Chamber and committees

I come back to what I said to Sanne Dijkstra-Downie. In the climate change plan, we have to put in place projections, plans and route maps in relation to the emissions reductions that, at that point in time, we hope to achieve and are planning for. We have to be agile, and the net zero assessments will augment and allow us to test that work, because they will provide information associated with future policies—obviously, the programme for government each year will include new policies.

The net zero assessments will be a really useful tool. I do not think that they will duplicate work. Instead, they will provide granular refinement, if I can put it that way.

That is an interesting question: how far back do we go?

I mentioned the question that I get asked about the assessment being burdensome, and I answer, “Actually, it is quite manageable because it is about the policies that we are bringing forward, so it allows us to make decisions.” We are looking at other mechanisms: there is other reporting associated with policies to see if they have borne out what we hoped they would. We do that constantly in Government.

I am just thinking on the hoof here. Let us say that I am looking at whether a policy is delivering on the climate action part that is in my portfolio, and I am getting reports back on the outcomes that it is meeting but I am not satisfied. Perhaps I would ask the team to look at it from a net zero assessment perspective—so I could do that in an ad hoc way. If we have the tools to do that, it could be helpful. However, looking at all the policies retrospectively, however far back, would be burdensome, and I would question whether that is the best use of resource.

I am looking at where it will be screened in my constituency. October recess might give me time to go to it, although I am going to the biodiversity conference of the parties and a meeting of Under2 Coalition, so I will need to find out whether it is possible.

If I may be honest with you—I think that I said this to you at the time, David—going into the screening I was worried that it was going to be one of those films that we always see about how terrifying the situation is, but I was blown away by the different approach that it took. It was about solutions, and I was particularly impressed by the people who were chosen to speak to show their different perspectives.

The perspective of the ex-military person—forgive me, but I have forgotten his name—on geopolitics and the world conflict that could come about as a result of not addressing climate change was so powerful. I came away very impressed by the approach and the conversational nature of the film, and I wanted to speak to people about it afterwards, so I hope that I get the chance to see the full thing. The 35-minute version that we saw was powerful in itself. I will wait to be further impressed.

I would need to unpack that a little and think about it. If I may add another one, I would say that we should also be able to estimate the cost benefit. I will just throw that in there.

I will bring in Phil Raines in a second, because he has been doing a great deal of work on the mechanisms that are associated with the taxonomy. It would be best to go to Phil, because I might not work on it at the same day-to-day level—in fact, there is no “might” about it; I do not.

I am glad that you have asked that question, because I can give a couple of examples. The vehicle scrappage scheme and the public sector decarbonisation action plan were considered through the lens of the net zero assessment.

The public sector decarbonisation action plan went through a full net zero assessment, which considered the scale of emissions reductions that could be achieved through co-ordinated action. The assessment threw up quite a lot of information that will be helpful in effectively deploying that plan. The net zero assessment of the vehicle scrappage scheme was helpful in showing the policy’s significant positive contribution to our carbon budget in the next five years and to our subsequent carbon budgets.

The net zero assessments augment our work. We have set out our programme for government, and the climate change plan includes all the high-level plans over the next 15 years. The net zero assessments will take a granular look at some policies in that plan and at other policies that are being developed. The assessments will allow us to say, “Hang on a second—this might give us a bit more space to decarbonise in a way that was underestimated in the climate change plan.”

10:15

I like to think of the climate change plan as a living document—I know that it lives in Phil Raines’s head as a living organism. We must update the plan every five years, but it does not just sit on a shelf for five years before we need to update it. We constantly assess the policies in the plan that we think will get us to the first carbon budget or to net zero.

It would be lovely to think that we have underestimated the impact of some policies and that they will perform a lot better. For example, we did not expect that we would exceed our peatland restoration target last year. Other policies might not come off in the way that we thought, because they might have been affected by other factors. For example, the UK Government’s decision on the vehicle emissions trading schemes might have an impact on our policies on electric vehicles. We constantly consider not just our policies but policies elsewhere that affect our delivery.

I hope that the net zero assessments will be really helpful in allowing us to take an agile approach to delivering the climate change plan.

Yes. The process of putting the climate change plan together means that, in effect, the policies in the plan have been through that process, because, as part of Cabinet discussions, we need to have a big discussion about what we are putting forward and what that would mean for the public purse.

It is important to say that the public purse will not be able to meet the cost of everything, and I do not think that we would expect it to. In my opening remarks, I mentioned that economic opportunity will arise from the direction of travel associated with getting to net zero. Policy certainty around net zero brings a lot of opportunities for investment, whether it be inward investment into Scotland or business growth within Scotland.

I am constantly wary of the fact that when we talk about the costs associated with anything in the climate change plan—this has happened—we then hear narratives from political actors who do not believe in climate change or in taking action associated with tackling climate change. They put out misinformation about what it will cost the Scottish people to deliver on the policies, and they do that in order to shake the foundations of what we are trying to do and to get people very worried about what it is going to cost us as taxpayers.

In fact, the Government will be allocating spend for climate change policies as we go, but it can and does crowd in additional money from the private sector and additional action from outwith Government funding. It will also consider the longer-term cost benefit of policies. Preventative spend could result in better economic outcomes and reduced child poverty—for example, we could talk about any policy associated with bringing down the cost of heat in homes; improved air quality affects long-term illness associated with respiratory complaints; and nicer places to live can mean improved mental health. Therefore, we take a holistic approach.

09:30

You mentioned the Scottish national adaptation plan, which also provides opportunities for preventative spend. In my opening statement, I outlined some of what that means in numbers—in pounds and pence. With regard to spend on adaptation, I also alluded to the fact that we cannot quantify things that we are preventing, such as trauma. Ask anybody who has ever been taken out of their home in the middle of the night because their house has flooded, and they will say that it is not just about the material damage but the psychological damage. Phil Raines and I were talking about that aspect, and we have commissioned further research on the cost benefits of climate spend.

The net zero assessments and the taxonomy are great tools, as, I hope, is the climate narrative. I hope that they are all good tools for budget discussions and for the committee’s budget scrutiny, but they are just part of the picture, because we can do more. The short answer—which I realise that I am not giving—is yes, we are considering both of those things.

I completely agree. Behind the scenes, very complex work is being done, and my officials are steeped in that work. It is our job—my job, our job and the job of anyone who cares about all this—to communicate the benefits of what we are doing in a way that chimes with what people care about.

I am constantly thinking about my own rhetoric in that regard. I have had the climate action brief for a number of years, and my officials are probably sick of me saying that we must always be able to demonstrate what something means to the ordinary person in terms of the cost of living and of their life becoming better. If we cannot do that, what are we doing? We know why we are doing all these things, and everything we are doing is very complex, but you are absolutely right, convener, so if the climate narrative associated with what we have talked about is a bit convoluted—I think that was the word that you used—we will take that away. I am absolutely open to suggestions on how we can address that.

In the past couple of years, but particularly in the past year, we have seen disinformation around climate action and net zero becoming pretty toxic and weaponised. It is not enough to think, “I know that we’re doing the right thing”, because that will not matter if people do not believe us. It is incumbent on us all to address that, and I absolutely take your point, convener.

The net zero assessments are done to give information to ministers, but I take your point.

Can I take that question away? I do not know what it would mean for our process and letting the committee know things. I also come back to the fact that every spring there will be a net zero assessment annual report, so you will have that detail then as well. On whether it is good to have the information piecemeal throughout the process of making every decision and how we might do that, leave it with me. We will have a wee look and see how doable that is.

10:30

I hope that the net zero assessment process is not a tick-box exercise, because it performs a really important function, especially at a time when we need to be very careful about how we deploy our budget. That is the main reason for doing such assessments. If the process was a tick-box exercise, it would be a waste of our time.

First of all, net zero assessments are a tool for ministers to use in deciding to opt for one policy over another. If a policy proposal is put in front of me and I receive a net zero assessment that does not bear out my initial thoughts on the value of the policy from a carbon reduction perspective, that will allow me to go back to the drawing board. The net zero assessment process will inform the policies in programmes for government. I will want the net zero assessment that is done on a policy proposal to bear out what I hoped that the policy would do. If it does not, I will look elsewhere.

You make a really good point, which relates to the point that I made about bureaucracy. We do not want to put in place processes that are just tick-box exercises, because that will take resource away from our work on delivery. A net zero assessment will be carried out before a decision has been made, to inform and improve the judgment of the person who makes the decision on whether to develop and roll out the policy. If a net zero assessment shows that a policy would not be at all useful, more work will have to be done on that policy before it can be deployed.