaches to see which works best. It might be that one size will not fit all. In fact, I would have thought it quite likely that we end up with one size not fitting all. A general roll-out presumes that one sizes fits all and I do not necessarily think that that works.

What we have tried to do with the five land use partnership pilot regions is put real work into developing our approach to land use. It is about optimising land use appropriately in your area. I would have hoped that people would see that as a plus. A general roll-out would have meant making decisions centrally about what was and was not going to work, and then in effect imposing that on the situation. I do not think that that would have been a particularly helpful way forward. That is why we have chosen to do what we have chosen to do. I hope that people understand that. It is not an avoidance of decision-making; it is an attempt to make the decision-making better and more effective.

That is a bit of a puzzle to me, cabinet secretary, because the two pilots that have come online already have been implemented very differently, and that has depended very much on an ethos that I hope you will agree with—I am sure that you do—that they should include all the different stakeholders. Surely, if the strategy was rolled out more generally, that would be the case with any of the new areas. Will you just clarify that for me, please?

We have chosen five completely different areas. The two older ones, which date back to 2013, were not involved in the thinking around the climate scenario that we are now thinking about.

The decision has now been made and we are not going to reverse it suddenly. I am basically calling on everybody who is involved in the pilot projects to work as effectively as they can to help us to achieve the best outcomes for everybody.

Thank you. I want to move on to nature-based solutions and particularly to look at the expiry of peat extraction. What mechanisms will be used to phase out horticultural peat? Do you have any concern about the live applications that are being made and that might be made in future to extend site permissions? What is the Scottish Government’s position on those? A lot of concerns have been raised about that.

I have had discussions with people, including external stakeholders, about the issue. My officials are continuing to work through some of the issues around commercial peat extraction and the use of horticultural peat. It is not as straightforward as people might think.

Some different suggestions have been made. One is a sales ban, which sounds simple until we think about the necessity for it to be UK-wide if it is to work, when it immediately becomes a little bit more complicated. If the ban were not UK-wide, it would not have as much effect on reducing the extraction of Scottish peat. That is an issue that we would have to think about. We have to move an entire industry away from reliance on peat, which is a slightly different aspect of the issue. Clearly, that means making suitable alternatives readily available, so a conversation has to be had with the industry, and particular issues have an impact on that.

A ban on peat extraction, which is suggested as another way to tackle the issue, is likely to be very costly. As I am sure that committee members know, these sites can have very lengthy planning permissions. From our research, planning permissions for different sites in Scotland extend from those that run out this year to those that do not run out until 2051. There are compensation implications to banning extraction. There would need to be a significant conversation about whether diverting funds from peatland restoration to buy out land that is currently used for commercial extraction is the right thing to do, because that can be expensive. There are some examples of where it has been done and the purchase price has been very expensive, so a conversation is needed about what represents a good use of money. That might stop some extraction happening here, but it would not stop imports of peat from elsewhere, so we circle back around to the sales ban conversation with the horticultural industry. When one looks closely at the matter, it is not as simple and straightforward as one might think.

I will hold more of the meetings that I have been having—the conversation is on-going. We are looking at mechanisms, and we are liaising with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on UK approaches, including levies, so we are looking actively across the board at how we might work through that.

With regard to the final part of your question about not supporting applications for new commercial peat extraction, I go back to some of the things that I said about existing permissions and the potential for big compensatory claims resulting from that.

The issue of the extension of permissions for existing sites has been highlighted to the committee a lot.

The recent national planning framework 4 position statement set out our intention not to support applications for planning permissions for new commercial peat extraction for horticultural purposes. That includes extensions to existing sites.

That is helpful. Thank you.

We circle back around to the potential for compensatory funds to be made available, so it is a more complicated and bigger conversation than, on the surface, it first appears.

I will bring in Angus MacDonald with questions on deer management.

I will turn to that long-running saga. Given the wealth of recommendations in the deer working group report and the recognition from the group that deer management is a key enabling policy for climate mitigation, why has there been no progress on deer management policy as part of the draft climate change plan update?

10:30  

I will start with my frequent reminder that this is not meant to be a climate change plan. It is not meant to be encyclopaedic, so people will always be able to say that one or another aspect of policy has not been included. That is my repeat reminder.

However, the 2020-21 programme for government laid out our commitment to publishing our response to the report by the deer working group in the current parliamentary session. As everybody will realise, that means that it is imminent. Obviously, our response will flag up the intention for the future, which may or may not require legislative change. The PFG recognised the important role of effective deer management in supporting a green recovery and in tackling climate change. [Interruption.] Can you hold on a second? My radio has come on automatically.

Sorry about that.

Our response will cover all the recommendations of the working group, including those on deer density limits and deer impacts. I am conscious of the read-across from that area of policy to the issue of peatland restoration. There is a significant dynamic between the two.

We certainly look forward to seeing that response when it comes out, which I hope will be soon. I assure you that I am taking on board your frequent reminders, cabinet secretary.

The committee has heard that there are opportunities through the national marine plan for spatial management to target known blue carbon hotspots, with the separation of mobile and static fishing gear. How will the Scottish Government ensure that the blue economy action plan, which we welcome—I certainly do, anyway, although I should not speak for the committee—reconciles the need to ensure protection of natural capital such as blue carbon and marine biodiversity hotspots with socioeconomic priorities for our coastal communities?

The first and most important thing that I have to remind everybody about is that blue carbon is not currently included in the UK greenhouse gas inventory. That means that policies and proposals in that space could not contribute to progress to meeting Scotland’s statutory emissions targets, which in turn means that, of necessity, they fall outside the formal scope of the climate change plan update. I need to flag that at the outset.

I know that Claudia Beamish has had a long-standing interest in blue carbon, and we have had conversations about the issue before. I can reassure her that work is continuing, particularly on the research side. One reason why blue carbon is not in the greenhouse gas inventory is that the research as yet makes it tricky to see how one could do the measurements to ensure that its inclusion would be sensible and productive. However, research is on-going. We are obviously in—

I am sorry to interrupt, but I have a question about the research that I would like to clarify before you go on to the issue of hotspots and the rest of my question.

The committee heard from a professor at the University of St Andrews—I apologise, but I can only remember his first name, which is Bill. His evidence was that salt marshes and seagrass beds readily fit into the internationally recognised frameworks for greenhouse gas inventories. Is it not possible to consider including those in order to properly account for blue carbon stocks? I understand your point that blue carbon is not in the recognised inventory per se, but it seems that there is a fundamental opportunity to contribute. We have moved much faster with peatlands than we have with blue carbon, so I wonder whether we might take more action on that.

The short answer to your question is yes. Inclusion is being considered and we are supportive of that.

A longer answer is that, right now, inclusion would not count toward our targets, because blue carbon is not counted. Therefore, as interesting and important as that is, and as likely as it is that it becomes more so in the future, trying to include salt marshes and seagrasses in a climate change plan update last year would have diverted our attention.

A slightly longer answer is that decisions on technical changes to the UK inventory, including on salt marshes and seagrasses, are made solely by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. We will continue to work with our UK counterparts, who are undertaking work on the issue. We support the addition but, ultimately, the decision will be made not by us but by BEIS. I do not know what—

I am sorry that I interrupted you when you were talking about the evidence, which provides the context. Do you have any comment on the substance of my question in relation to the national marine plan, separation of mobile and static fishing gear and protection of natural capital?

We are reviewing the national marine plan, and that review will be informed by the recently published Scottish marine assessment 2020. I am not sure whether the committee has had it yet, but I did a videoconference on it in the run-up to Christmas—I think—so it is fairly recent. The review is assessing the effectiveness of the current national marine plan. We will then consider whether a new, amended plan is necessary to drive forward marine priorities. The future fisheries management strategy is a vital element of that.

Our bigger vision is to establish and grow the recognition of blue as a natural capital asset in Scotland that will contribute significantly to our economic recovery and enable us to make a green recovery. Let us not get too mixed up with the colours. I am aware that there has been some court action on this, and we are carefully considering the court’s decision. The case was very focused and there are still some live aspects to it, so I must be careful about saying much more about that.

The future fisheries management strategy was published just before Christmas. It sets out a vision for sustainable and responsible fisheries management. The action plan in the strategy will help to address challenges that were identified by the Scottish marine assessment. Actions include the introduction of a new catching policy and cover other aspects of fisheries. That would probably take up an entire committee session on its own, so I do not know how much more I should say about it now.

That is helpful.

We are coming to the end of this session, which you will be pleased to hear, as it has been a long one. I have one final question.

Throughout your evidence, you have alluded to the necessity for a lot of action in reserved areas to get us to our targets. For one, you mentioned the—[Inaudible.]—of the gas—[Inaudible.]. The Internal Market Act 2020 has implications for the decisions that we can make in the devolved sphere. How much will that impact what the Scottish Government can do in relevant policy areas to get us to the targets?

As with a lot of these things, there is massive potential for it to have an impact on or undermine what we do. Government officials are undertaking a serious analysis to map out the act’s impacts across devolved policy areas so that we have a much clearer understanding across the board.

Our initial assessment is that it could significantly undermine the effectiveness of the deposit return scheme in Scotland. I have already referred to various other areas in which decisions at UK level will be very important, if not fundamental. We have talked about horticultural peat, so I will not go into detail about that again. There are also other areas in which one can see, superficially, that there might be an impact.

It will depend enormously on the UK Government’s decisions to implement parts of the act. I am not quite clear what its intentions are, but suffice it to say that the legislation was passed without the consent of the Scottish Parliament or the Senedd Cymru.

Thank you very much.

We will suspend for five minutes to allow for a change to the panel of witnesses. When we return, we will be joined by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, as well as the Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform.

10:42 Meeting suspended.  

10:46 On resuming—