Official Report 264KB pdf
Good afternoon. Welcome to the fourth meeting this year of the Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee. I remind everyone present that all mobile devices—phones, BlackBerrys, pagers and so on—should be switched off.
I need to add that currently I am seconded part-time to the Scottish Government's climate change team to work two days a week on its strategic overview project, about which the committee has heard. The project is concerned with delivery of whatever targets are set by the bill.
I will kick off the questioning. When considering the bill, we are interested in hearing about the most recent climate science, to enable us to judge whether the approach that is being taken in the bill and by the Government more generally is up to the mark. Could you provide us with a synopsis—it may need to be a brief one, given the complexity of the subject—of how the science has moved on since the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was published?
The IPCC report came out just over a year ago, by which point the science that it contains was about two years old. The biggest change that has taken place since then is that there is now more emphasis on trying to understand the probability of different levels of climate change. The word "probability" is relevant to the bill. For example, our current understanding is that reducing emissions by 50 per cent by 2050 would give us a 50 per cent chance of keeping warming down to 2°; an 80 per cent reduction in emissions would bring the chance of warming exceeding 2° down to 10 per cent. However, it is necessary to emphasise that this is cutting-edge science, and that both the mean level of change and levels of uncertainty may change. For example, the IPCC included in its report only at a late stage the effects of changes in the carbon cycle, which tend to push temperatures up slightly. When considering legislation, the committee must be aware that, in 10 years' time, the numbers may be different.
For clarity, are the 50 per cent and 80 per cent reduction figures to which you refer global figures?
Those are global figures.
So they are the figures before we get into any policy decision about whether richer countries should make deeper cuts and so on.
Exactly.
On mitigation, which is my specialist area, the work since the publication of the IPCC's fourth assessment report has focused on identifying and better quantifying the economic costs of mitigation—how much we can do with a given range of measures across all the sectors, what that will cost and how it will play out across the sectors. Many of the studies that have appeared since the assessment report have drilled down into the individual sectors to look at the measures that are available and to cost those to see how much we can achieve and how much it would cost to get there.
The bill uses the IPCC report as its basis and the Government will also use advice from the UK Committee on Climate Change as a basis for determining its approach to the issue. Could the Government incorporate more recent scientific evidence and data into the bill? Is there a more appropriate way in which it could ensure that, once the bill is passed, further scientific developments are brought into Government thinking?
As I understand it, the Parliament will take advice from the UK Committee on Climate Change and from a Scottish committee on climate change—is that correct?
That is one of the possibilities for which the bill allows, although we have heard that the Government does not intend to propose the creation of such a committee in the immediate future.
Clearly, that would be the main mechanism through which to get such information and to enable cutting-edge scientific understanding to be fed through to inform the passage of the bill and, after the bill has been passed, further decisions on setting and achieving annual targets.
A couple of things are coming up. One is the UK climate impacts programme, which will produce its new scenarios by—I hope—21 April. That will help, perhaps not so much with mitigation as with adaptation. Those scenarios will be quite an advance on UKCIP02 and they cover all the United Kingdom, so they will be of interest.
I will add to what Pete Smith said, which is that if you are going to bring in the latest science, all that you need is a repeat cycle so that you keep checking against the latest science that comes out. As long as you have a process for doing that, you can update your targets a few years out. My understanding is that the bill delivers such an approach.
Do any of the witnesses want to comment on where we are in the development of a global deal on climate change? The process attracts a certain amount of press attention and it is one in which the Scottish Government has some level of participation, but perhaps less than the Government of an independent country. Without getting into whether that would be desirable, where do you think we stand in relation to that process?
I guess that you are referring to the Bali road map, which is in place. The meetings that took place in Poznan were to enable the various interested parties to position themselves with respect to the main decisions that will be taken in Copenhagen, so it would be premature to say now what we imagine will be in any agreement that is reached. The really important thing about the Bali road map is that it includes not just the developed countries, as the Kyoto protocol does, but the developing countries. Given that, from an emissions perspective, developing countries such as India and China, the economies of which are in transition, are jumping ahead of some of the formerly industrialised countries that were covered by the Kyoto protocol, it is extremely important to have those countries on board for any meaningful global climate agreement. Whatever agreement we reach, we need to have more global coverage than we had under the Kyoto protocol.
I will make two points. It is clear that one of the great sticking points has been that countries such as China and India have required the USA to be involved substantively in delivering emissions reductions, which has not been the case until now. Comments by the new President suggest that the USA will get on board, which might be grounds for optimism, but if one talks, in particular, to businesses and carbon market players in the City of London, it is fair to say that there is a degree of scepticism about whether the Copenhagen talks will deliver a meaningful global deal, as opposed to a series of regional deals, which appears more likely. It is difficult to say; that is just conjecture.
It is too early to say exactly how the US position will change as regards engagement in emissions reductions. We might be optimistic, but we should wait and see what happens. Through the World Meteorological Organization, I have been involved in organising the next world climate conference, and the US has been highly reluctant to engage in anything involving climate change. It is too early to say whether that has changed—the President has just been inaugurated—or in what direction it might change. It might not change in the direction that we expect.
Before we move on to the next set of questions, I should have recorded at the beginning of the meeting that Cathy Peattie and Charlie Gordon have sent their apologies. That is on the record now.
As practitioners in the field of climate change science, do you feel that the Scottish Government has properly exploited your expertise in framing the Climate Change (Scotland) Bill and other proposed legislation that might take climate change into account?
From my point of view—this is the second committee that I have appeared before—you have tried to take into account a range of scientific opinion and, so far, that has been done well.
I am trying to get at whether, in this bill and in other proposed legislation, the Scottish Government is up to speed with scientific opinion. Is there any lag? Is more effort required?
The Government—as in the civil service part of the Government—is consulting and has had a number of meetings. More broadly, outside the Government specifically, the public consultation on the bill has allowed various groups and interested parties to feed in. From my perspective, that process has been completely open and inclusive. The Government has taken the necessary advice and has contacted the main players. As far as I am aware, no one in the scientific community has felt excluded from that process.
An issue from my perspective is that all Administrations, certainly in the United Kingdom and in most other European countries—it is not just to do with the Scottish Government or any particular Administration—have had a significant problem with delivery, as opposed to the setting of targets. They might well set targets that are based on science, but it is clear from their emissions inventories that there has been a problem with how those targets are delivered. One of the key issues is delivery rather than the use of science to set targets in the first place.
The bill consultation stated that one of the reasons for legislating in the first place was
I would say that there is nothing new under the sun. We have known for a long time that planting trees will deliver carbon sequestration, for example. Some measures are specific to Scottish circumstances, such as the muirburn provisions, which you will not find in many other places, simply because muirburn is not an issue in many other countries. The bill also covers land use, land use change and forestry emissions that are specific to Scotland.
I want to comment on the measures and their relative effectiveness. Carbon credits are a one-off. In a sense, you buy the emissions for the year and that is it. If you want to keep the emissions down to that level, you have to repeat the exercise each year or find a replacement.
Can I just clarify your question? Are you talking about measures such as the energy efficiency action plan and the measures in relation to public sector organisations, or are you talking specifically about the natural science?
In effect, I am talking about both, but we are looking primarily at the provisions in the bill. I am interested to know whether you feel that we have achieved anything unique in Scotland, particularly in the bill.
I back up Peter Smith's point: I am not aware of any more stringent targets in any other country. On the measures to reduce emissions, it is my understanding that the bill is enabling legislation and that other pieces of work will have to be brought forward.
Could you explain the importance of cumulative emissions? Is it technologically possible to measure them and, if so, how would that be done?
If by cumulative emissions you are talking about the emissions that have accumulated since the industrial revolution—
Sorry—I am talking about what is going to happen. The bill contains annual targets, but it is also concerned with what goes under the graph, if you like, and with cumulative emissions up to 2050.
I misunderstood. I will pass the question over while I have another think about it.
There are two ways of finding out emissions from Scotland, the first of which is the annually published emissions inventory. However, one problem with that is that it is 20 months in arrears. The second way is the allocation of auctioning rights in the traded sector. Using both, you can get a sense of what the net Scottish emissions will be and adding them up over the years will give you a figure for cumulative emissions. In that sense, the information is available if you want to understand what the total emissions block will be up to 2050 and whether we will meet the stretching targets that you set.
I also assume that you are referring to the area under the curve of emissions between now and 2050. The bill sets out a broad trajectory of gradual reduction in emissions up to 2020, followed by a 3 per cent reduction per year from 2020 and perhaps a 4.5 per cent cut per year after 2030. The steepness of the curve between now and 2020 is actually quite important to the overall carbon budget to 2050; I believe, for example, that it has been calculated that an additional 200 million tonnes of carbon will be generated by following that path instead of having a linear 3 per cent cut from now onwards.
The theoretical attraction of using cumulative emissions is that, because carbon dioxide has such a long lifespan, they probably indicate what long-term global climate change will be. However, as far as the bill is concerned, it is less clear how such an approach is relevant to a particular country that is trying to restrict its own emissions.
Many of the policy statements that have been made have been about cutting emissions by 3 per cent a year. Of course, 3 per cent of a large number is bigger than 3 per cent of a small number; as a result, there will be a very steep drop to begin with. However, because of the momentum in economies, emissions reduction will almost always take the form of an S-shape; almost all economies will reduce slowly to begin with, sharpen up in the middle and slow down again when they have to deal with the really challenging stuff at the end. I think that, instead of the assumption that emissions will simply drop away to begin with, that is a more pragmatic view of how emissions will be reduced.
Have any other countries—large states or whatever—set cumulative emissions targets rather than annual targets in their climate change legislation?
I am not aware of that. Given that, to my knowledge, the UK and Scottish bills are the first of their kind in the world, we cannot draw on other evidence.
The fact that, as Dr Kerr pointed out, the emissions inventory runs 20 months in arrears has always concerned me. Has anything been done to speed up the process? How important is it for such information to be reported sooner?
The inventory runs behind because the activity data for a given year need to be collected and pulled together. Although one could improve the efficiency of an inventory process, there is only so much that can be done. After all, a certain amount of time will always have to elapse before one can feasibly collect necessary statistics such as livestock numbers, afforestation rates and fuel consumption. Although the delay could be reduced from 20 months, a reduction to 12 months would be the maximum that could be achieved even if there was an instantaneous evaluation.
Would it be worth while trying to report within 12 months rather than 20 months?
Under Kyoto accounting, reporting must be done at the end of the first commitment period, which is in 2012. Reports will be made more or less at the end of that period for the previous five years. Once we reach critical periods such as that, one would hope that annual reporting targets could speed up that process, but we will still be reporting at least one year in the past because that is where the data for the period come from.
The international standard is that reports must be made 15 months in arrears of the end of the year, so a 2006 report should be published in March or April of 2008. The Scottish statistics are published five or six months later. Presumably, we could get that back to somewhere closer to the international reporting requirements. However, we are unlikely to beat those requirements, so there will be a limit to how much can be achieved.
Is it feasible to measure and report on the emissions generated anywhere for goods and services that are used in Scotland?
That is consumption-based reporting. We support the Government's general approach of using source-based emissions as the basis for the Scottish target. In our view, it would be useful to have an indicator of our wider carbon footprint or wider consumption in parallel with that, given that the two issues have been closely linked over the past 20 years. For example, in closing Ravenscraig and importing steel from the far east, we are still using something that is part of our overall carbon impact on the global economy. I would say that, yes, consumption-based reporting is important and, yes, it can be calculated. Within the national performance framework, the Government already has an environmental footprint indicator from which—as I understand it—our carbon footprint could quite easily be extrapolated.
It would be great if such reporting could be done, but it will take a while before the standards of reporting around the world are appropriate. We have global movements of goods, but the standard of reporting for emissions inventories is reasonably good in countries that are liable under the Kyoto target and pretty weak in countries that are not liable under Kyoto. There will always be a challenge in dealing with that sort of trade of goods.
You suggest that there will be a time lag. When might the reporting be statistically strong enough?
I would not like to conjecture, to be honest.
We are limited by the capacity to collect those sorts of data in the countries from which we import. Whereas many industrialised countries have what the IPCC calls tier 2 or tier 3 methods that use national bases and fairly sophisticated models for calculating emissions, many developing countries use tier 1 methods that just use default emission factors, which are not specific to their region. Generally speaking, I think that there is a greater uncertainty associated with the emissions inventories of developing countries. The only way to improve that would be to increase the capacity within those countries to move from tier 1 reporting to higher tiers of reporting. Perhaps that could be done through capacity building to improve the way that we report globally.
Do the emission tracks that the Government has outlined—mention was made earlier of the line that the Government is assuming in the bill—reflect any of the global emissions deals that are happening? Are they flexible or stringent or optimistic enough?
The Scottish trajectory is towards a cut of 50 per cent by 2030. The cut that the Committee on Climate Change recommended as a potential target by 2020, which could be a cut of up to 42 per cent from 1990 levels, is a more ambitious target than what we have in Scotland. Obviously, Scotland is part of the wider UK act as well, but I am not sure that our target is as ambitious as the one in the UK act.
You will hear from Katherine White later, but the interim target of a reduction by 2020 of just over 34 per cent from 1990 levels, which includes Scottish emissions, was deemed to be done within the UK. The expectation was that a lot of credits would be purchased to help to deliver on the more stringent target of 42 per cent. It is not entirely appropriate to use an identical system to that which is laid out in the Government's technical note, which talks primarily about internal emissions production.
Based on the current scientific consensus, do you have a view on the 2030 and 2050 targets in the bill?
I take on board what Andy Kerr said earlier. Obviously, we cannot turn the economy around overnight. We are likely to see an S shape as we get all the mechanisms in place, proceed to more stringent cuts, and finally, when the low-hanging fruit has gone, complete the last stuff, which will be quite hard to achieve. However, I still think that we can do more between now and 2020 than just move on from the business-as-usual case that we have at present, with cuts in emissions of about 1.25 per cent per annum. I do not know how it could be included in the bill, but it would be good to move more quickly than the bill suggests towards annual cuts of 3 per cent by 2020.
There are two factors that influence the rate at which we can change. We can change things quickly by taking the easiest and cheapest mitigation options that we can identify. Those are the options that we can adopt fairly quickly. From that perspective, we can make a large cut in emissions relatively quickly. However, there is inertia in some of our systems and institutions. We have to strike the right balance between taking the quick and easy options that we can identify and implement relatively quickly and tackling the inertia that we encounter in the system as we try to change things. Some of the changes that are required involve large changes to infrastructure. Some things will cost more but will be easy to implement once the infrastructure has changed. Some things will be relatively easy and cheap to implement. The target needs to strike a balance between those competing pressures.
I agree that Scotland can do better than scenario 1 in the technical note suggests. I wrote a paper a couple of years ago on the extent to which lots of different industrial countries had reduced their emissions, and not a single country had managed to reduce emissions year on year by more than 1 per cent except those that were going into a major recession or depression, which will deliver reductions quite easily. I impress on members the fact that radical changes will be needed in the next few years in the production and use of energy and the use of land. Whatever the trajectory is over the next 10 years, the key is to put in place the processes and policies that will deliver the cuts of 3 per cent and more that are required thereafter.
There has been some discussion of the annual targets and the trajectory in emissions reductions that are expected from the bill. Professor Smith described the momentum in the system that makes it more likely that the economy would achieve an S-shaped curve in reductions rather than more sudden or stark cuts. We have acknowledged that cumulative emissions over time will determine whether we contribute to dangerous climate change. Is the S sufficiently curvy, if I can put it that way, to avoid that? Do any of the witnesses have a view on the suggestion that the bill's long title should explicitly refer to the Government's contribution to the avoidance of dangerous climate change and include a specific figure for 2050?
Including "dangerous climate change" in the long title would not add anything other than complexity and lots of argument about what the phrase constitutes. My preference would be to leave it simple, but that is up to you guys.
It could be steeper at the beginning than is suggested by the range of targets that are made possible by the bill.
That is my opinion. Having said that I do not think that this will be easy. It will be tough to do the job that we are trying to do, and we need to balance out how realistic we are being. However, from the climate change perspective, more radical mitigation early on would be preferable.
Some people suggest that, as Dr Kerr perhaps hinted, if an economy experiences a spike in energy prices followed by a recession, its emissions might go down as a result. It is not necessarily simple to predict whether that will happen, but it is a scenario that might occur. Given the situation that we are in, could we not expect more ambitious reductions in the early stages and require that, should the recovery materialise as expected in a couple of years, it must be sustainable in the fullest sense of the word and based on policy changes that we can put in place before then?
Reduced demand and consumption should reduce emissions, but we must also develop the infrastructure to ensure larger reductions in emissions later on. Although we would rather not be in the current economic situation, it may lead to some short-term windfall benefits through a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. However, the same economic situation may reduce the opportunities for investment in infrastructure that would lead to larger reductions in emissions later on. Andy Kerr spoke about electric cars and the need to put infrastructure in place for them. Infrastructure is also required to feed the results of microgeneration back into a large electricity grid for distribution, and that will require investment.
We should also flag up the difference between the traded sector and the non-traded sector. Emissions from the traded sector are fixed by the number of allowances across the EU. Those are now set until 2020, regardless of whether people use them up or—if there is a recession—do not use them up. If people do not use their allowances this year, they will be able to keep them until 2018 or 2019. As a result, the nominal emissions in Scotland from the traded sector are fixed until 2020, regardless of what happens with end-of-year emissions.
Should we simply accept that the traded sector can defer its emissions reductions if it does not use up its allowances, or should we challenge that assumption?
You can challenge it, but the place to do so is the European Commission. The challenge will be to get 27 member states to agree.
I am told that that can be complicated.
Yes.
Are there any more comments on the trajectory and on whether we could be more ambitious in the early stages? Would there be value in that? Would it be achievable?
There is an obvious comment: it is a bit like paying off your mortgage. The sooner you start, the easier it is.
I wish I had thought of that analogy.
The Government has said that it will bring forward batches of targets, rather than set targets year by year. What issues should the Government take into account when it determines what the targets in the first batch ought to be?
The first batch goes up to 2022, so it covers the period up to and beyond the time when we are definitely aiming for 3 per cent reductions, even based on what is in the bill at the moment.
If, because of any recession, emissions reduce in the next year or two, we should take that starting point and then consider the non-traded sector's potential for reductions. We should then set targets that are a real challenge, so that the sector delivers right at the limit of what it can achieve. That is how to push things forward. However, in order to help the sector reach those targets, you will have to vote through the right policies and measures. That may be the most challenging part.
So this is about not only achievability but sending a signal. Are we talking about sending a signal that the handle will be turned further each year?
I would have thought so. We need to balance achievability against wanting emissions to be as low as possible. A fair approach would be to set out what is achievable and push it as hard as we can.
The bill contains no sectoral targets. Would it make sense for specific sectors to be given more scrutiny and policy direction in relation to annual emissions targets?
There should certainly be more scrutiny, but I am not sure whether it would be sensible to have specific sectoral targets. The more we salami slice an economy down to specific regional areas or industries, the more costly it is to deliver overall emissions reductions. However, it is clear that certain sectors have not delivered. For example, neither the transport sector nor the residential heating sector has delivered because neither sector has serious economic instruments for reducing emissions. We can pinpoint areas that have not delivered at all over the past eight to 10 years, which we must scrutinise particularly carefully. Given the Committee on Climate Change's figures for the UK as a whole, many sectors will have to deliver dramatically more than they have done in the past few years. If one or two of them do not deliver what is required, it is clear that the overall target will not be hit. There is therefore a requirement on them all to deliver far more than they have done.
It is useful to maintain the flexibility of not having sectoral targets at the outset because that allows the Government to choose the policy instruments that it feels are appropriate for each sector's prevailing economic situation. If one analyses how much potential different measures can have in a sector and how cheaply that potential can be achieved, one can then assess where to get most bang for our buck across the sectors and implement a range of policies that will influence different sectors in different ways. Having separate sectoral targets at the beginning would be unnecessarily cumbersome and reduce the policy levers' flexibility to influence different sectors at different times.
Professor Smith referred to low-cost options for early action in certain areas. Is the domestic heating area one of those areas, given that it has the potential for energy efficiency as well?
Yes—definitely. On the marginal abatement cost curve, energy efficiency is right down there as cost negative; it saves money and energy, so it makes a huge amount of sense. The question is why it is not happening. One must consider the educational, societal, institutional and economic barriers that prevent it from happening. If energy efficiency is cheaper, why are we not being more energy efficient? There must be barriers in the way. The policy levers ought to try to get in place energy efficiency and other mitigation or abatement options.
Given that, for most parts of the UK, winter has been colder this year than in the past 10 years, I wonder whether, despite the economic depression, more domestic heating has been used than before. Does that kind of variable highlight why we should make tackling the domestic heating issue a high priority?
Yes.
Yes.
There has been much discussion at the UK level of a green new deal. It is vital that, in seeking ways to get out of recession, we target investment at areas that are job-creation rich, which the home energy area is. That would create an awful lot of jobs, particularly for lower-skilled people. It would have huge social benefits and provide the carbon and environmental benefits that we want. In the short term, that would help to deliver those benefits and would give us time to wait for the technologies that might take longer to kick in.
To sum up, you think that scrutiny is the best way to achieve the aim—you have highlighted that for us. Thank you.
Our country has a large area and a relatively small population of 5 million or so. For an industrialised country, emissions from our land use, land use change and forestry make up a relatively large proportion of our total emissions. That is why the sector is important for Scotland.
Given earlier remarks, are you saying that the best policy now is not clear fell but managed forestry, which will require working in a way that is very different from how the Forestry Commission has operated?
That depends to an extent on what we are trying to achieve. If we are thinking of using wood as a renewable fuel we will continue to keep the carbon sink by deforesting and allowing forests to grow again. Wood is not particularly efficient, and processing and transporting it might involve extra costs. If a forest is used merely as a sink, some management might help as it becomes more mature. However, that is a short-term measure in the life of carbon dioxide, because when a forest eventually matures, respiration and so on will start to occur, which means that the amount of carbon that it can store is saturated.
Since the industrial revolution, woodlands in this country have vastly diminished, so it could be argued that it is important for Scotland to restore more woodland. I will leave aside the albedo effect, because it is increasingly the case that Scotland does not have much snow.
A couple of centuries ago, deforestation contributed to early increases in carbon dioxide. Scotland does not have the problem of Brazil or some other tropical countries, which found that when they started to use renewable fuels they were pushing out areas that were used for food production. That is not the case in Scotland, so the measure seems appropriate for Scotland.
Increasing the area of woodland is a key option. The only point to bear in mind is that there are appropriate and inappropriate sites on which to do that. Deep peats hold huge amounts of carbon, particularly in Scotland, which has massive reserves of carbon stocks. About 50 per cent of all the UK's soil carbon is held in Scottish peats, so we need to protect that resource. We could increase our sequestration by planting more trees, but we would need to do that in appropriate places and to ensure that we do not lose the large carbon stocks in our peatlands.
Does that apply to areas such as the east Highlands, where the only food source on the prospective land is grouse?
We would need to look at the soil carbon map to decide that.
We must consider those large areas for such development, given the difference between the minerals in the soils there and those in the deep peat areas in the north and the west.
One would need to consider the issue case by case.
There is a real issue with the emissions inventory in relation to land use, in the sense that landowners can undertake a number of abatement measures that will not get flagged up in the inventory as it currently is. The methods that are used to create the inventory will not necessarily flag up actions that are taken by landowners on a year-to-year basis. Until that is rectified, there is a real problem in using the emissions inventory.
For the record, how do you suggest that that be rectified?
We need annual surveys of land cover, and we need to change the methodology that is used to create the emissions inventory.
At the moment, the inventory is too blunt a tool. It picks up land use change, but it does not pick up very well changes in the management of an individual piece of land. For example, if an area of cropland is managed differently from the way in which it was managed 10 years ago, that will not show up very well; however, if the land use changes from cropland to grassland, that will show up. We would need a new level of information and data to enable us to process that. As with all inventories globally, the activity data—the data on what is going on in management terms—are difficult to come by. Therefore, we would need not just a new inventory, but many additional resources to collect the statistics that would be needed to drive that inventory.
That is very helpful. Thanks. I have no further comments on that point just now.
I do not know.
I do not know.
The UK Climate Change Act 2008 provides access to the levers at an international level that the Scottish Government does not have. Is that a reason? Could there be other reasons?
I cannot comment.
The Scottish Administration has argued that it will not use carbon credits to meet its targets but that it is leaving the option open in case it needs to do so in the future. If there is an international agreement at Copenhagen and the UK then buys in carbon credits to meet the Committee on Climate Change's intended target of 42 per cent, a certain number of those credits will be allocated to Scotland. In that scenario, the Scottish Government will have no choice but to accept a certain number of credits on behalf of the overall UK target. So, in talking about the traded sector credits, there are sometimes unintended consequences of which we must be aware.
We will have to dig into that a little further.
There was a fairly basic misunderstanding among some of the non-governmental organisations after the EU agreement in December. The environmental effectiveness of a trading scheme is set entirely by the number of allowances that are available. Whether those are given out free affects distributional consequences—who has to pay the money. If they are all given out freely to industry, that is fine as long as the cap comes down—the environmental effectiveness is not changed. What that means is that consumers pay more, as industries will pass the cost of the allowances on to consumers. So, there is an economic issue to do with industry in Poland and Germany getting more free allowances over the next few years.
Thank you for that helpful explanation.
Notwithstanding Dr Kerr's comments about the UK's relationship with the use of international credits, the Scottish ministers have stated publicly their intention to expend most of the effort to reach Scottish targets in Scotland. However, if the bill is passed in its current form, it will allow them to decide on the additional use of credits. If the Parliament wants to hold not just the current Government but future Governments to the pledge to expend the bulk of the effort on Scottish emissions reduction targets in Scotland, would it not be most effective for us to include a cap or limit in the legislation?
Yes. Two types of credits may be distinguished. One is an EU allowance within a capped system—many of those are traded and surrendered by Scottish installations. The other is something like a clean development mechanism credit, which is bought in from an outside source. If the committee wants to create a trajectory that guarantees that emissions from Scotland through to 2050 are below the curve and that cumulative emissions are at a set amount, it must impose limits.
Would other witnesses like to comment on that issue or on the effectiveness of CDM credits? Are such credits a reliable way of achieving additional emissions reductions?
I support what Dr Kerr said. If you want a limit, which is a good way of ensuring that the majority of action is taken at home, you should impose one through the bill.
I agree. I assumed that the aim was to maintain flexibility, to allow other mechanisms to come into play if there was trouble in meeting targets. Such mechanisms are better than nothing, and it would be difficult not to allow any flexibility. However, placing a limit on their use would be beneficial.
How much better than nothing are the other mechanisms outside the EU system?
It depends. There are all sorts of issues to do with leakage and so on. I do not want to say that the other mechanisms are not credible, but we have less control over their credibility. We have much better control over reductions in domestic emissions.
Presumably, we would also have to factor in impacts on aspects of sustainable development and the interests of developing countries, as well as our emissions targets.
Quite so.
Yes. If Scotland meets its 80 per cent target in 2050 and sits there grinning at everyone else, but no one else has got halfway there, we will not have achieved anything. There are mechanisms, such as the CDM, that have the potential to support technology transfer and low-emission routes for other countries. However, whether they achieve that is a moot point—some do and some do not. It is difficult to say in the round whether such mechanisms are good or bad; it is a grey area. Some are very good and some are very poor.
If we set 10 per cent as the maximum reduction from international credits, is there a danger that future Administrations will use that figure instead of seeing it as the ultimate limit, on the basis that it must be okay because it is set in statute? We have seen that happen in other sectors. Are we in danger of giving future Administrations an easy opt-out by setting the limit in statute, rather than basing it on independent advice and allowing flexibility?
I suppose that one way round that would be to make the cap more stringent as time goes on—as will happen with the annual targets. The cap could be made more stringent each year.
Shirley-Anne Somerville made a good point. I have no doubt that once a figure is put in statute it will be used. There might be an argument for leaving things slightly more ambiguous, while ensuring that there will be a credibility gap for the Government if it has to buy credits. That might be a more powerful tool. If the penalty for missing a target is simply a loss of credibility for the Government, an approach whereby a cap on credits is not set but the Government has to go to the Parliament and say, humbly, "We'll have to buy credits to meet our target," might be better. Shirley-Anne Somerville was quite right to suggest that enshrining a figure in statute would force the issue.
It is intended to include international aviation and shipping in the Scottish targets. Why are those sectors often singled out as important?
It is difficult to attribute emissions from those sectors to individual countries. Such emissions have historically accounted for one of the least tractable aspects of negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. That is simply to do with the fact that ships sail all round the world and can be owned in one country and registered in another. There are issues to do with bunker fuels in shipping. Aviation raises similar issues, although they are perhaps slightly less intractable. That is the background to the position that we are in, but it does not excuse the position.
Will you talk about the sectors' contribution to emissions?
Globally, the sectors are relatively small, but, as is often pointed out in the media, they are rapidly growing, so it is right to account for them. Whether it is easy to do so is a different matter.
The bill does not set targets for emissions from those sectors, but provides that
It is worth flagging up that disaggregated emissions inventories for aviation and shipping came out only last autumn. Disaggregating to constituent countries in the UK is at an early stage.
Should we do nothing until we have solved the problem or should we accept an imperfect system?
An imperfect system is far better than no system at all. We should bear it in mind that international aviation will come into the EU emissions trading scheme from 2013. As Pete Smith said, shipping is a real challenge, which we need to find ways of meeting.
That should probably be done at international level—at UNFCCC level. We cannot take action unilaterally.
Will the witnesses elaborate on the impact of Scotland's being the only place so far to set targets that include emissions from international aviation and shipping?
The challenge is about what policy levers allow the Scottish Government to reduce emissions from those sectors. International aviation will be tied into the traded sector, so Scotland will be allocated a certain proportion of the nominal emissions from the UK that are associated with that. Shipping is a real challenge. If that is the sector that is pushing Scotland over a target, what is the Government supposed to do to reduce emissions from that sector? The answer is that there is very little that it can do at present, but it can work with others. It can set in train a series of actions and events to support local shipping around Scotland. There are measures that can be taken in relation to Scottish waters, but one must be aware of the wider context, especially within Europe.
Will the witnesses say a little more about the contribution that aviation emissions make to climate change? Beyond the volume of greenhouse gases that are emitted from aviation, a number of different multipliers are used to determine the impact of aviation on the climate and on climate change. Is it safe to say that we know what the correct figure is, or is that still a developing area of the science? Is the IPCC or the UK Committee on Climate Change in the correct position in that regard?
It is not really my area of expertise, but I understand that aviation has tended to include some of the knock-on effects, which has not been the case with other areas of transport. If the committee would like, I could make a written submission on that.
That would be very helpful. Thank you.
I apologise for having to leave the meeting for a period.
I think that the position that is set out in the bill is extremely sensible. There is a great deal of expertise on the UK committee, which has just published a good report, but it is useful for Scotland to at least have the option to create a body that is separate from the UK committee if, for any reason, it is thought not to be providing all the information or evidence that is necessary to implement the bill.
My view is that it is extremely useful to have a critical mass of expertise. If we can ensure that the Committee on Climate Change is able to provide everything that we need in Scotland, it will be the appropriate advisory body. It is early days—the committee has been around for only a year or so—but, if things are done in that way, the more scientific expertise one has, the better.
So rather than establish a separate Scottish body, you suggest that we should go for the biggest mass of expertise but consider how we access it, to ensure that the advice is particularly appropriate for Scottish conditions.
Yes. For example, the land use sector might not consider muirburn, but we need to ensure that it is considered when land use, land use change and forestry projections or recommendations are passed to the Scottish Government.
As Pete Smith said, the climate change community is quite small, and we must be careful that we do not dilute the expertise. Apart from that, I do not have a view on the question.
It is important to realise that Scotland cannot achieve its targets alone. To achieve them, the United Kingdom, European Union and local authorities all need to work together. It is therefore extremely important to have advice at a UK level, but that could be added to with specific Scottish advice if the Committee on Climate Change does not provide such advice.
The Scottish Government can ask the UK Committee on Climate Change for advice but, so far, it has not done so formally. Should it ask for advice as we move into detailed consideration of the bill?
In the first report of the shadow committee on climate change, the work on Scotland was fairly cursory, but it tried to cover an awful lot of ground. I think that the Committee on Climate Change will pick up a number of issues from that. The Scottish Government ought to say that, now that the overview report has been delivered, it needs much more detail on specific issues that are associated with the Climate Change (Scotland) Bill and/or other specific Scottish issues. Now is the time to argue for that.
Is that a shared view?
Yes. The national inventory is compiled at the UK level, but it is split up into the separate countries. It would be useful to receive advice in a similar way, so that it is specific to the individual devolved Administrations.
Is the UK Committee on Climate Change sufficiently independent, robust and flexible to maintain the consistency of its advice and strong recommendations in the context of the present policy diversity on energy generation, for example, and fluctuating political balances in future?
I have no reason to suspect otherwise.
It is worth pointing out that the energy market—or at least the electricity market—is a UK market, so even though projections may be devolved or disaggregated to Scotland, they are tied to the wider UK situation. There is no reason to assume that the Committee on Climate Change is not doing its job of considering the Scottish issues, but that needs to be scrutinised, and if the advice is inappropriate, you will need to push harder.
I can give you an example. The Scottish Government is not of the view that nuclear power has a role to play in future energy generation, whereas the UK Government sees it and renewables as central to its strategy. How can the Committee on Climate Change deal with that different policy context in two separate jurisdictions when it makes recommendations?
I guess that it will be your job to ensure that the brief for the Committee on Climate Change is clear and to tell it how you need the information. You will need to say that we have a separate policy environment in Scotland and that you want not a devolved, area-based estimate that is derived from the UK estimate but one that takes account of the situation here. If Scotland buys into the UK Committee on Climate Change, you can ask for that.
I guess that the same issue applies to adaptation, in that the changes and issues in Scotland will in some respects be different from those in the rest of the United Kingdom. My understanding is that, for example, the next UK climate impacts programme will deal with the whole of the UK. It is expensive to produce that information, and it is probably more effective to do so corporately than for each bit to try to produce its own. Climate change is very much a global problem.
The difficulty that I have is that the UK Committee on Climate Change is made up of people with scientific expertise. Although they are sensitive to the policy climate, if they believe that one approach to energy generation is the best approach, arguably they should argue for it and say, "But if, in policy terms, you want to do something different, here are the consequences." It would seem to be sensible not to place the scientists in the difficult position of following the politicians. I am trying to tease out what you think the role of the UK Committee on Climate Change is. Is its role to offer the best evidence—irrespective of policy considerations—and challenge the politicians to come up with their policies on that basis, or is it to devise advice that fits in with policy considerations with which it might not agree?
I am wary about saying this when the head of the UK Committee on Climate Change is sitting behind me, but my recollection is that its recently published report said that nuclear is a low-carbon and potentially cost-effective technology, but that Government will have to take on board wider considerations. Such advice will be taken on board by the UK Government and the Scottish Government, and different decisions might be made. The Committee on Climate Change gives scientific advice and lets people take on board the wider consequences of decisions.
I will follow up briefly on one aspect. Dr Kerr said that the community of climate expertise is small. Given that commitments are being put into legislation at a Scottish level, that commitments are already in legislation at a UK level, and that, if the international process is successful, a host of other Governments will take on responsibilities, seek to acquire such expertise and put in place arrangements so that they can meet their commitments, are we doing enough, either in Scotland or in the UK, to increase that expertise and grow the knowledge base?
I guess that I have a slight conflict of interest, in that the Scottish alliance for geoscience, environment and society, of which I am assistant director, is a big initiative by the Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council and 10 different Scottish universities to pool resources and expertise in environmental science to bring some of the best people into Scotland—people such as Professor Simon Tett, a climate scientist whom John Mitchell knows very well. Having been at the Hadley centre at the Met Office, he is now up at the University of Edinburgh.
The ability to attract talent to Scotland is positive, but if the same desire to attract talent increases in other countries, is there a danger that we will face limited supply?
That is possible. Although the climate change science community in the UK is small, it is world leading, so we are not currently experiencing that problem. We have a small but very healthy community. Many of the research councils' new research programmes, including the living with environmental change programme, which is a cross-Government, cross-research-council initiative, are moving funding in the direction of climate change science. The fact that climate change is recognised not only within society but within the research community as a large and challenging issue will attract more funding into the area. Unlike many areas of the economy, we are in relatively good shape.
Because of the very strong leadership that has been shown, people who are into renewable energy engineering and technologies, for example, find Scotland a very attractive place to come to. Also, a lot of work is being carried out on, for example, soils, soil emissions and terrestrial carbon cycles. Strong demand will follow Scotland's genuine leadership.
Over the past 15 years, the number of people in the field has grown enormously. For example, there has been a lot more work in universities, and the good side of that is that it brings diversity. Indeed, the Met Office is just about to sign an agreement with the Natural Environment Research Council on a joint climate research programme. There is a tension between having diversity, which allows new ideas to come forth, and bringing together people in areas where critical mass is required. One of the hopes behind the programme is that the work that is carried out in academia and at the Met Office's Hadley centre will be well distributed to ensure that we cover the gaps and do not tramp on each other's toes or do things twice.
That is helpful. We touched on reporting duties a little earlier, but I believe that there are a couple of follow-up questions.
We have already heard about the time lag between emissions taking place and reporting on them. How strong are the statistics with regard to margins of error? How are the figures revised over time? Is that an additional problem and, if so, has any work been carried out on it?
Uncertainties have to be quantified as far as possible, and the UK follows the IPCC's good practice guidance on quantifying uncertainties in national greenhouse gas inventories. Occasionally, however, there might be a methodological breakthrough or we might get a better data set that allows us to go back and make better assessments of our emissions. That is particularly the case in the very messy biological system of land use, land use change and forestry. When that happens, we have to revise the estimates all the way back to the baseline. Of course, that can be tricky for policy makers. The proportion of emissions from the land use sector can fluctuate with every new method of calculation that emerges. Once we are sure that it is the right way to go, we back-calculate the figures, which can change the relative importance of different sectors in the total budget.
Professor Smith makes a good point about uncertainties. For example, the baseline between the 2005 and 2006 inventories moved by 4 million tonnes, which is a non-trivial movement—indeed, all the numbers in the 2006 inventory were changed, because they were revised backwards. Such moves cause presentational problems.
Do you think that the Scottish Parliament has enough expertise to assess whether the Scottish Government is delivering on its emissions reduction targets?
You can laugh if you want.
It should not be difficult for the Parliament to assess progress. The targets are transparent and there are inventories to back them up, so we will know what the emissions are and where the targets have been met. It will be challenging to allocate the emissions to different sectors and work out why things have gone wrong—that will be challenging for the science too—but you should receive advice on that from the Committee on Climate Change.
Do you have any thoughts on what climate change duties should be imposed on public bodies? The Scottish Government is accepting some duties on ministers, which are explicit in the bill, but it is also taking the power to impose duties on other public bodies in the future. Is that a useful mechanism? What might those duties be? Would there be value in holding other office-holders in the public sector to account for their performance?
If you are talking specifically about duties to reduce emissions, the UK carbon reduction commitment will impose reductions on all public bodies that use more than a certain amount of energy, so that will be captured anyway. I presume that you are asking about other duties. Is that correct, or are you thinking about emissions reductions?
The bill gives a broad power to impose climate change duties, but it does not specify what those duties would be, and so far the Government has not said whether it intends to use the power. Perhaps the power would be used later if it was felt that the voluntary approach was not up to the mark.
I return to the point that was made earlier about providing the required infrastructure and programmes for radical changes in the next few years. The Government may well need to require certain public bodies to do more than they would otherwise do to set the changes in train. In that sense, the provision seems a sensible measure, but it will depend on how it is delivered and used.
I support the Government's ability to use that power in the future. As Andy Kerr said, the carbon reduction commitment partly addresses the matter, but we should also consider the wider community leadership role that a lot of public bodies have through community planning and so on. There is potential for joined-up local action, which could have the benefits of engaging with local people and encouraging behaviour change.
That concludes our questions. Do you want to bring to the committee's attention any points or issues that we did not discuss?
There are a couple of minor matters. First, I mentioned the importance of taking into account adaptation—both to climate variability and to climate change—as well as mitigation. We have talked a lot about mitigation, which is right, but I will give a couple of examples of adaptation. Hydro power and, in particular, wind power are subject to variations in weather. Often when there is a persistent high-pressure system over the country, which in winter brings cold weather and high energy demand, there tends to be little wind. We must plan a certain resilience into renewables, although that is not an argument against using them. For example, some hydro power facilities have small catchments, which tend to dry out first in summer.
I am aware that secondary committees are also examining some of the issues that you have raised. Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions. I remind you that we have set a deadline of 27 February for written evidence, if you wish to raise any other issues in writing. I suspend the meeting briefly to allow for the changeover of witnesses.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—
I welcome our second panel of witnesses: David Kennedy, chief executive of the UK Committee on Climate Change; and Katherine White, economic adviser to the committee. Thank you for joining us. Would you like to make some brief introductory comments before we move to questions?
No, we are happy to crack on with questions.
That is grand. I will start with an easy opener. Will you share with us your initial reflections on the Climate Change (Scotland) Bill?
Is that an easy opener? As you know, to date we have been very focused on the UK Climate Change Bill. My first reaction to the Scottish bill is that it sets an ambitious long-term target. We have thought a little about the interim target and have some questions about how ambitious that is. We are not saying that it is not ambitious enough, but there is more thinking to be done about it and its implications for what must be done now. I reiterate a point that was made by the previous panel—the next five, 10 and 15 years are key. We must take our lead from what we have to do in the longer term—that has implications for what we do now—but we must act now. We must take opportunities and put in place the necessary policies. If we do not, we will miss the boat on reducing the risk of dangerous climate change.
I have been beating on about the idea of short-term action and the fact that if we do not set targets that change the shape of the curve, we will end up not being able to achieve the targets that are set after 2020—which might be irrelevant in the end. Does the bill as drafted provide any—or adequate—reassurances about action in the short term, for example on our contribution to the peaking of climate change internationally?
The framework is there. You need legally binding targets in the near to medium term, which you have in the bill. You have not said what those targets are, which is probably appropriate, because you have to do more analysis of what needs to be done and what can be done over the next few years.
You said that the target for 2050 is ambitious and that it is in line with ambitious targets elsewhere. We do not have a target for 2020. The trajectory to 2020 perhaps does not do all that the environmental organisations are suggesting should be done. Do we need to have a target for 2020? If that target is not a percentage reduction of 3 per cent, what should it be?
Let me talk you through the thought process that we used to set our carbon budgets. First, we asked what we need to do in 2050. We have said that we need at least an 80 per cent emissions reduction in 2050, relative to 1990. We then asked, what are the implications of that for 2020 and how do we get to 2020? You could take the same steps and swap 2030 for 2020 within your legislative framework. In 2050, you want to achieve an 80 per cent or more reduction in emissions. You would ask how you get to 2030 and see whether that is consistent with your being on the path to 2050. You would then ask what the implications are over the next 10 years for meeting your 2030 target rather than your 2020 target. There is a question about whether your 2030 target is appropriate; I do not know the answer to that, because we have not looked at it in detail.
What type of advice can your organisation make available to the Scottish Government to assist it in taking forward this policy agenda?
Let us take stock of where we have got to. First, we asked what the appropriate target is based on the science and judgments around that science at UK level. You can move from the UK level to the Scotland level in relation to what is appropriate both in 2050 and on the path to 2050 in terms of ambition and contributions to global emissions reduction. We have put out a comprehensive picture of what is achievable in our view across the UK economy as a whole, in the sectors of power and transport, in our buildings, industry and in the non-CO2-emitting sectors.
You heard my question to the previous panel about the different policy context within which you might operate here in Scotland. Is the Committee on Climate Change's role to provide scientific advice irrespective of the policy context, or should that advice to some extent be influenced by, and adapted to, the goals that are set by the politicians? How will you deal with that dilemma in taking things forward?
I think that we will take things forward in a pragmatic way. First, we are independent, so we will not always take the policy context as a given. Before we published our report, the UK Government's policy position was to proceed with investment in conventional coal-fired generation. Rather than take that as a given, we have said that it might be appropriate to take a different approach. Similarly, on the expansion of Heathrow airport, we have been asked to review UK aviation emissions but we will revisit the Government's policy positions on aviation infrastructure rather than take those as a given.
The next question perhaps builds on that. Can you outline how the Scottish Government currently fits into your developing work plan? How do you expect that contribution or involvement to develop in the future?
It is fair to say that our work programme for Scotland and the other national authorities is in flux and is up for discussion. In the discussion with the previous witnesses, it was mentioned that no formal request has been made to the Committee on Climate Change. I think that we need a formal request asking us to carry out work to which we can then respond. Certainly, our intention is to carry on working in this area. We are committed to understanding better what opportunities exist at the level of each of the national authorities. The level of detail to which we take that work is open for discussion.
I am not entirely clear on how the Scottish Government fed into your work plan. Your answer drifted into the issue of resources. Are you saying that you have taken a high-level look at the situation, but that you have not undertaken the detailed work that would have required greater input from the Scottish Government? As things move forward, will it make that greater input into your work?
We should not understate the level of interaction that we have had thus far. When Adair Turner became the committee chairman, the first thing he did was to come up to Scotland and go to Northern Ireland and Cardiff. He did that as a statement of intent, to send out the message that the committee took seriously its duties under the Climate Change Act 2008 to contribute to an understanding of what is possible at the national level.
Over the past six to eight months, I have worked directly with each of the devolved Administrations in preparing the committee's first report. We held regular videoconference meetings during which we discussed how things were going. The Scottish analysts in particular were supportive of the process. They supplied the information that we required for our analysis. We are at the stage of thinking about what next year's work programme will look like. We are doing work on behalf of the three devolved Administrations to contribute towards the UK progress report and UK budget. We are also in the process of developing the provision of specific advice to each Administration.
With regard to the bill, the Scottish Government's position is that it will rely on the UK Committee on Climate Change for advice in the first instance, but it reserves the option to establish a separate Scottish committee in due course. What level of resource and which governance and accountability arrangements need to be put in place if the UK Committee on Climate Change is to continue to act as the appropriate resource for advice to the Scottish Government?
Under the Climate Change Act 2008, appropriate provision was made for governance, the framework for which involves a set of duties that include the duty to respond to requests from Scotland, whatever the issue. The sponsors group is key to shaping our work programme and channelling requests to us. We are holding a sponsors group meeting tomorrow, at which we might discuss the detail of what we can contribute to the emerging agenda in Scotland.
Scotland has a specific landscape and environment—not just in geographical terms, but in policy terms. Can the way in which your committee is set up take account of our different circumstances?
The short answer is yes. That will be the next stage of the work.
Earlier, in discussing whether the UK committee could challenge Government policy, you described the committee as independent. How is that independence guaranteed?
It is up to us to ensure that we continue to be independent. From what we have already reported on, I think that you can see that we have not been swayed by Government—for example, on the question of investment in coal-fired generation. On the issue of credits, we have suggested that the Government be more restrictive than I think it would like to be. I could give a range of examples.
You will be well aware that, in Scotland, we do not always have Governments with a majority or a democratic mandate in the Parliament. Could it be argued that the resources that are made available for an advisory body in Scotland, or for appointments to that advisory body, might be better held by the Parliament than by the Government?
I have asked myself that question in the context of the UK Government and our funding. The people who decide on my budget are the people whom we are advising, and we might not be advising them in the way that they would want. One solution to that would for Parliament to agree the funding and the appointments each year. At the moment, we could have recourse to a select committee if we felt that issues arose to do with funding and appointments, but such issues have not arisen so far. However, there could be a risk.
It is early days.
Yes.
The convener's question may have been relevant at UK level, because there might be a minority Government in London after the next election.
In respect of non-CO2 emissions, particularly in land use in agriculture, there is uncertainty about what the emissions actually are. There are rules of thumb, and conventions are used for translating numbers of livestock into emissions, for example, but that may not reflect what happens in practice on individual farms. Ideally, that should be addressed over time, and it is being addressed. We are moving towards using a smart inventory, which DEFRA is developing at the moment. We will have better information.
I recognise that the uncertainties that are associated with reporting land use change emissions in Scotland are greater than those for the UK, but the figures are the best that we have for now. There are two ways in which they will be improved over time. The centre for ecology and hydrology, which produces the projections and inventory for land use, land use change and forestry, is constantly improving its approach—that is part of its contract. Also, I am involved in the steering committee for the inventory contract that DECC leads on. The national atmospheric emissions inventory team is reviewing every area of the disaggregated emissions inventory and considering how it could be improved. No doubt, it will identify areas in land use change and other sectors where, as Pete Smith discussed, we could collect more bottom-up, Scottish or relevant devolved Administration data to support a more accurate inventory. We are directly engaged in that, but we recognise that it will take time and more resources if we are to collect annual surveys of different types of data.
A flexible strategy might be needed. If it becomes clear that emissions reductions in land use change, forestry or agriculture are not being delivered, they may need to be picked up somewhere else or the level of ambition may need to be changed. That will be a choice in the future. However, the Scottish Parliament's legislative framework will allow such flexibility.
That is interesting work in progress that is happening before our eyes. Are you in a position to tell the committee about advice that may have been requested by either the UK Government or other devolved administrations either since the Committee on Climate Change was statutorily established or while it operated in shadow form?
Can we tell you about work that the Government has requested from us?
Yes.
The Committee on Climate Change existed in shadow form for a year and was established statutorily on 1 December 2008, which is when we reported back on the first set of questions we had been asked. Originally, it was about the carbon budget and the five-year emissions ceilings for the UK. The questions then became, "Should those be carbon or greenhouse gas budgets?", "Should aviation and shipping be included in our long-term target?" and "What should the long-term target be?" We reported on all those on 1 December 2008.
Has either of the other devolved Administrations asked you for advice?
We have worked closely with them, but have not had specific requests. They know that we have a work programme in this area and that we are scoping another—which is where the opportunity to advise you here in Scotland comes from—but they have made no specific requests. I am not sure that the Northern Ireland Assembly will do so, but the National Assembly for Wales might.
It is early days. Given that the UK Committee on Climate Change will have a role in reporting on progress towards the Scottish emissions targets, do you monitor the Scottish Government's policy decisions and publication of key documents, such as the national planning framework and the strategic transport projects review? If so, how do you do it?
Rob Gibson has touched on a sensitive issue for us. When the UK Climate Change Bill was going through the Westminster Parliament, there were many questions about what we would say about policy as opposed to what we would say on appropriate targets and the technical means of meeting them. There is a difference between saying what we can do about our buildings and saying something about the policies that will help to achieve that.
It appears from what you say that you expect the UK Committee on Climate Change to change how it gives advice. Currently, you can give advice, but people can carry out their own policies, whatever you say. However, you expect increasingly to target policies in such a way that it will be more difficult in the future for Governments to dodge them because they will be more focused through having better information.
We will have our views on what the appropriate policies are, and we intend that they will be based on robust analysis and evidence. If Governments—at UK level or at the level of the national authorities—disagree with us, they will have to say why. That will certainly be the case at UK level. Governments set the rules and are free to disagree with us, but a dialogue would have to happen before they could disregard what we said.
You said previously that you can advise not only the Governments but the Parliaments and the Assemblies. Does that apply to requests for advice? For example, would a request for advice from the Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee be dealt with in the same way as a request from the Scottish ministers?
Let us be clear: the UK Parliament cannot ask us to do things. We will report to it annually on progress on meeting carbon budgets. I am not sure whether, under the relevant legislation, this committee could make a request to us—I suspect that it could not. I think that such requests must come to the sponsors group from the Scottish Government.
That is clear—thank you.
You believe that the Scottish Government's 2030 and 2050 emissions reduction targets can be met, but will the requirement to implement 3 per cent year-on-year cuts only from 2020 deliver those targets?
The best way to answer that question is to approach it from the UK level. We have said that under our intended budgets—which would apply following a global deal and which would make the appropriate and necessary contribution to global emissions reduction—we envisage a 42 per cent emissions reduction by 2020, on the way to an 80 per cent emissions reduction by 2050. Along that path, the annual average percentage emissions reductions are between 2.5 to 3 per cent to 2020 and are above 3 per cent beyond 2020. If we read across from that, the 3 per cent reductions from 2020 that Shirley-Anne Somerville mentioned are probably okay as a minimum. Scotland might well want to do more than that—it will depend on how far it has got by 2020. Up to 2020, Scotland will be looking for reductions of at least 2 per cent, moving towards 3 per cent, to be consistent with the UK as a whole.
The Climate Change (Scotland) Bill's approach differs from that in the UK act. Do you have a view on setting batches of annual targets rather than carbon budgets? Is one option better than the other or does the choice of approach make no difference?
We took carbon budgets as a given in the UK context. Our duty was to advise on carbon budgets, not on annual targets. If we were asked to advise on annual targets, we could do so using our analysis and our evidence base, because we have assessed the emissions reduction opportunity in each year to 2020 and we have assessed the appropriate and required international contribution by the UK in each year to 2020.
Another difference is that the Scottish bill does not include the concept of banking and borrowing. Do you have views on the different approach that we are taking?
Banking and borrowing—particularly borrowing—was felt to be necessary in the UK to allow for events that can happen year on year. If a cold winter occurred at the end of a budget period, borrowing against the next budget might be possible. Banking and borrowing provides flexibility for such events. What can be borrowed is tightly drawn; that is certainly not a get-out-of-jail-free card that allows borrowing to delay the taking of action, which would store risks for the future.
You have said that Scotland has opportunities to reduce emissions by 7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2020. Have you calculated what year-on-year percentage reduction would be required for Scotland to hit your figure?
No. That figure is the sum in 2020 of the sector-specific abatement opportunities that we identified for Scotland—it means 7 million tonnes of abatement in 2020 versus the projected emissions without those measures. We have not yet examined how that would evolve over time, nor have we examined the annual savings in Scotland, which would enable us to say what percentage reduction would need to be achieved.
We can do the calculation for you—not today but with a short turnaround. It would not be difficult to compare reduced emissions levels with current levels and to come up with an annual percentage reduction.
Am I right in saying that the figure for abatement potential for each nation was not arrived at through a bottom-up analysis of policies and might be subject to change?
Yes. That is the next stage of the work. The preliminary assessment does not reflect specific circumstances in Scotland. That is something that we need to bottom out. We have said clearly in our report that the figure would not be an appropriate basis for target setting, because further work is needed to tailor it to the specific situation in Scotland. We envisage that work being done during the next year, which will lead up to the inclusion of your targets in legislation in about a year and a half.
It is interesting that you think that there is the potential to reduce CO2 emissions in Scotland by 7 million tonnes by 2020. Have you done the calculations for any of the other five key gases?
Alex Johnstone quoted the CO2 equivalent figure, which includes savings associated with methane, nitrous oxide and fluorinated gases.
If that is the case, in which key area can the best savings be made in Scotland?
The abatement potential that we identified, which I stress is an initial assessment—as David Kennedy said—does not cover all areas of the Scottish economy. We focused on emissions savings through energy efficiency in buildings and industry as well as on savings in the road transport, agriculture and waste sectors. We did not cover the power sector, for example.
Let us not underplay the assessment too much. We keep saying that it is an initial assessment: although the numbers might change a little as we take account of specific circumstances, the message will not change. The message is that there are opportunities in all sectors in Scotland, none of which should be neglected. Scotland's strategy should cover residential and non-residential buildings, transport, agriculture, waste and the power sector.
In statistical terms, would you say that potential savings are about 7 million tonnes?
Yes. I cannot give the range, but we expect the figure to be in that ball park.
Is the information that is available on international aviation and shipping robust enough to be included in Scottish targets at this stage?
I would differentiate between aviation and shipping. We have considered the issues in great depth and we have been troubled over whether aviation and shipping should be included in the UK carbon budgets. We recommended that they should be in the long-term target but not in the budget, because of complexities to do with measuring and allocating emissions. There are methodologies that we are comfortable with for allocating aviation emissions to the UK from international flights. Bunker fuels data comprise one of those. We could have gone either way on recommending whether or not aviation should be included in the carbon budget.
We heard earlier that the UK act is likely to apply a limit on international credits, based on your advice. The Climate Change (Scotland) Bill does not contain a similar power for the Scottish Government. What is your view on that difference?
I will quickly take you through why we said what we did about credits. We started off at 2050. We do not envisage that there will be a lot of use of credits in 2050 because all the countries of the world will have ambitious targets that they will have to meet under a global agreement. Nobody will be selling. The implication is that we must have an 80 per cent reduction domestically—or largely domestically—by 2050. As we move forward in time, we must start preparing for that. We cannot buy credits right up until 2050 and suddenly have an 80 per cent cut domestically; we must do things domestically on the way to 2050 to meet the 80 per cent target through domestic action. We were aware of concerns around the certainty of credits, which are calculated against the baseline—rather than a cap—but that was not why we said that we should limit the use of credits; rather, it was because we need to be on track in taking action domestically for 2050.
You mentioned that you were doing some further work on radiative forcing. Are you able to say when that is likely to be completed?
We have to report back on aviation emissions in the UK as a whole in December this year. It is not specified when in December, but we are working towards the end of November for a 1 December delivery. We will examine a range of matters, including the role of carbon prices in aviation, possible efficiency improvements, the role of infrastructure investment, radiative forcing and what forcing factor is appropriate. I imagine that we will say that 1 is not is an appropriate forcing factor to use, but it is difficult for the UK to change to a different forcing factor. Unless other countries also change, there is not much point in doing it. However, let us not pre-empt what we will find.
A couple of committee members asked the previous panel of witnesses about whether the current economic situation makes a reduction in short-term emissions over the next year or two likely. There will obviously be a time lag before we find out whether it has happened, but is it a reasonable expectation? If it is, should that make it possible for us to set a more ambitious trajectory in the ranges for annual targets that are specified in the bill?
I cannot give you a definitive answer to that, but it will be part of our work programme at UK level over the next few months. We want our report to Parliament to include a chapter about the macro context and its implications for meeting carbon budgets.
Will you outline the reporting requirements that result for you from the Climate Change Act 2008?
The primary requirement is that we must report annually to Parliament on progress in meeting carbon budgets. The way that we interpret that requirement is that we will make a detailed assessment. We will not simply say what the trajectory for emissions is under the budgets, what emissions are doing and what the difference is and leave it at that. In our report to Parliament this year, we will publish a set of leading indicators against which we will judge future progress. We will have indicators for the number of buildings that should have been insulated, the number of hybrid cars that we should have in the mix at a certain point in time, and the number of gigawatts of renewable electricity capacity that we should have on the system, as well as targets for emissions in particular years. We will use that framework to report annually to Parliament. The first annual report after September this year will be in July 2010 and we have to report each year after that.
Will the Scottish Parliament have sufficient expertise to assess whether the Scottish Government is achieving emissions reduction targets? How might we improve that?
I do not know enough about what expertise the Scottish Parliament has to be able to have a view on that. It will depend on whether the Parliament is presented with a robust analysis upon which it can make a judgment. One does not need to be a specialist scientist to read a decent progress report, so I guess that it will come down to the quality of the report that is presented to the Parliament.
My final question concerns the part of the bill that creates the power for the Scottish ministers to introduce secondary legislation to impose climate change duties on other public bodies. Do you have any thoughts on what the role of those duties might be and what kind of duties would be applied? Would there be value in acting on that power early rather than tucking it away and thinking about using it in a few years?
The main lever for reducing emissions in the public sector is the carbon reduction commitment, which provides a significant opportunity across public sector bodies. If the cap in that is set correctly, it will provide incentives to get emissions down and manage energy efficiently. It is not immediately obvious to me that there is a need to go beyond that, but there may be scope for the Government and public bodies to do something on green procurement. Certainly, many of our stakeholders perceive that the Government must be seen to act as it tells everybody else to act. Green procurement is a highly effective lever in that, so there may be an opportunity to do something on that over and above the carbon reduction commitment.
That would mean requiring public bodies to do what they have been permitted to do so far: to take sustainable development into account in procurement.
Yes, it would mean strengthening the incentives and requirements on green procurement, although I am not in a position to say exactly what that would achieve. As I have said, there is a lot in our work programme this year. The Committee on Climate Change has existed for only a year and there was a limit to what we could do in the past year. However, green procurement will be important for us in the future and we want to come to a view on whether it will be a big issue. I suspect that, regardless of whether it results in big emissions reductions, the signal that it gives will be important as part of leadership from Government on the climate change strategy.
The committee has no further questions. Do you want to bring to our attention any other issues that have not been covered?
We have covered the range of issues that came up in the report and signalled our intention and willingness to work with you in the future. We need to take that debate forward, but we can do so offline; we do not need to do it today.
We look forward to that. I thank you both for the time that you gave to answer questions. That concludes the meeting.
Meeting closed at 16:37.