Meeting of the Parliament

Meeting date: Thursday, March 16, 2017

Official Report 966KB pdf

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Draft Climate Change Plan

Good afternoon. The next item of business is a debate on motion S5M-04534, in the name of Graeme Dey, on behalf of the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee, on reports on the “Draft Climate Change Plan: The draft third report on policies and proposals 2017-2032”.

I feel privileged, as the convener of the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee, to open a debate of this importance. It is a privilege for us all to be able to contribute meaningfully, through the scrutiny process, to the production of a final plan that we can all have confidence will deliver Scotland’s emissions targets.

The role that today represents in that process is summed up by Friends of the Earth’s comment in the covering note for its briefing for the debate:

“This is an important opportunity to reflect upon the undoubted strengths of the draft Plan, and to take forward the improvements to the draft that could turn it into a truly credible and ambitious blueprint for a low-carbon Scotland.”

My role in this debate, as will be the case with the conveners of the other committees that have scrutinised the plan, will be to lay out the principal findings and recommendations of our unanimously agreed report. I look forward to hearing committee members expand on that and hearing the thoughts of the other committees.

The process undertaken by the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee has produced a number of clear recommendations for improving the draft plan. Given that the Government aided the scrutiny process by delaying publication of the draft plan to maximise the time available to committees, and given that the Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform is on record as saying that she will not only engage “further and deeper”, but consider carefully the best time to finalise the plan to ensure that all the views resulting from the whole of the parliamentary scrutiny process can be taken on board, we look forward to those views being given appropriate consideration. We are also looking for the Government to seek advice from the United Kingdom Committee on Climate Change in moving to the plan’s final iteration.

I will reflect further on the committee’s overall thinking and identify specific areas where we believe changes are required.

The committee is concerned that the method of development of the carbon envelopes was inconsistent. A number of sectors—transport, agriculture, waste and land use—were modelled outwith the TIMES framework. Furthermore, the TIMES model does not consider wider benefits and the draft plan is unclear on the extent to which abatement potential has influenced the inclusion of policies.

Although the committee broadly welcomes the principle of a whole-system approach, it does not consider the TIMES model and the development of the carbon envelopes to have been sufficiently structured, formalised or consistent to deliver that.

The draft plan lacks clarity and transparency on the information that was fed into and produced by the TIMES model, which means that committee members were constrained in their ability to scrutinise fully and to express confidence in the policies and proposals that have been advocated.

The committee’s view is that the agriculture and transport sectors—the sectors that have made least progress in cutting emissions—are not being asked to make the significant leaps anticipated by the UKCCC and stakeholders. We believe that the emission reductions required of each sector should be equally challenging. That is not the case with those two sectors, so we recommend that the Scottish Government revise the carbon envelopes for transport and agriculture to show greater ambition.

Although a monitoring and evaluation framework is described in the draft plan, the committee does not consider that the suite of policies and proposals are, as presented and given the lack of accompanying detail and data, capable of SMART analysis and proposes that the Scottish Government should include further specific and consistent information across all policies and proposals in the final plan, to ensure clarity in the pathways to delivery. That would increase confidence in the robustness and the achievability of the plan and lay a clear way for committees to scrutinise progress by means of the intended annual updates on progress, an approach that the committee very much welcomes. It is our hope that all relevant successor committees will see it as part of their work programme to look at the update reports each year.

The committee, while recognising the impact of the electoral cycle, believes that in future the Scottish Government should be mindful of the problems of drafting the climate change plan in tandem with consultations on strategies that affect the plan, because of the difficulty of determining how those strategies might ultimately impact the plan. In this instance, it was unavoidable that the consultation on the draft Scottish energy strategy took place in parallel with drafting the climate change plan, but that was not ideal. We look for the final RPP3 to state explicitly how the results of the Scottish energy strategy consultation have contributed to the plan and to clarify the relationship between the plan and all other relevant national strategies.

The committee further considered that it is unclear in the plan whether assumptions such as the development and implementation of carbon capture and storage are supported by alternatives, should the assumptions that have been made prove to be overly optimistic. It is our view that the final plan should, through remodelling, set out an alternative plan B.

The committee also believes that the final climate change plan should be accompanied by information on the output of an additional TIMES model run that emphasises alternative car traffic growth assumptions and which has a greater emphasis on modal shift. Although behaviour change has been considered and included in the draft plan, its application in policies and proposals either has been omitted or is inconsistent. That, too, should be addressed in the final plan.

Unfortunately it was only after the committee had agreed its report that it finally secured clarity of the position on soil testing and the Government’s intentions with regard to taking that strand of the plan forward. The committee’s view is that soil testing, of improved land only, must be compulsory and the plan should be amended to reflect that. That said, compulsory testing should be introduced in a phased way and supported by guidance and advice not only on testing, but on how the information gleaned should best be deployed. Soil testing itself will not make a contribution to tackling climate change—it is how the results are deployed that has that potential.

Having dealt with the land, I will turn—briefly—to the sea and highlight a further call from the committee for the final climate change plan to contain policies and proposals on blue carbon.

The committee notes the practice of presenting the final plan prior to the summer recess of the parliamentary year. However, given the issues that have been identified by stakeholders and the various committees, we concur with the Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform that the priority should be the consideration of matters raised by the scrutiny process, instead of any immediate deadline, and we commit to working with the Government to ensure that the plan realises its potential.

I move,

That the Parliament notes the reports of the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee, the Economy, Jobs and Fair Work Committee, the Local Government and Communities Committee and the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee on the Scottish Government document, Draft Climate Change Plan - the Draft Third Report on Policies and Proposals 2017-2032.

I call Gordon Lindhurst to speak on behalf of the Economy, Jobs and Fair Work committee.

14:36  

The whole world is waking up to climate change and its impact on the way we will live our lives in the future. It is not only the environment that is at risk if we do not face up to this issue, but the world economy as we know it. Some of the most promising growth markets across the globe are grappling with the fact that they are also some of the most at-risk areas when it comes to the consequences of global warming. If action is not taken, they might literally see profits washed away by the forces of nature.

Will the member give way?

I am sorry, but not at the moment.

“Climate change increasingly poses one of the biggest long-term threats to ... investments and the wealth of the global economy.”

That was the view of Christiana Figueres, the then executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, who was instrumental in forming the Paris climate agreement.

So it is that the Economy, Jobs and Fair Work Committee takes part in today’s debate; in fact, many aspects of the draft climate change plan fall within our committee’s remit. Given that it also includes energy, our remit covers quite a lot of ground and I cannot hope to address everything in a few minutes today. However, I will touch on a few issues that the committee considered, including transparency, timescale and behaviour change.

Although we welcome the whole-system approach of the TIMES model, it cannot be at the expense of the level of detail included in previous climate plans. Do not take just our word for it—we defer to the authority of the Stern review of the economics of climate change, which encouraged caution and humility in all modelling and reminded us that results are always specific to the model and its assumptions. The evidence that we heard was that even a whole-system approach offers only a partial insight, and ambition should not be confused with wishful thinking.

A snazzier title is one thing, but the information fed into the model has not been proffered, nor has the weighting afforded to delivery, costs and disruption. The plan should detail budgets, targets and timelines as well as policies, not only for our benefit but for those tasked with the plan’s delivery. It would be helpful to know the inputs for certain sectors and how they were formulated. What, for some, are lesser targets put pressure on other aspects such as electricity, services and housing. They have been told to cut emissions by 120, 96 and 76 per cent respectively, while transport and agriculture have been asked to make cuts of 31 and 12 per cent, despite the fact that, together, those two produce 28 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions.

Suffice it to say that the Scottish Government has not shown its workings, nor has it given much of a clue as to the content of Scotland’s energy efficiency programme, which is called SEEP by its friends. It is said to be key to ministerial thinking on climate change, but according to Stop Climate Chaos Scotland, much of the plan’s success

“relies on a programme which does not yet exist”.

One wonders whether androids dream of an energy-efficient future. That is something that the committee will return to in our scrutiny of the draft energy strategy—SEEP that is, not the androids; at least, not yet.

Timescale is my next theme. The Stern review said that climate change was

“the greatest and widest-ranging market failure ever seen”,

and that delay would be costly and dangerous. In that regard, the committee supports the move towards low-carbon heat, but we are concerned by the pace of change, given that so little is to happen before 2025. We appreciate that technologies are evolving, but can we transform our housing stock and the public and commercial sectors in the space of seven years? Surely more can be done to front-load some of that work.

My final theme is behaviour change. It is a case not of altering, attuning or adjusting behaviour, but of making major non-marginal change in how we consume energy. Again, I am afraid that we found detail in short supply. Scottish Renewables underscored the need for buy-in of support from individuals and institutions alike. It said that it is unclear how we can achieve that without “clear and concise messages”. The final plan must deliver those messages. More than a decade ago, the Stern review said:

“Governments can be a catalyst for dialogue through evidence, education, persuasion and discussion.”

I will end where I began. Our economies and the necessities of life—access to water, production of food and the very air that we breathe—are under threat. The next chapter of the story is for us to write, and write it we must.

I call Bob Doris to speak on behalf of the Local Government and Communities Committee.

14:42  

I welcome the opportunity to talk on behalf of the Local Government and Communities Committee about the draft climate change plan. As members would expect, the focus of the committee’s scrutiny was planning and the residential sector.

I pay tribute to the work of the fellow committees that scrutinised the plan. Together, we have ensured proper scrutiny of this important plan to help Scotland to reach its world-leading climate change targets, despite having a very challenging 60-day timetable. In that regard, I thank my committee’s clerking team and all those who gave us written or oral evidence.

It is a challenging time for local government. Given the competing priorities that exist, we highlight that the Scottish Government must work with councils to ensure that they are properly resourced to develop climate change leadership. It should also support local government to embed climate change considerations into procurement procedures and practices, because it is clear that there is a significant opportunity there.

We heard concerns from the community sector that there was a lack of focus on how communities and the community empowerment agenda could contribute to climate change abatement. We also felt that there should be more of an emphasis on how the Scottish Government will drive behaviour change in those communities in which climate change is a lower priority—that is another opportunity. Both those issues should be addressed in the final version of the plan.

Although the plan recognises the vital contribution that the spatial planning process can play in climate change abatement, the lack of information on specific policies on how the planning sector will contribute to the meeting of targets made it slightly difficult to scrutinise the Government’s plans in relation to planning. However, we note that further detail will be provided following the Scottish Government’s consultation on the planning process.

We highlight that the Scottish Government should consider strengthening the final version of the plan to show how it will use the planning system to encourage more active and sustainable modes of travel and to protect green-space land by directing development on to brownfield sites.

On a more general point, we were concerned to hear of resourcing issues in the planning system. We have asked for further information on how the Scottish Government will work with local authorities to ensure that planners and key decision makers have the right skill sets to ensure that climate change impact is properly considered in all decisions relating to planning.

We welcome the ambitious targets for the residential sector, although many of the policies and proposals are still out for consultation, making it difficult for us to scrutinise plans for that sector in detail. That includes the Scottish energy efficiency plan, which will underpin most of the measures in the housing sector. Its consultation is due to close in spring, alongside consultations on the draft energy strategy and regulation of district heating. Given their importance to Scotland meeting its targets, it was disappointing that those policies were not consulted on and finalised for the publication of the plan itself, but we have requested that those strategic documents be linked strategically across future iterations of the plan.

We also heard evidence on the accuracy and consistency of the energy performance certificate rating system. We are aware that the Scottish Government and the UK Government are reviewing the process, and we expect to receive regular updates on progress in that area.

One of the issues raised with the committee was the slow progress in transferring regulation in the private residential sector from a proposal to a policy since the previous climate change plan. The minister has confirmed that the Government will begin a consultation on regulation in the private rented sector this month, and will bring forward a timescale for consulting on the owner-occupier sector when the plan launches. We welcome that commitment, but would like an explanation as to why progress has been slow.

That leads me to the committee’s concerns around how the ambitious targets for decarbonisation of the household heating network will be met. We heard how meeting the targets will rely largely on changing technologies, on decisions of the UK Government, and on policies and procedures that will drive behaviour change, as well as potential regulatory measures.

Finally, we heard about how successful the Scottish area-based approach to the home energy efficiency programme has been. It has been a success story. The programme has allowed local authorities to maximise their share of UK funding to install home external and internal wall insulation on a large-scale basis. Such measures are known to benefit health and assist in alleviating fuel poverty, so it was concerning to hear that some felt there was a lack of emphasis on that programme in the plan, particularly given the ambitious figures presented for future installations. We have asked the minister for comments on how the programme will be funded and delivered post 2021.

The ambitious targets highlight the Scottish Government’s intention to be a world leader in reducing climate change, and that is to be welcomed. The committee intends to play a substantial role in holding the Government to account for its performance, while working in partnership with it, and we will continue to closely follow the Scottish Government’s progress towards meeting targets in areas within its remit.

I call Edward Mountain to speak on behalf of the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee.

14:48  

I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests. I thank everyone who gave evidence to the committee, and also committee members and our clerks for all their hard work in scrutinising the plan.

The Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee struggled to scrutinise the draft climate change plan within the 60 days that are allowed. We concluded that the time allowed is too short and that a minimum of 120 days would allow better and proper scrutiny. Given the tight timescale, we looked at three specific areas: agriculture, transport and forestry.

It is worth noting that, as Mr Dey said, those areas do not fall within the TIMES energy model. The emissions envelopes for agriculture, forestry and transport were developed separately and added into the model, which is less than ideal. That raises additional issues. First, there is no baseline data or details of the specific emissions reductions attributable to each policy or proposal. Secondly, there is a significant lack of financial information provided in the draft plan. Thirdly, the plan lacks a monitoring and evaluation framework and SMART targets.

Given the short time that is available for debate, I would like to look at some of the key findings in each area. First, agriculture contributes 23 per cent of total emissions and is the third largest contributor in Scotland. The committee heard that agriculture is a difficult sector to decarbonise, which is why it has the lowest reduction target. Some said that that target was not ambitious enough and lacked detail. We accepted as a committee that

“in order to achieve climate change targets the goodwill of farmers and land managers”

was and is important. We also accepted that much of the historical good work undertaken by farmers has not been acknowledged or quantified.

I pick up on the particular issue of soil fertility. Much is often made of nitrogen, phosphorus and potash use, but the committee also heard about the importance of soil structure and the fact that it needs long-term management and investment. The committee accepted the need to encourage all farmers to test the soils on improved land in rotation. We also heard that, to ensure investment by tenant farmers, they need to be compensated at waygo for the extra work that they put in to keep soils in good condition. The committee believes that, to ensure a positive contribution to climate change and to increase production, we need to take farmers with us. During our scrutiny, there was discussion about whether soil testing should be voluntary or mandatory. We agreed that voluntary measures were appropriate at this stage.

Transport, which is the second largest contributor, accounts for 28 per cent of Scotland’s total emissions. The committee welcomed the Scottish Government’s goal to be free from harmful tailpipe emissions by 2050. However, it recognised that, since 1990, progress in emissions reductions from the transport sector has been largely offset by increases in demand. Therefore, the committee recommends that greater consideration is given to policies that will control demand and encourage modal shift away from the use of private cars.

The draft climate change plan focuses on the ways in which technological developments will reduce transport emissions, including incentivising more rapid uptake of electric and ultra-low-emission cars, enhancing the electric vehicle charging networks and electrification of the rail network. Witnesses raised concerns that the plan is overly reliant on the uptake of low-emission vehicles, and that there are a number of assumptions about technological improvements. For example, the plan assumes that battery costs will reduce and that there will be only 27 per cent traffic growth by 2030. The committee was not convinced that those were right; if they are not right, the transport targets are unlikely to be achieved.

We heard that little progress has been made on active travel, with Scottish transport statistics showing that, in 2015, only 1 per cent of journeys were by bike, which is well below the 2020 Government ambition of 10 per cent. That figure has remained stubbornly at 1 per cent since 2003. The committee believes that walking and cycling have an important contribution to make in reducing carbon emissions and the Government needs now to set out clearly how it intends to meet by 2020 the target that it has set itself.

I turn briefly to forestry. Approximately 1.44 million hectares of Scotland is in woodland—that is 18 per cent of the total land area, which is less than the EU average of 40 per cent. While 70 per cent of that woodland is populated by conifers, which can be used for production, the remainder is broadleaves.

Progress since the last climate change plan in 2013 has been painfully slow, and the Scottish Government has failed to meet its forestry targets every year. Last year, for example, 4,500 hectares were planted against a target of 10,000 hectares. We heard that some of those failures are attributable to the grant structure and application process. The committee heard that the Mackinnon report may well streamline the forestry industry to help achieve those planting targets, and it hopes that that is the case. It will be up to the Government to ensure that the targets are met.

There were other issues relating to the use of timber and getting the right tree in the right place, but I will leave that for people to read in the report.

In conclusion, the committee looks forward to the Government’s response to its report and to the points that it has raised, and to seeing how those will feature in the final climate change plan.

I call Roseanna Cunningham to open for the Government. You have eight minutes, cabinet secretary.

14:54  

I thank the conveners and members of the four committees for all the work that was done in their scrutiny of the draft climate change plan. I also thank all those who provided evidence to the committees and helped them in their work.

The plan is, of course, a draft plan that is to be turned into a final plan. I will give an update on progress on that before the summer recess, albeit that the final plan will not come until later than that.

The draft plan builds on strong foundations. The Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 set a target of 42 per cent emissions reductions by 2020. By 2014, emissions had already been reduced by 45.8 per cent, which means that we exceeded the original target six years early. That is second only to Sweden’s record of success. We should be immensely proud of that achievement and should not forget it, but we are not resting on our laurels. The draft plan sets out how we will continue to drive down emissions by the equivalent of 66 per cent by 2032. We will, of course, introduce a new climate change bill to raise that ambition even further in light of the Paris agreement.

As well as maintaining our high ambition and preparing for increased ambition in the future, the draft plan builds on our success so far. I went through its contents in the chamber eight weeks ago, so I will not attempt to do so again; it is action on the ground that matters.

Will the Government’s proposed air passenger duty reduction help? It has been estimated that an extra 60,000 tonnes of carbon will be pumped into the atmosphere.

That is built into the plan’s overall targets. That question has been asked and answered so many times that I am beginning to wonder whether Mike Rumbles needs to see somebody about his hearing.

I return to action on the ground. Yesterday, I visited the red moss of Balerno to see an example of peatland restoration not far from Edinburgh. I also opened applications for the Government’s £8 million action fund, which will help us to deliver on the climate change plan’s commitment to restore 250,000 hectares of peatlands by 2032. I am glad that that commitment was welcomed in the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee’s report.

I will deal with the committee reports in more detail. Broad support was expressed for the whole-system approach that we took to developing the draft climate change plan. That is important, because the draft plan was developed using an approach that differs from that which was used for the previous two plans or reports on proposals and policies. I know that that model and our use of it was a theme in at least one committee’s scrutiny of the draft plan. Using the TIMES model represents a significant step forward in the Government’s carbon planning. It has allowed us to get a real handle on the costs of emissions reductions and allowed us for the first time to make consistent judgments about where best to focus our efforts. We may be the first Government to have used that internationally recognised modelling framework to develop a carbon plan in a live political setting.

There has been a steep learning curve as we have worked through the plan’s development—the committees have been on the same learning curve, of course. The new approach differs from that which was used in the previous two reports. That might be frustrating, particularly when the information that is produced by the modelling is different from what was produced before, but that does not mean that the approach is wrong and that we should not persevere with it.

Will the cabinet secretary take an intervention?

I am sorry, but I have a minute less than I was originally told that I had, so I must press on.

Some committees expressed concern about lack of information on alternative scenarios in the draft plan. Given the political and technological uncertainties that we face, looking even 15 years into the future is not easy. The committee reports contain a number of recommendations on including different scenarios in the final plan, and some additional scenarios may be helpful, but we would need to choose carefully to avoid turning the plan into a think tank report.

Throughout the development of the plan, I have been clear that I have envisaged that all sectors would play their part. That does not mean equal reductions across the board; it means that we must balance the relative costs of reductions in each sector against other benefits of the policies, such as improvements in health, as well as the need to take full advantage of the business opportunities that are offered by the plan and the economic importance of each sector.

The carbon envelope for transport is a good case in point. Our judgment differed from that of the Committee on Climate Change. Our approach has been developed using robust external research that has been published in full by Transport Scotland. The message of that research was that reducing emissions from transport is a long-term project. We have said that since the publication of the original delivery plan in 2009.

It is important to recognise that the demand for transport is shaped by the operation of the economy—by commerce, rather than commuting. Accommodating that demand is an important plank in strengthening our economy and has been an important consideration in setting the transport envelope in the draft plan. Important though behaviour change is, it cannot offer anywhere near the same level of abatement as can advances in vehicle technology. Our view is that the emphasis on technology is correct.

That said, the Government is committed to delivering our manifesto commitment to low emission zones, for both their impact on emissions and their health benefits from improved air quality. We will also continue to explore other approaches to behaviour change. The draft plan sets out our plans to encourage a switch to active travel and public transport.

Agriculture is another area in which we have been encouraged to look again at our ambition. We will consider that recommendation alongside all those made by the committees. However, we cannot simply ignore the point made by the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee that

“in order to achieve climate change targets the goodwill of farmers and land managers must be ensured.”

We know that emissions from agriculture are more difficult to reduce than those in other sectors. That is because the vast bulk of those emissions are from biological sources that are fundamental to food production and only a small proportion result from energy use.

We have touched upon technology already and I would like to return to the wider issue of the draft plan’s reliance on what some people have called technical fixes. It is pretty obvious that a plan stretching 15 years forward and involving a number of decisions that will have infrastructure implications that are far longer lasting than a decade and a half cannot avoid considering new technologies. I have already committed the Government to seriously considering the recommendations on alternative technological scenarios as we develop the final plan.

I will also consider how we can add more transparency to our plan by being explicit about when key decisions on infrastructure, such as the future of the gas network in Scotland, are anticipated. A similar approach can be taken to key milestones in the development of technologies such as carbon capture and storage and at what stage we would need to activate fallback plans if milestones were missed.

It is obvious that we need a clear monitoring framework. I have committed to developing that and to reporting every year on progress. I have already told my officials to seek to agree a common approach with the Committee on Climate Change and to ensure that engagement continues.

Our draft plan has given us a clear vision of the nature of the changes that will need to happen across Scotland in order to deliver our ambitious targets. We now need to consider Parliament’s recommendations, produce the final version of the plan and, most important, work together to reduce emissions.

Well done, cabinet secretary. Ms Cunningham had been misinformed about timing, but not by our office.

Alexander Burnett will open on behalf of the Conservatives. You have seven minutes, Mr Burnett.

15:02  

Thank you, Presiding Officer. I would agree, but perhaps the timing communications were not sent out to us correctly.

Indeed?

Indeed. I will endeavour to keep my speech to time.

I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests and particularly to the interests that relate to renewable energy.

This has been my first time going through the process of producing a committee response to a Government paper and I have been most encouraged. The committees’ unanimity in their criticism of the Scottish Government’s climate change plan has made a refreshing change.

According to the Economy, Jobs and Fair Work Committee, the plan lacks transparency.

Will the member give way?

I will not be taking any interventions as I did not know that my speaking time would be reduced.

According to our Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee, the plan lacks credibility. According to the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee, the plan lacks accountability and, according to the Local Government and Communities Committee, it places an overreliance on technology.

We have seen where the Scottish Government wants to go on climate change and we support that ambition, but the lack of a credible plan for achieving that ambition is more than a cause for concern.

We support the TIMES model, which has been used to inform the strategy. We agree that it is excellent, but it is unfortunate that the Scottish Government has chosen not to use it properly. Although 50 per cent of carbon comes from transport and agriculture, those two sectors were decided on outside the model, which skewed the assessment for those sectors and denigrates the model as a whole as a result. We can only hope that such omissions will be corrected in future uses of the model.

We look forward to the release of the model to universities to allow open-source examination of the data inputs and outputs. The Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee repeatedly requested that and deemed it necessary to allow the strategy to be properly transparent. That point was also noted by Friends of the Earth.

The climate change strategy’s lack of transparency is not the only problem from which it suffers. It is also clear that it is too dependent on technology and factors that are beyond the Scottish Government’s control. Transform Scotland supports that view.

When I put that to the cabinet secretary at committee a few weeks ago, she was dismissive and spoke of great advances in technology that will save the plan. Such a view might be applicable when we are talking about mobile phones, but I contend that technological changes are not as easily made in the context of large infrastructure projects such as installing district heating, repurposing the gas grid and insulating Scotland’s hard-to-treat homes. The requirement for technological improvements does not inspire confidence and makes the strategy unreliable.

Let us consider, for example, the Scottish Government’s emissions reduction pathway for residential property. It is estimated that the residential sector will account for 15 per cent of Scotland’s total emissions this year, and its share is growing, so it is vital that we get our approach right. According to the strategy, the target is to decrease emissions by 84 per cent by 2032. However, that is back-loaded; only 16 per cent of the decrease is sought in the first eight years, which leaves the remaining 84 per cent to be achieved in the second half of the period. That proposed trajectory is so tainted in its formation that one can only assume that its architects do not plan on being around for the policy’s inevitable failure.

It should therefore come as no surprise that Scottish Renewables questioned the target to supply 80 per cent of domestic properties with low-carbon heat technologies by 2025, which would require a leap from 18 per cent in just eight years. Given that almost 80 per cent of homes are currently supplied with mains gas, achieving that target will require a huge step change in delivery. I initially thought that the ambition would be achieved through district heating, but the other week, the cabinet secretary was more focused on repurposing the existing gas grid.

For members who are not familiar with what that entails, it means substituting the current methane gas with hydrogen. That is both technically feasible and desirable, but it will require huge volumes of hydrogen to be produced. If it is to come from electrolysis with electricity from renewables, that is neither clear nor, currently, economically efficient. If it is to come from conventional gas from the North Sea, with the resulting carbon returned through carbon capture and storage, that places a heavy reliance on a developing technology. Far be it from me to be cynical about such an approach but, with the Scottish Government placing all its target eggs in one basket, it is not hard to guess who it will blame for its failure.

Furthermore, the Scottish Government has not matched the Scottish Conservatives’ call for a transformational change in energy efficiency. It has failed to set a target for all homes to reach EPC band C by the end of the next decade. It is only right that I remind the Parliament of our manifesto commitment to spend 10 per cent of the capital budget on making homes energy efficient, which would have involved spending £1 billion cumulatively over this parliamentary session; the Scottish Government’s programme for government commits only £500 million to SEEP over the next four years.

The EPC system also needs reform. It is evident that the market has had no confidence in the system since its inception in 2009. The same house can receive three different EPC ratings, depending on who comes to survey it. A tick sheet is not enough to establish whether a house has proper insulation. We should be using EPC ratings as a springboard for green mortgages and encouraging investors to buy energy-efficient homes.

Will the member take an intervention?

I have said that I will not take any interventions, given the time allowed.

We have promised to support district heating schemes. The Government has a responsibility to lead and not be led, but the strategy has no such plans. How can we expect companies to invest in district heating when the Scottish Government cannot even be bothered to deploy the system in its Victoria Quay buildings, which are in a location that has been primed for district heating?

It is clear to stakeholders and to cross-party committees that the Scottish Government has made massive assumptions on technological externalities over which it has no control. We simply cannot rely on someone to reinvent the wheel to enable us to hit our climate change targets.

The majority of the goals in the strategy are infested with backdated targets and biblical-scale reductions that come decades away. We need a clearer plan.

Before I get any more signals from members about the timings, let me say that members have five minutes for speeches in the open debate. The revised timings were agreed at the Parliamentary Bureau on Tuesday and conveyed to the business managers, including the Minister for Parliamentary Business. So there you go—no one else should ask me how long they have got. It is five minutes in the open debate. Claudia Beamish, who is opening for Labour, knows that she has six minutes.

15:09  

I recognise the significance of the draft climate change plan, which builds on the work done by all parties, from the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 and through the first two reports on proposals and policies to our proposed new climate change bill.

The debate is an essential contribution to focusing the Scottish Government’s collective mind on the changes that are recommended in the four committee reports. The fact that there is direct reporting to our Parliament is testament to the mainstreaming of climate change.

Scottish Labour recognises the robust advice and support that the UK Committee on Climate Change has given to our Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee. Our committee’s responsibility for scrutinising the governance and future monitoring and evaluation of the plan is weighty. I thank our clerks and the Scottish Parliament information centre for fulfilling the challenging role of supporting us so effectively. I thank all those who gave us written submissions and contributed to oral evidence sessions, which helped the committee to hone its thoughts.

If the final CCP is to be truly at the core of all policies and proposals across the Government, our committee’s recommendation that it should

“state explicitly how the results of the draft Energy Strategy consultation will contribute to the final Plan”

must be acted on.

There are synergies between the plan and the energy strategy—there is also my proposed member’s bill to place a ban, for climate change reasons, on onshore fracking. Job opportunities in renewables and energy efficiency, related manufacturing and the circular economy must be underpinned by a just transition for workers and communities.

The committee recommends that

“the Scottish Government make the relationship between the Climate Change Plan and other strategies, such as the National Planning Framework, the Infrastructure Investment Plan and the Land Use Strategy, more explicit.”

The committee has serious concerns and there are unanswered questions about the TIMES model. Only after persistent questioning of the Scottish Government did it emerge that as much as 40 per cent—if not more—of the sectoral assessment was not done through the whole system model.

As our convener, Graeme Dey, highlighted, the committee also states that

“There is a lack of clarity and transparency in the draft Plan surrounding the information that was fed into and produced by the TIMES Model”,

which has meant that carrying out scrutiny has been challenging.

The committee recommends that

“the Scottish Government revise the carbon envelopes for transport and agriculture to show greater ambition”,

given that those sectors are two of our heaviest emitters.

As I understand it, whatever policy is put into the TIMES model, the model pushes out the costings for it. I ask the cabinet secretary to consider carefully whether social inclusion and the pathway that is, to use her words,

“most beneficial to the people of Scotland”

have been adequately accounted for in the assessment of every sector.

In transport, a stark example of a techie approach being fed in is from the shift to low-emission vehicles, and the arguments for it, to tackle projected increases in road traffic of 27 per cent by 2030. Why is there no complementary modelling to assess the costs of planning more infrastructure for walking and cycling, with the associated support for behaviour change? That would produce healthy options and cut congestion, so there would be multiple benefits. While of course we need to shift to low-carbon vehicles for commercial reasons and for the economy, we also need a modal shift to active travel, and I ask the cabinet secretary to rethink that approach.

Our committee also has a sectoral focus on land use, peatlands, marine issues, the public sector and waste. Graeme Dey emphasised the importance of peatlands to the picture and we now have an understanding of that, which has developed since the marker in RPP1 through international and domestic research collaborations, which have led to specific funded policies from the Scottish Government.

That is in stark contrast to the failure to push forward on the contribution of blue carbon, which was in RPP2 and is—shockingly—omitted from the draft plan. Under questioning, Scottish Government officials acknowledged that that would be remedied in the final plan, and that is one of the committee’s recommendations.

We stress the importance of the circular economy. In contrast to the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee, we recommend a staged move to compulsory soil testing on improved land, which must be supported by clear criteria and must follow the advice to be incremental. That is a means to an end.

I highlight the importance of the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee’s calls for consideration of organic farming, and I strongly support that as a biological contribution.

The public sector’s contribution is also vital. With mandatory reporting duties, leadership and peer support will be key, and the contribution that part of the sector already makes is to be lauded. The letter from Stephen Hagan of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities to the cabinet secretary is most encouraging.

Children who are now in primary 1 will be in their early 20s when the final policies and proposals under the plan are actioned. The vision that we create now for the way forward will need to be checked regularly against the development of technologies that have not even been invented yet. As those children move towards and settle down into adult life in an utterly changed world of work and leisure, the plan must prove to be just for our society here in Scotland. If those people are to live in a Scotland in which our communities are protected from flooding, with warm housing, good green surroundings and connectivity, there must be robust monitoring and evaluation.

The framework has been eight years in the making. I listened to what the cabinet secretary said, but the CCP must be the foundation of policy making, and it is vital to have clarity in the pathways to delivery as we go forward with it.

15:15  

I start by thanking the clerks, the Scottish Parliament information centre, witnesses and members of all four committees that have contributed to the scrutiny. I am particularly proud to be associated with the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee report, which was crafted under the strong journalistic guidance of our convener.

I am left with a strong sense of frustration with the climate plan. In many ways, it is a plan that could join us up, break us out of silo thinking and allow shared action across Government and society. However, the lack of transparency about what individual policies will achieve for carbon reduction and the uncertainty about what steps are needed to deliver those policies means that it feels disconnected from practical action. There is welcome clarity about the contribution that forestry and peatland restoration will make and about what effort will be needed each year to achieve that, but the plan is far more opaque in other areas.

In the committee, the Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform commented that we will know what carbon reductions electric vehicles, for example, will deliver only when they are on the roads. Whether these are the best policy choices at this stage remains a mystery.

Agriculture and transport were modelled outside TIMES, so they were fixed at the outset, while other sectors got plugged into the model to work through what was left and ended up in many cases with more challenging targets. I am not saying that carbon targets should necessarily be equal across all sectors, but they must be equally challenging, and that is where we have some problems with the plan.

I turn to agriculture. We were warned by the UK Committee on Climate Change that agriculture could overtake energy as a carbon emitter. A compulsory soil testing regime was recommended as a simple but effective action to lower fertiliser wastage. In the chamber, the Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform promised me that soil testing would be compulsory when the plan was launched, but the Cabinet Secretary for the Rural Economy and Connectivity clarified that that would not be the case. The fear seems to be that it would be burdensome for farmers and, in the words of Fergus Ewing, the view is that we must not jeopardise the good will of the custodians of the countryside.

What exactly is the concern? The cost of soil testing on a five-year cycle is just 22p per hectare per year, which is a bargain price for a stable climate.

Will the member give way?

I do not have time, unfortunately. I have only five minutes, unless I get time back at the end. Will I, Presiding Officer?

You can have 30 seconds if you want to let Mr Mountain in.

I understand the need for soil testing, and most farmers are doing it, but the issue is about the soil structure and what is done with the results of soil testing. There is no point in forcing soil testing if nothing is done with the results.

Exactly—it is a starting point. If we understand the structure and the quality of our soils, we can take action.

I will tell members about the type of action that we need. Farmers are spending about £70 per hectare per year on arable fertiliser, so delivering efficiency savings—we reckon that tackling pH levels would deliver efficiency savings of 20 per cent—will save them money. Applying lime to meet a target pH would involve only the most basic invoice record keeping, which any farmer could manage as part of a regime of cross-compliance. Such fruit is so low hanging that it is rotting on the ground. We just need to get on and deliver soil testing, as any knowledgeable farmer in the chamber will know.

Edward Mountain rose—

Why are you on your feet, Mr Mountain?

On a point of order, Presiding Officer.

You have a point of order—I did not hear that. Let me hear it, Mr Mountain.

I do not mind being called a lot of things, but by implying that I am not a responsible farmer, Mr Ruskell is verging on being rude.

Would you care to modify what you said, Mr Ruskell?

I will if I get another 20 seconds.

No—you do not get another 20 seconds.

I actually referred to “any knowledgeable farmer”. I assume that the member is a knowledgeable farmer who therefore needs to engage with the debate.

I will move to transport and I will see whether I get any more interventions. Transport is another unequally challenged sector. We have heard conflicting views on the assumption that our vehicle mileage will go up by more than a quarter in the 2030s. The transport minister says that that is the worst-case scenario, which will happen if we sit on our hands, while the cabinet secretary for climate change believes that there will be less growth in passenger traffic and more growth in vans and lorries that are connected with the economy. What is lacking is the range of more optimistic scenarios from the Element Energy report, which should be plugged into the TIMES model—we know that they exist.

The prediction in the 2006 transport strategy prepared us for increased traffic levels of about a quarter, which in reality ended up at only 5 per cent. I am concerned that again we have a predict-and-provide approach to accommodating phantom traffic growth rather than a clear focus on traffic reduction.

The technological fix of electric cars has its place and there is room for more ambition there, but electric vehicles alone will not deliver transport justice or the safer, less congested streets that communities need. The toolbox of policies that are needed to get modal shift—from workplace parking levies, walking and cycling infrastructure and urban speed-limit reduction to the roll-out of more low-emission zones and a focus on increasing bus use—are not explicit in the plan.

My colleague Andy Wightman will focus more on the energy sectors, but it is clear that there is still much to do to produce a plan that is fit for a low-carbon future. I urge the Scottish Government to take time to consider the recommendations carefully before submitting its final plan.

15:21  

I start by declaring an interest as someone in receipt of microrenewables support.

Last week, I got to speak for four minutes on biodiversity; this week, I get five minutes on climate change. It feels like environmental speed dating, which may make it difficult for me to take interventions. However, by way of compensation, I pay tribute to all four committees and those who gave evidence to them for their diligence in their work and the seriousness of their recommendations.

As all four conveners have pointed out, the committees covered a wide range of policy areas, but there seems to me to be a common theme to all: the draft plan—and it is a draft plan—falls short on ambition, on transparency, on credibility and on measurability. That seems to be the clear message from all four committees, as well as from many of the stakeholders they heard from.

I welcome Roseanna Cunningham’s clarification that she will update Parliament ahead of the summer recess, but it is perhaps regrettable that we have very little time to cover, collectively, what is a fairly substantial piece of ground—and it will be a collective effort; I assure members that the Scottish Liberal Democrats will work with MSPs from all parties to keep ministers’ feet if not to the fire at least to the biomass boiler.

In the time available to me, I will briefly touch on a number of issues, although I will leave my colleague Mike Rumbles to deal with the transport aspects—save for mentioning, yet again, the need for greater ambition around accelerating the take-up of electric vehicles, including continued improvements to the charging network.

In relation to heat, which accounts for more than 50 per cent of our energy use, I do not think that the Government can in any way be accused of a lack of ambition—quite the reverse. Its targets for domestic and non-domestic properties by 2032 are pretty staggering. The question that has been raised is how credible those targets are, particularly given the estimate of precious little action being taken pre-2025. It is a point that the Economy, Jobs and Fair Work Committee fairly picked up on and asked to be addressed—perhaps by more front loading. The committee was right, too, to say that off-gas-grid properties and district heating schemes should be priority action areas.

On electricity, I think that the Government—following on from the previous coalition Government—has made good progress to date. However, legitimate concerns have been raised about how aspirations for negative emissions will be reached. I share the desire of many members to see CCS fulfil its potential, but is it really sensible for the Scottish Government to appear to bet the house on its deployment in time to meet 2027 targets?

On energy efficiency, as WWF states, the draft plan

“does not put forward credible policies and resources to deliver even the inadequate scale of intervention”

proposed, and is

“certainly insufficient to support”

the

“transformational change”

that is suggested by its designation as

“a National Infrastructure Priority”.

I think that there was a bit of an echo of that point in what the Economy, Jobs and Fair Work Committee had to say. We need detailed timescales for achieving minimum standards, including for the private rented sector and for both domestic and non-domestic properties.

Finally, and very briefly, I have some comments on agriculture. The proposals for agriculture—and those for transport—were the subject of quite a bit of attention and criticism. The lack of ambition has already been noted. I listened to the exchanges between Edward Mountain and Mark Ruskell, and I think that there is a difficulty in an environment in which the future of support systems is up in the air.

The proposal to come forward with compulsory measures is tricky, but there is evidence that such measures can secure benefits for farmers as well as the environment. There is a legitimate debate to be had, even if that is around suitable timings for the implementation of compulsory measures. I realise that the NFU has a different perspective, but it acknowledges that to reduce emissions is to reduce waste and improve efficiency, so there is a willingness there to engage with the issues in the draft plan, and I hope that further improvements can be made.

In conclusion, I am conscious that I have done nothing like justice to the work that has been carried out by the four committees on such an important issue. However, I thank them again for highlighting where the Government’s draft climate change plan comes up short—that is, on ambition, credibility and transparency. Ministers need to show more green backbone, and Scottish Liberal Democrats, working with others, are committed to ensuring that they do, and that the final plan agreed by Parliament does justice to the climate change challenges that we face.

15:26  

I remind members that I am the parliamentary liaison officer to the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Economy and Connectivity. I thank my colleagues on all the committees involved; I also thank the committee clerks, who have all worked extremely hard to write the reports on the draft climate change plan.

Scotland’s actions on climate change to date are among the most ambitious in the world, and the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee has welcomed the Government’s continued commitment to tackling climate change. The draft climate change plan sets out how the Scottish Government plans to play its part in delivering the historic Paris agreement. My colleagues have already outlined, or will outline, that there are many elements in the plan. One of the most significant is agriculture, which I will come back to.

There is a welcome focus on enabling community action on climate change. In Dumfries and Galloway, there is already a lot of enthusiasm for finding inventive ways of dealing with climate change at the local level. Last year, Scottish Government money was awarded to the reuse matters 2 project run by the Creetown Initiative to upcycle textiles that otherwise would have been sent to landfill.

The draft plan also acknowledges the important role that Scotland’s forests have to play in tackling climate change. By 2032, forests and woodland will cover an additional 3 per cent of Scotland’s land area, meaning that Scotland’s woodlands will be better placed to provide natural flood defences. Currently, in Galloway, the forest cover is 30 per cent across the region.

I welcome the cabinet secretary’s ambition for Scottish food producers to be among the lowest-carbon and most efficient food producers in the world. Last week, I met the new NFU Scotland president and vice-presidents. Collectively, they understand both the necessity of cutting emissions and the advantages to their own businesses of doing so. Since 1990, emissions from the industry have reduced significantly.

Reflected in the committee’s report is a belief that more effort needs to be committed to for agriculture—and, indeed, for transport, as has been mentioned. However, we need to be conscious of the challenges facing the sector. Almost half of agriculture’s global warming emissions are from methane produced by biological sources, as Roseanna Cunningham mentioned. Those biological sources are our kye and sheep. It is important to acknowledge that methane released by livestock—mostly, I add, through an oral route—is not easily controlled, and to work collaboratively with all farmers and others involved to help reduce emissions wherever possible.

I was pleased to hear from the cabinet secretary that there will be no immediate requirement for farmers to undertake compulsory soil testing. The intent—that all improved land is tested routinely for pH—remains the same, and compulsory testing will be introduced as a staged process. We already know that conscientious farmers, driven by the need to evidence their plans for corrective soil pH improvement action, are implementing soil testing widely. Of course, greenhouse gas emissions are reduced not by pH testing itself but by what is done with the results.

I firmly believe that practice changes can best be achieved by working collaboratively with farmers. I am therefore pleased that the Scottish Government plans to engage with farmers and crofters to increase understanding of the environmental and economic benefits of low-carbon farming. Many of the farmers I have spoken to are already taking significant voluntary steps in the right direction.

Last week, I visited the Scottish Tenant Farmers Association’s chairman, Chris Nicholson, at his farm in the Machars, near Whithorn, to learn about conservation tillage, which he has been practising. For those who are unfamiliar with the term, conservation tillage is a method of soil cultivation that deliberately leaves residue from the previous crop—a cover crop—and involves no ploughing; indeed, Chris has not ploughed his fields for 30 years. The method has various environmental advantages. For example, it increases the soil’s ability to sequester carbon, and it reduces the use of fossil fuels because there is no ploughing. However, the committee took expert evidence from Professor Peter Smith of the University of Aberdeen, who said that although conservation tillage can help to sequester some carbon, the amount is often overstated. If I tried to provide further information on that, it would take me longer than the five minutes that I have for my speech, so I will not try.

I spoke to the NFU Ieadership when they were in the Parliament last week, and they stressed that one of the most important things that we can do to help the sector reduce emissions is to encourage schools, the national health service and others to purchase locally produced Scottish food.

As a member of the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee, I look forward to continuing to work with committee members and with the Scottish Government to address climate change.

Well done, Ms Harper—you finished on the button.

15:31  

I welcome the opportunity to take part in today’s debate on the draft climate change plan. Climate change is one of the greatest challenges that we face and we must have an ambitious plan that not only looks to repair damage, but improves our environment in the future. All of us have a duty to the next generation to leave Scotland in a better state than we found it in.

The Scottish Government’s climate change plan provides the framework for the transition to a low-carbon Scotland, which is something that I am sure that we can all get on board with. However, we on the Conservative side of the chamber cannot get on board with yet more missed targets and slipping deadlines from this Government. It is simply not good enough to paint a strong narrative without having specific policies to ensure that we achieve our climate targets. That is not just my view. WWF said that

“Although the plan presents an often strong description of a low carbon economy in 2030 there is a consistent absence of sufficient specific policies”,

and that we need such policies in almost every sector to ensure that we achieve our climate targets through to 2032. Further, Stop Climate Chaos Scotland said that the plan lacks “transparency” and “credibility”. We need more from the plan than just reassuring words.

In last week’s biodiversity debate, I touched on the importance of peatland in contributing to a sustainable future for Scotland. The peatland restoration programme that is currently under way is part of the 15 per cent degraded ecosystem restoration target set by the EU. Professor Robin Matthews of the James Hutton Institute estimates that an annual restoration rate of 21,000 hectares—a figure that he calls “modest”—would contribute to an 8 per cent reduction in Scotland’s total carbon emissions. However, since 2013, the Scottish Government has restored only 10,000 hectares. The Government has set itself a target of increasing the annual rate of peatland restoration from 10,000 hectares in 2017-18 to 20,000 hectares thereafter. The Scottish Conservatives want to ensure that that ambitious commitment to restore degraded peatland is delivered, because peatlands help to protect against flooding and act as a natural carbon sink and because doing so would benefit not only the climate but the economy. Providing long-term investment for such projects also has the potential to create much-needed local jobs.

The issue is not just the lack of restoration, however, because commercial peat extraction is damaging and destroying some of Scotland’s valuable raised bogs. Scotland’s deepest peats store around 6,500 million tonnes of CO₂—10 times as much carbon as is stored in the whole of the UK’s forest biomass. A loss of just 1.6 per cent of that peatland carbon is equivalent to the annual total for human carbon emissions in Scotland. Scotland’s area of intact raised bog has declined from 28,000 hectares to 2,500 hectares over the past two decades, and commercial peat extraction has been a major contributor to that decline. I suggest that the Scottish Government may need to take another look at its policy on peat extraction. It seems contrary that licences to extract peat are being granted at the same time as the Government is investing in the restoration of degraded peatland.

RPP2 had a section on blue carbon, which indicated that research in the area was underdeveloped but that the Scottish Government was working to establish further information. However, there is absolutely no mention of blue carbon in the new climate change plan. When that issue was raised with the cabinet secretary in committee, she said that scientific data is still not mature enough to base firm policies and proposals on. Given that a lack of information on blue carbon was highlighted in RPP2, I find it disheartening that the Scottish Government appears to have taken no steps to populate that information abyss. Completely removing blue carbon from the plan looks like an attempt by the Government to pull the wool over our eyes on that one.

I welcome the steps to tackle climate change and reduce Scotland’s carbon emissions, as far as they go. However, we need a plan with the substance to achieve that, rather than simply reassuring words.

15:36  

Climate change is the single biggest threat to life on this planet as we know it, and we all know that the time to stand by and do nothing has passed. In Scotland, we have had world-leading climate change legislation and, as the cabinet secretary said, we exceeded our targets six years early thanks to a combined effort—

Will the member take an intervention?

Not just now. Come on! [Laughter.]

I think that that was a no, Mr Findlay.

That was thanks to a combined effort involving cuts to emissions, culture change and investment in renewable energy. Mr Findlay should have better timing.

Through the new draft climate change plan, we continue to set targets and strive for change in all sectors as well as striving for societal and cultural change, but are our ambitions actually ambitious?

I am the deputy convener of the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee. Earlier, Parliament heard our convener, Edward Mountain, very ably set out the committee’s position and explain our report in some detail. As a committee, we took evidence from many professionals and experts, including knowledgeable farmers; listened to opinions and experiences; and worked together to produce the report. I commend my fellow committee members for their hard work and the spirit of consensus in which that work was concluded, and I thank the clerks and everyone else who was involved.

As members have heard, the committee has responsibility for two of the biggest polluting sectors—transport and agriculture—and feedback on the draft plan from those sectors was mixed. First, I will touch on transport. It has generally been agreed that we should put more emphasis on active travel. The aim of 10 per cent of journeys being made by bike by 2020 is ambitious, given that we are currently at only 1 per cent. The replacement of car use wherever possible will involve a huge cultural shift. We should be walking or cycling short distances instead of jumping into the car, which can no longer be seen as the preferred option. No one is saying that the Highland weather is always conducive to active travel, but we need to make more of an effort in that regard, and we need more information from the Government on how that will be achieved.

On public transport, Transform Scotland tells us in its briefing that there is no specific policy in the CCP—

Will Gail Ross take an intervention from me?

Yes, with pleasure.

Before the member moves on—[Interruption.]

Can we hear Mr Kerr now that he has managed to get an intervention?

When I met Transform Scotland yesterday, it said that the draft climate change plan has an overreliance on ultra-low-emission vehicles and electric vehicles. Is it wrong?

I invite Liam Kerr to read the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee’s report, which specifically talks about low-emission vehicles. As he will know, there are schemes around the country that can be used as examples of good practice, such as the hydrogen buses in Aberdeen and the electric buses in Edinburgh. We looked at the area. I thank him for that very useful intervention.

According to figures from Transport Scotland, there has been a 10 per cent decline in bus usage in the past five years, so it is hard to see how a considerable shift away from private cars can be achieved. In rural areas, people tell us that they need their cars to get around, so modal shift needs to be accompanied by changes to the timetabling of bus services in rural communities, with frequent, reliable services being on offer.

We realise that the agriculture sector faces huge challenges when it comes to decarbonisation. However, many have taken steps to mitigate climate change through, for example, peatland restoration and renewable energy, and through forestry schemes—although it is acknowledged that much more can and should be done to support farmers and landowners to plant trees. Edward Mountain touched on that issue, too. We have to plant more trees—we know that. We have missed our targets year on year. There are various reasons for that, but we understand them and have now put plans in place to address them and to improve planting rates in future. The committee will continue to scrutinise that area.

My constituency is home to the flow country, which is the biggest blanket bog in the world and has been referred to as the “Amazon of the northern hemisphere” because of the amount of carbon that it sequesters. At this point, I pay tribute to my predecessor, Rob Gibson—the moss boss—for his tireless promotion of peatland areas. I also welcome the additional £8 million in the Scottish Government’s budget to help restore peatlands, protect wildlife and sustain tourism and rural jobs.

The cabinet secretary has made clear her commitment to listen to all the feedback, consider each report in detail and bring the issue back to Parliament before the final draft. I look forward to engaging with her further on such a vital issue. It has been said that the climate change plan was “half baked”. If we are going to put it in a cooking context, I would say that the ingredients are there; we just have to work to get the amounts correct in order for the recipe to work.

15:41  

As the months and years proceed, it becomes clearer that, while the conditions for tackling climate change in a democracy demand that we win over—and so change—public opinion and, in turn, transform individual patterns of behaviour, the driving force for that change will be found, first and foremost, in the means of production, distribution and exchange in the economy. In turn, that will come down to who owns and controls those means and systems.

It becomes clearer, too, that we have to say farewell to the creed that a high rate of consumption equals a high standard of living, because it is no longer valid—if it ever was. We will have to leave behind the very philosophy that underpins the acquisitive society, and we will have to put great science in the service of the people rather than have people being subservient to great science. In so doing, we have to plan a sustainable alternative to the irresistible march of materialism.

The Government has brought forward its latest climate change plan, based on a new model: the TIMES model. To the cabinet secretary and her ministerial team, I say that calling it—if I may quote their words—a “high-level strategic model” is no doubt designed to impress us, but it remains no more than a model. It is based on a set of assumptions that run according to specially designed weightings, which are constructed with theoretical abstractions and held together with linkages from one to the other. It is also a model with many vital parts missing—agriculture, transport, waste and others. We should take heed of the words of the mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, who, almost a century ago, warned people who used such models of the “fallacy of misplaced concreteness”. The TIMES model should be a guide, or a tool—but it should inform, not dictate, public policy.

Therefore, when we read warnings that the model’s outputs are rigged or, in the more diplomatic words of WWF,

“the back loaded profile of low carbon heat is a result of constraints imposed on the TIMES model by the Scottish Government”

it is right that, this afternoon, we seriously question the suggestion by the Scottish Government that we can move from 80 per cent of Scotland’s domestic heating being supplied from mains gas in 2017 to 80 per cent of our domestic heating being supplied from low-carbon technology by 2032.

It is right that we question it further when the Government does not propose to begin any of that work in earnest until 2025. When the Minister for Business, Innovation and Energy was before the Economy, Jobs and Fair Work Committee, I put it to him that it seems that he will be

“jogging between now and 2025 and sprinting flat out between 2025 and 2032.”—[Official Report, Economy, Jobs and Fair Work Committee, 21 February 2017; c 51.]

As someone pointed out to me—continuing the metaphor—it also seems that he will be stopping for a lengthy fag break in between his jog and his sprint because, according to the published plan, low-carbon heat will be stuck at 18 per cent between 2020 and 2025.

I point out to Mr Leonard that I do not smoke and I do not jog.

When I answered the question that he put to me in committee, I also made the point that we have to develop a supply chain and build the skills base in order that we can roll out the single biggest programme—it is massive—of energy efficiency investment in Scotland’s history. That will also require—dare I say it, to those who are in favour of Brexit?—a supply of skills from the continent. Where will the plumbers come from who used to come here from Poland? What about the people of other nationalities who have been instrumental in helping our construction sector in recent years?

The committee concluded that the Scottish Government should not back-load the domestic and non-domestic heat conversion plan, but should front-load it.

I say in all sincerity to the Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform that she should not be worried about achieving our climate change goals too quickly or that people would be taken by surprise by an environmental coup d’état. Neither she nor the rest of us should live in fear of too much vitality; rather, we should fear too little vitality. Just look at the abject failure to meet our fuel poverty targets. As a consequence, we need rising investment in energy efficiency, not stand-still investment in energy efficiency.

As I have said to the Government many times, it should, working with the trade unions and industry, start to prepare the skill sets of our workers for the new jobs. It should also start to equip our manufacturing industries’ supply chain to provide those new jobs. It is not enough to show political leadership and bold ambition; we need economic leadership and a credible plan, as well.

Please close.

A clear plan for jobs would provide real hope. A radical—but credible—plan, driven by uncompromising leadership, with real hope, would get us the change that we need, which would be achieved in the interests of working people and for the common good.

I remind members how short of time we are. If members go over their time, that will be taken from colleagues.

15:46  

Richard Leonard quoted Alfred Whitehead. Lord Whitehead also said:

“all of our choices and actions have consequences for the world around us.”

I think that we can all agree with that, because we are talking about the anthropogenic effects on climate change.

I am particularly interested in the one-by-one approach. In other words, it is all very well having in place the technology and having the Government take actions but, ultimately, it will require each individual in our society—one by one—to identify actions that they can take to help the climate change agenda.

This week, I am contributing a little bit to active travel. So far, I have walked 17 miles. That is not a huge amount—although it sounds a lot when you add up the miles day by day—but it is better than getting the taxi up to the station every day. Walking helps me to become a little bit fitter and it is better for the climate.

Individual behaviours present significant challenges. When I first came to Parliament, I drove 40,000 miles a year; now I drive 7,000 or 8,000 miles a year. I represent a rural constituency, so I cannot eliminate all car use, but I now use the train in a way that I certainly did not previously.

Will Stewart Stevenson take an intervention?

He will not.

Thanks to the free bus pass that was introduced by a previous Labour-Liberal Administration, I use the bus, too.

Gordon Lindhurst was quite wrong when he said that the whole world recognises the problem of climate change. Only yesterday, the President of the United States, Donald Trump, cut the Environmental Protection Agency budget by 31 per cent—the biggest cut in his proposed budget of any part of public administration in the United States. He has populated the agency with a raft of climate change deniers and we are days away from their resiling from the signing of the Paris agreement on climate change.

We are in a territory of unprecedented challenge over which we have little control, so it is important that we do the best and the most that we possibly can. So far, so good. It is great that we reached our 2020 targets years ahead of the plan. The 66 per cent target that we are setting for 2032 is ambitious, and the next part of our implementation of climate change plans will be more challenging than the parts that we have already undertaken.

I am of the age at which, on a day when I feel a little bit lower than I am today—today, I have a spring in my step—I might give some thought to what my obituary might say. It might describe me as the minister for snow—a title given to me because the weather forecast was 0.4°C out and therefore et cetera—but I hope that it might also say that I was the minister who took the Climate Change (Scotland) Bill through Parliament. That bill was very important for Parliament, because we passed it absolutely unanimously, so I hope that as we look at the draft climate change plan—capable of improvement as it undoubtedly is—we can achieve the unanimity that will help to take us forward.

Some of the issues that are discussed in the plan and which have come up in the debate relate to technological solutions. We must encourage every possible technological opportunity that will help the agenda—not only because it will help the agenda but because our taking the initiative creates business opportunities for us. Carbon capture and storage is one such opportunity—especially with regard to gas-powered stations. We need to get off gas, but while we have it, we will be able to use it more efficiently and with a much smaller carbon footprint.

I should, however, enter a couple of caveats. The use of low-emission vehicles, in particular those that are electrically powered, raises significant challenges in the medium term, because the world is now beginning to see a limitation, with regard to the amount of lithium that exists. The technology for batteries—lithium-ion technology—has not really changed much in 30 years. Lots of good things are happening in the laboratory; nanocarbon cathodes, in particular, might help, although there are still issues with the acid burning them away. I hope that technology can help.

I want to close by quoting John Gummer, from the Committee for Climate Change, who said yesterday:

“Over the past eight years measures to combat global warming have cut carbon emissions without raising”

any

“electricity bills for UK households.”

There are many myths around, and we have to demolish them. We have a lot of work to do, but I know that the Government will want to do it.

15:52  

Finding out that the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee was to review the draft climate change plan came as a welcome and pleasant surprise. I know that Edward Mountain has spoken on the committee’s behalf, but I want to add some of my own thoughts, as a member of that committee. The committee covered agriculture, transport and forestry, and I want to share some of the evidence that we took on those three topics in the hope that it might inform, influence and guide the Government in its plan.

I welcome many of the Scottish Government’s measures to reduce carbon emissions across agriculture, transport and forestry, and I think that we will all agree that everyone has a role to play in that respect. However, it is important to note in the debate that there are many jobs, livelihoods and microeconomies in those three sectors. Farmers, for example, are having to balance the need to make ends meet with the needs of a sustainable economy. I therefore welcome the approach of the Cabinet Secretary for the Rural Economy and Connectivity, who prefers to encourage rather than to enforce behavioural change. However, as the committee noted, the Government ought to reserve the right to take further steps if voluntary measures do not succeed.

We also took substantial evidence that, in my view, laid bare a lack of clarity around carbon reductions. In forestry, for example, not only are we missing planting targets, but thought must be given to the types of trees that are being planted and, more important, where they are being planted. The James Hutton Institute noted that achieving planting targets does not always equate to meeting CO₂ reduction targets. In fact, going further, it felt that the climate change plan presents no real target for an emissions reduction to be achieved through planting. It is no great secret that, by 2050, the UK might be importing up to 80 per cent of its timber requirements, so planting targets are about much more than just climate change.

On transport, much was said about the Government’s forecasts for, and assumptions about, take-up of low-emission and electric vehicles. In his evidence to the committee on 8 February, Professor Tom Rye said, in effect, that policy must support ambition. We took evidence on Norway, where the Government has been able to convert its ambition for take-up of low-emission vehicles through a series of consumer policies. Low-emission vehicle purchases are commonplace in Norway, but that situation did not come about simply by asking or willing people to change. The Government introduced a series of measures to attract ownership of such vehicles, including zero purchase tax, reduced road tax, free public parking, no VAT, no toll fees, free access to bus lanes and so on. Not all those measures would be universally popular or right for Scotland, and some of them might have financial implications for the public purse, but simply wishing something to happen does not make it happen.

We cannot rely on the environmental kindness of consumers in getting them to change their cars. There must be a win-win if widespread change is to be a realistic goal. Equally, we cannot rely on people’s love of the environment to get them out of their cars and on to public transport. In many rural areas, such as the one in the west of Scotland where I live, having a car is simply a necessity.

However, innovating for sustainability and consumer innovation are not mutually exclusive. New technologies such as smart metering are reshaping consumer behaviour in home energy. In agriculture, global positioning system technology and improvements in timber-felling technology are vastly improving what were previously quite onerous processes.

Technology is similarly suited to improving public transport. Phil Matthews of Transform Scotland told the committee that improved information sharing with the public—for example, through apps that show bus arrival times—will contribute to getting people on to public transport, but even he admitted that targets in the plan are predicated on a range of unknowns. He said:

“There are technological unknowns and ... a lot of the possible actions are predicated on action that is completely outwith the control of the Scottish Parliament.”—[Official Report, Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee, 8 February 2017; c 11.]

In summary, I say that I would like to think that the Scottish Government will reflect and duly act on all the suggestions of the various committees whose members have taken part in today’s debate, and that it will listen to the experts and the stakeholders, many of whom are the people who would be most directly affected by the policy implications of the plan.

I do not want to cut the speaking times of members who will close for their committees, so I ask the remaining speakers to aim for speeches of four and a half minutes.

15:57  

Given the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee’s wide remit in relation to the draft climate change plan, it is impossible to cover all the issues that our report raises in such a short speech, especially when I have only four and a half minutes. I will endeavour to cover what I can.

As we have heard from the convener of the ECCLR Committee and other committee members, there is a general chorus of welcome for the ambitious targets for peatland restoration and for the wider benefits for water and air quality, biodiversity and flood prevention, as well as the jobs, that that will bring.

Yesterday’s announcement that the peatlands action fund is open for funding applications and that it will deliver an £8 million investment to restore peatlands and to help to reduce emissions is heartening, and it will help the Scottish Government to deliver on its proposals to restore 250,000 hectares of peatlands by 2032. Around 1.7 million hectares of Scotland is covered in peatlands, and keeping them well maintained mitigates climate change by locking in carbon. The peatland restoration work that has been funded by the Government since 2013 has already transformed more than 10,000 hectares, and I was pleased to see at first hand the restoration of peat bog on the Slamannan plateau to the south-west of Falkirk late last year.

As we learned in a presentation by Andrew McBride of SNH at the excellent event that was hosted by my colleague Graeme Dey on Tuesday night, if the peatlands are left in a degraded condition, they produce greenhouse gas emissions rather than acting as a sink for soaking up carbon. With the extra funding from the Government, we are heading in the right direction, although there is no doubt that there is more to do.

Our committee has suggested in its report that the Scottish Government should explore how it can use its powers to prevent peat-based products from being sold in Scotland. During our evidence-taking session with the cabinet secretary, I suggested that there should be a levy or tax on the use of peat for horticultural use, in line with the campaign that was started in 2011 by the RSPB, the Scottish Wildlife Trust, Buglife and Plantlife, to name just a handful of the non-governmental organisations involved. The cabinet secretary will recall that she responded by saying that she did not think that we had the power in Scotland to introduce such a tax or levy. I might be naive in saying so, as I do not know for sure what the position is, but, given that we could legislate to introduce a carrier bag charge, surely we have the power to introduce some form of disincentive to using peat for horticultural use.

There was consensus among the witnesses at our evidence-taking sessions that the horticultural use of peat should be prohibited. Pete Smith, professor of soils and global change at the University of Aberdeen, agreed. He said:

“I think that that sort of activity is inconsistent with our climate targets. Just as the UK has moved to phase out coal, we ought, in my opinion, to have a plan to phase out the horticultural use of peats.”—[Official Report, Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee, 7 February 2017; c 49.]

As discussed at the question and answer session after the Scottish Natural Heritage event on Tuesday night, there are plenty of alternatives to peat composting. Many peat-free composts, such as commercial green compost, wood brush and forestry waste work as effectively as peat ones. We cannot on the one hand claim to be a world-leading country when it comes to climate change but, on the other hand, stand idly by and watch some of our high-carbon specialist habitats—our rainforest equivalent—being ripped up and squandered. An added incentive would be for the proceeds from any levy to be used towards the estimated £16 million a year that is required to meet the annual peatland restoration target of 20,000 hectares a year.

I realise that time is tight, given that there are so many speakers in the debate, so in closing I would like to touch on the very welcome, all-singing, all-dancing TIMES model, which was used to model future greenhouse gas emissions from each sector of the economy. However, it was not as all singing and all dancing as our committee and some non-governmental organisations out there would have liked, although it is fair to say that, despite some comments in the chamber this afternoon, everyone is impressed with the TIMES model and recognises the significant improvement on the approach that was used for RPP1 and RPP2. Without any doubt, the Scottish Government is right to use TIMES for RPP3 and to develop it for RPP4. However, the committee noted that there were issues with the lack of transparency in the TIMES model that wiII make it difficult to determine whether the emissions reductions in the finalised plan have been sufficient.

If our Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee and the Scottish Parliament as a whole are to come to a view on how robust and achievable the final climate change plan is, we must have considerably more data around some of the specific measures. I look forward to the final RPP3 climate change plan being laid in Parliament once those issues have been taken on board. Along with the energy strategy, it will deliver a low-carbon transition for Scotland that promotes social inclusion and sustainable growth.

16:01  

I will focus my comments on two areas where we need real action: energy and transport. Fundamental to the whole issue of energy provision is the ownership and control of energy supply. In recent years, Scotland has been at the forefront of renewables development, but it is in that area that l believe we have seen one of the greatest missed opportunities of our times.

The development of wind energy has been dominated by multinationals and venture capital firms—and indeed Tory MSPs—that see Scotland’s wind as their latest commodity and will do whatever it takes, including trampling over the concerns of communities, to take advantage of the significant profits that are open to them. Community benefit schemes exist, as does limited shared ownership, but the sums involved are a drop in the ocean compared with the money that is being made by the big European companies that dominate the scene.

We could have had those projects owned and operated collectively by the community, with public investment by councils, the Forestry Commission, national health service pension funds, credit union reserves, communities and others returning profits to the public services, allowing for investment in jobs and for the common good. Instead we see with every turn of a turbine scarce cash fluttering off to the boardrooms of Paris, Frankfurt and Madrid. It could all have been so different, but we still have time to prevent any new renewables developments going the same way. I will not hold my breath on that, but I live in hope.

I turn to transport, and to the emissions related to air travel. The Scottish Government simply cannot demonstrate how it will tackle the increased emissions that will come from its proposal to slash, then ditch, air passenger duty. Putting aside tax breaks for business flyers and a loss of tax revenues to the public purse, on environmental grounds alone it is absurd to remove air passenger duty.

The 2014 Transport Scotland study on the impact that a reduction on APD would make noted that business air travel is inelastic to a change in prices. In other words, journeys by air can generally not be replaced by another form of transport. Leisure air travel is income elastic—a luxury—so price is more sensitive and, if price reduces, demand is likely to increase. The policy change will reduce Government revenue, it will benefit the people who can already afford to travel by air, and who may travel more often by air, and it will be detrimental to the environment.

On which planet is that a sensible policy choice? The negative impact has been acknowledged by committee members, Transport Scotland and environmental groups. When the committee questioned the Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform on the negative environmental impact of air travel expansion due to the slashing of APD, she repeatedly failed to provide the detail. The cabinet secretary cannot explain which other sectors will need additional reductions to compensate for the increase in emissions from air travel.

In line with Scottish Government policy, Edinburgh Airport is currently seeking airport expansion, despite the fact that the airport is nowhere near capacity. In West Lothian, we see huge opposition to those plans. We have the dripping hypocrisy of two cabinet ministers representing that area sitting around the cabinet table agreeing a policy of airport expansion and a policy of cutting and then eradicating air passenger duty, then going out into the community pretending that they are the champions of that community opposing airport expansion—hypocrisy is what it is.

The Scottish Government’s own advisers on climate change advise a 22 per cent greater overall reduction in transport emissions than the draft plan proposes. I have watched the minister during this debate—she can throw tantrums, she can wave her hands, she can scowl and she can try to release a shoal of red herrings to cover the reality, but the Air Passenger Tax (Scotland) Bill is the environmental equivalent of pouring gallons of petrol on a burning inferno. It makes no sense whatsover. The quicker the Government scraps that plan, the better it will be for everyone.

16:06  

The mistake that Mr Findlay makes is forgetting about the public and forgetting that we live in a democracy. To move this agenda forward, we need to take the public with us.

I have the privilege of being a member of two of the four committees that looked at the draft climate change plan—

Will the minister take an intervention?

Certainly not.

I am on the Economy, Jobs and Fair Work Committee and the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I make no criticism of you, Presiding Officer; I make a criticism of the way in which the debate has been timetabled. The credibility of this Parliament is at stake when we have debates that are curtailed and which are not debates—all they are is a series of speeches.

Mr Findlay, that is not a point of order. I suggest that you take that up with your business manager.

All the business managers.

Mr Findlay would gain more respect if he had a little bit more respect for this Parliament as a whole.

As I said, I am on two of the committees involved, and it is good that the committees have taken slightly different angles on the report. That is healthy. I am a great believer in the committee system and it does well as long as members are not too tribal.

The EU has clearly had a significant role in driving the climate change environment agenda, and there has to be concern whether, if that healthy pressure from the EU is removed, we will continue without it.

I will mention three points that were of interest to both committees. The first is the very tight 60-day timescale, which put pressure on the clerks and SPICe, on the committees, and on the Government to respond to the points that were raised by the committees. The REC Committee asked for 120 days; the Economy, Jobs and Fair Work Committee just asked for more time.

Hydrogen was an interesting issue that came up at both committees, in relation to heating homes and running transport. My gut feeling is that hydrogen is worth exploring a lot more, because it seems to offer a flexibility that electricity struggles to do, as Stewart Stevenson described with regard to batteries.

Thirdly, there was a desire for more detail, which has been referred to already.

For the Economy, Jobs and Fair Work Committee, the district heating systems seemed very attractive. The committee had a useful visit to Dundee, where the system appeared to be working very well in the multistorey flats at Lochee. It was a fairly straightforward system because the council seemed to own all the properties; I think that SSE was its partner. By contrast, the district heating system in the Commonwealth games village in my constituency seems to be very complex, and the residents are not convinced about it. Multiple organisations operate and maintain it, with three housing associations and the occupiers all being charged by different methods.

Given that the United Kingdom and Scotland have a fairly well-developed mains gas network and fairly efficient domestic boilers, witnesses suggested that using alternative gas—probably hydrogen—might be a good way forward using the existing infrastructure. We need to decide on that before 2025, as the timescale on which people replace and keep their boilers is quite long.

The energy efficiency of homes—especially existing homes—is a big challenge. The plan says that 80 per cent of housing will still be in use in 2050. A constituency such as mine has many older tenements. There is a need to plan for both the private rented sector and the owner-occupier sector.

Although homes are fairly standard in one sense, commercial and public buildings are much more varied, and it will be very challenging to make them more energy efficient.

It has already been mentioned that we looked at transport in the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee. There was quite a lot of discussion about whether we should aim purely for electric vehicles or also for vehicles with other low-emission fuels. As Jamie Greene said, there has been a big growth on the electric side in Norway as a result of a lot of subsidies. It was encouraging to hear that Aberdeen is experimenting with hydrogen for buses. The bus companies tell us that, currently, they cannot have batteries that will last all day for a particular bus. That is what puts me off having an electric car: I would not be able to go a long distance without having to recharge it.

There was a bit of uncertainty about the growth in demand for transport and whether there is a 27 per cent assumption or target. Maybe that can be clarified.

16:11  

As in any debate about land use and climate change, I begin by declaring an interest as a farmer and owner of peatland.

I want to talk specifically about transport and the rather dismaying views of the committees on the Scottish Government’s lack of consistent methodology, modelling and transparency in its draft climate change plan. It would be bad enough if it was the view of only the four committees that the draft plan lacks vision, ambition and policy focus with regard to transport, agriculture and the built environment, but the cabinet secretary will be aware that the briefings that we have received from the NGOs all appear to share that view. All four committees, having criticised the draft plan, have declared their intention to revisit the substantial issues that have been raised and to add doing so to their already substantial workloads. That is almost unheard of. The Government should take very careful note of that.

I turn specifically to the Scottish Government’s lack of ambition for transport. It appears to me that there is a glaring lack of ambition on car usage. The UK Committee on Climate Change believes that a 12 per cent reduction in kilometres travelled by car is possible by 2030, but the Scottish Government expects a 27 per cent growth in distances travelled over the same period. Worse still, the Committee on Climate Change envisages that electric vehicles will account for 60 per cent of new sales of cars and vans by 2030, but our Government’s plan foresees less than half of that percentage for sales of electric vehicles, at only 27 per cent. Why is the Scottish Government shying away from seeking to achieve the same targets for electric vehicles as Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands are? It usually seeks to emulate their best practice. Is that because it is not prepared to make the investment to bring about such change—for example, by installing sufficient charging points or creating incentives to encourage the increased usage of ultra-low-emission vehicles?

Recently, in discussion with a transport expert, it was suggested to me that one way to increase the usage of low-emission vehicles is to place charged-battery swapping points strategically around Scotland. Instead of a person stopping for an hour—or two or three—to charge up their car’s battery, they could swap it for an identical one that is already fully charged. That would increase the range, reliability and flexibility of low-emission electric vehicles. The development of standardised batteries that could be easily and reliably swapped over at recharging stations would be required, of course, but such a move could overcome the fear of many of being left stranded in an electric vehicle with a flat battery.

On the subject of increasing the energy efficiency of future vehicles, lessons should be learned from the aircraft manufacturing industry. Composites are already the new material of choice in the aircraft of the future. Although that new, lightweight, laminated, carbon-based material is still expensive, it will be more readily available to car manufacturers in future. As it does for aircraft in the aircraft manufacturing industry, it will reduce the weight of new cars that use it and increase the range and efficiency of vehicles.

Modal shift must also be encouraged in order to decongest our already overburdened motorway networks. That is about making our trains and buses more attractive to lifelong car users like me.

Tipping points in modal shift will come if pursued by the Government, but they must be achieved by incentivising the travelling consumer to the point at which for many, modal shift becomes the only sensible option. For me, and others of my age group, modal shift is also about walking or cycling when, previously, taking the car would have been the preferred option. Combined with health messages about obesity and the rise of type 2 diabetes, exercise—the new wonder drug for the baby boomers—will also drive change and physical modal shift, as well as prolonging active life.

It is time to be bold about Scotland’s further carbon reduction potential, and the cabinet secretary’s leadership is vital in explaining, encouraging and delivering such a vision for Scotland. More needs to be done and we look forward to an update before the summer recess.

16:15  

I congratulate the Government on publishing its draft climate change plan. I commend the work of the committees and others in shaping it.

It was great to start the process of reading and reviewing the draft climate change plan having taken evidence from the chair of the Committee on Climate Change, who said that there is no doubt that

“Scotland is doing better than any other part of the United Kingdom”.—[Official Report, Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee, 13 September 2016; c 3.]

I want to frame my argument in terms of human choices and behaviour. It is good to have members of four different committees in the chamber today, all of whom have looked at the different policies in different ways. However, to move the debate on, it is critical that we look at cultural and societal shifts and how we influence people’s behaviour. Policies only go so far—they can influence behaviour, but there are other things that change habits.

If I look back over my lifetime and consider the habits that have changed across society over the past 26 years, I see that there have been quite a number of changes—people have chosen to change their individual habits and there have been changes across communities and society as a whole.

The draft climate change plan includes the individual, social and material, or ISM, approach—the three different contexts that influence people’s behaviour. At the individual level, it is about influencing an individual’s values, attitudes and skills. The social context includes factors such as the influence of networks, relationships and social norms. The material context covers factors such as infrastructure, technologies and regulations. All three complement each other and are necessary to change the culture to one in which we recognise climate change and take positive action, individually or as groups, to reduce its impact.

I will briefly talk through the three contexts. In the individual context, education and factual information are so important, starting from for the very youngest children at nursery. It is also important to help people to see that they have a personal stake in climate change—in other words, that if we do not act, it will affect us, as it is already affecting us, and the next generation. That can be done indirectly: in the Highlands, for example, the creation of thousands of jobs in the renewables industry helps to ensure that there is greater awareness than ever of climate change. Individuals are taking positive action against climate change. There are a number of businesses in my constituency, such as the Glenuig Inn, which I have mentioned before, that have chosen to rely entirely on renewable energy.

The second context is the social, which is where charities, non-profit organisations and even religious organisations taking positive steps to influence and incorporate climate change into their overall message or mission statement is important. I have even heard of eco-congregations—the eco-congregation scheme is a programme to enthuse and equip churches.

The final context is material, which is primarily the role of government—but not just the Scottish Government. There needs to be a co-operative and collaborative approach with local authorities and other public bodies. There was excellent work in the past, when local authorities drafted the Scottish climate change declaration. Since then, emissions that are directly attributable to local authorities have dropped significantly. We need to work with Governments across Europe and the world to establish best practice and share ideas.

Something that I most appreciate in the draft plan is the emphasis on community. The Scottish Government funds the climate challenge fund, which has awarded £75.7 million to 588 communities, to reduce carbon emissions locally. Such an approach gives people the opportunity to identify how they can play their part and have a stake in the future.

It is important that we focus on changing people’s behaviour if we want a long-term impact.

16:20  

The Scottish Government’s draft climate change plan is simply not good enough. That is not just the view of the Liberal Democrats; it is highlighted again and again in the committee reports that we debate today. The draft plan lacks ambition. The Scottish Government is simply not clear enough, even when it outlines what it wants to achieve.

I will concentrate on the report of the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee, of which I am a member, and within that, I will focus on transport. For me, the biggest elephant in the room is the colossal amount of carbon emissions that will occur as a result of the Scottish Government’s aim of cutting air passenger duty to encourage more flights. Witnesses to the committee were concerned that cutting air passenger duty would have a detrimental effect on carbon emissions and reduce demand for rail travel. I was particularly concerned when the transport minister himself responded that increased emissions were “a possibility”.

The committee was polite in its conclusions on the point. Edward Mountain is always a polite and effective convener in getting everyone on the committee to agree 100 per cent. We said:

“The Committee recommends that the potentially negative impact on carbon levels as a result of the proposed reduction in air passenger duty should be clearly covered in the CCP.”

It is not covered, of course, because that would be embarrassing for the Government—

Rubbish.

Well, it would be embarrassing for the Government. That is why it is not there. Why is it embarrassing? Because air travel is the highest emitter of carbon dioxide per passenger kilometre.

I do not understand why the member thinks that it would be embarrassing. Clearly there are pluses and minuses in the whole scheme, and if we have a plus in one area we just have something to counteract it.

If that is the case, why does the Government not want to mention its policy in the draft plan, when it knows that it will be really important? Air travel is the only sector in Scotland in which emissions have risen significantly over the past 20 years, and pumping an estimated 60,000 tonnes of carbon into Scotland’s air each year will not exactly help the situation.

I think that I hit a nerve when I intervened during the minister’s speech because, rather than address my question, she accused me of being deaf, which was obviously meant as an insult. I thought that ministers were here to answer our questions, rather than hurl insults about the chamber.

I want to turn to another aspect of transport policy that the committee highlighted in its report. The Government’s agency, Transport Scotland, starts with an assumption that there will be 27 per cent more car use in 2035 than there is today. Rather than tackle the causes of demand growth in car travel, the draft climate change plan seems to accept such growth in car use as a given. How utterly complacent.

Bus travel is an issue that I particularly wanted to raise in the committee, because it is important. The committee noted:

“the draft CCP does not mention supporting bus companies ... to a level necessary to reverse the decline in bus patronage.”

At the very time when the Scottish Government needs to be expanding free bus travel, we understand that it is considering raising the age of eligibility for free bus travel. I know that the Government is not clear about its plans and, I assume, will not be clear about its plans until after 4 May, but it really should be expanding the programme and not thinking of curtailing or reducing eligibility for it.

I was surprised that, in evidence to the committee, the transport minister said that he thought that the free bus pass policy was not working because people had not given up their cars. I pointed out to him that that was not the point of the policy. The free bus pass, introduced by the Labour and Liberal Democrat coalition, has been a tremendous success as it was designed to encourage people to use public transport more. It was never designed to replace the car, but to reduce car use, and I thought that the transport minister might have understood that. The policy wins for everyone. It reduces the environmental impact of car journeys, it reduces congestion in our cities and towns, and it is enormously helpful in getting more people out and about. It is a success story so, far from proposing to raise the age, we should be encouraging the use of the free bus pass and I urge the Government to rethink that.

Come to a close please.

There is a huge amount to cover in the draft climate change plan but, as you have just pointed out Presiding Officer, time is too short. Suffice it to say that we consider the plan to be far too timid, lacking in vision, and completely lacking in ambition. If I were marking the progress card of the Scottish Government, I would say that it could do so much better.

16:26  

This is one of the most important debates that Parliament can engage in. I thank all the committees that have produced reports, particularly the two committees on which I serve: the Economy, Jobs and Fair Work—and energy—Committee, which is the name that I would like to give it, and the Local Government and Communities Committee.

The significance of the topic has been made clear in the debate and it is clear to everyone that the Paris targets of 2015 commit us to no more than a 2°C rise in global temperatures and to pursue a target of no more than a 1.5°C rise.

Having ratified the Paris agreement, countries are now faced with the prospect of having to deliver. Are they taking all the steps necessary to achieve that? The short answer is no, and neither is Scotland, although we have a class-leading climate change act and have and are reducing emissions. The actions required to hold to a 2°C rise fall outside the bounds of conventional politics in most countries. We say that 2°C is acceptable, but we do not act as though it is.

As the Oil Change International report said last year, to meet a 2°C or a 1.5°C global warming target, global emissions need to peak now and they need to begin declining immediately. Therefore, and as the Greens have made clear, we need to leave two thirds of hydrocarbons in the ground. That means no more drilling west of Shetland, no more exploration around Rockall, and no more development of existing reserves. Indeed, it means ceasing all fossil fuel development and, above all, it means no fracking.

Scottish ambitions are nevertheless welcome, to the extent that we can take action. The range of committee reports and the measures in the draft climate change plan are all extremely welcome. However, as all the reports say, we need to be clearer about how we get to the targets for 2032, and we particularly need greater transparency. We have heard this afternoon about the constraints placed on the model. I am particularly interested in the constraints that were placed on agriculture and land use, and I have submitted a freedom of information request about that. I look forward to hearing further about how that particular constraint was established.

I want to highlight a few points about energy. The Economy, Jobs and Fair Work Committee looked at the question of carbon capture and storage, made a few points about whether it was practicable, and said that it should be explored. The report noted that the role of CCS is unproven but that it could have a role. This morning, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy published new energy projections that do not assume much carbon capture and storage in the timeframe of our climate change plan. It would be helpful if the Government could run the model again with carbon capture and storage stripped out.

On electricity, the Scottish Government wants additional thermal capacity. National Grid said that that was not necessary. For the purposes of mitigating climate change, it is not clear whether it is indeed necessary.

We looked at the target of a 6 per cent reduction in heat demand by 2032. That is lacking in ambition because it is a reduction on projected demands by 2032. I am sceptical about that and note that significant changes are required, particularly in terms of low-carbon heat.

We looked at homes and housing in the Local Government and Communities Committee, which is seeking explanations from the Government about slow progress. As WWF noted in its evidence to the committee,

“Regulation of the private rented and owner occupied sectors has been long promised but remains undelivered, despite the relevant ministerial powers having been created in 2009 ... It featured as a potential enabling measure as far back as RPP1, was included as a concrete proposal in RPP2 and developed with stakeholders to the detailed pre-consultation phase to the REEPS [regulation of energy efficiency in private sector homes] working group in the last Parliament.”

It is urgent that we bring forward such a scheme. It should be fairly straightforward to uprate home reports to ensure that energy efficiency targets and carbon budgets are contained within them, to include statutory minimum requirements to bring buildings up to a specified standard, and to insist that that is done at the point of sale. The cost would be built into the price that buyers pay. It underpins the importance of getting private as well as public capital into the programme.

We had a brief look at how the planning system can contribute. Only one page out of 170 in the climate change report is on planning. It says that that is another essential element of the Scottish Government’s approach to meeting climate change targets, and we agree. We advocate that, in the forthcoming planning bill, we build in the goal of mitigating climate change as a core purpose of the planning framework.

I am very pleased that Parliament has undertaken the best scrutiny possible in the time available. I echo the calls in all the committee reports that a bit more time is necessary next time.

The Green Party will continue to engage constructively with the Scottish Government on mitigating climate change.

16:31  

This has been an excellent debate with thoughtful and insightful contributions from across the chamber. I particularly thank the members of the ECCLR Committee, of which I am a member, and the clerks for their hard work and dedication in preparing the report on the draft climate change plan. I also acknowledge the work that has been done by all the other committees that have been scrutinising the plan.

Climate change is here today—the impacts do not exist in some sci-fi future. They are here, they are now, they are observable and they are scientifically verifiable. They are also inevitable—unless we take action now. We might be choking in the smog of Los Angeles or watching acid rain fall in the frozen forests of Siberia—climate change recognises no borders, salutes no flags and upholds no laws. As Al Gore made clear in “An Inconvenient Truth”, meeting the challenge of climate change is technologically feasible and economically rational.

A sustainable Scotland needs to banish poor air quality, which is a relic of the Victorian era. We all know that toxic diesel fumes harm our children, the elderly and the ill, and that they disproportionately hit people who live in disadvantaged urban areas. We already know what works: boosting energy efficiency and tackling fuel poverty, investing in public transport and active travel, and changing behaviours.

That is the big picture. What about the plan itself? There are a number of assumptions in the modelling of the climate change plan. One is that the emissions trading scheme will continue and the second is that carbon capture and storage will continue to play a key role in the future. The EU emissions trading scheme is, as members will know, the first and largest gas emissions trading scheme in the world. Its membership—the clue is in its name—comprises the 28 EU members and the three European Economic Area and European Free Trade Association members, which are Norway, Lichtenstein and Iceland. ETS membership will clearly be a negotiating point in the Brexit discussions, but there is no guarantee that a post-Brexit agreement will have Scotland in continuing membership. Has the cabinet secretary had any discussions with the UK Government about the EU ETS? Perhaps the minister can tell us in his winding-up speech. Would a UK scheme be feasible? We also know, as has been evidenced to the ECCLR Committee, that a larger scheme is better. Currently, the ETS covers about 40 per cent of UK emissions from the heavy polluters.

What about carbon capture and storage? Is it still feasible to have such heavy reliance on CCS in the climate change plan, when the UK Government is pulling the £1 billion funding? Again, I would welcome hearing the minister’s comments on that in his closing speech.

It has been an interesting debate. It was opened by the convener of the ECCLR Committee, which I am on, who said that the CCP is “the blueprint” for a low-carbon Scotland. He also made the point that some of the work was done outwith the TIMES model, such as the work on transport and agriculture. Other members also commented on that. He also made the point that our committee unanimously feels that compulsory soil testing on improved land is something that we could pursue. I note that there is a slight difference of opinion in some other committees.

Will the member take an intervention?

I am sorry. I would love to take Stewart Stevenson’s intervention, but I am short of time.

Gordon Lindhurst made the excellent point that behaviour change is vital to any planning in the future—we need to look at major, significant and long-lasting behaviour change. Bob Doris made a useful point about the important role of local government and about seeing local government as our climate change leaders—our champions to develop our targets. He also made the vital point that we need to look carefully at our energy efficiency plans. Edward Mountain made a good and fair speech; he spoke about the TIMES model and he raised some criticisms about the lack of baseline data, the issue of financial information and monitoring, and how it is really important to have SMART targets. He also raised concerns—as did other members—about the extent of active travel, which is a vital component.

The cabinet secretary made the useful point that of course there will be a new bill, in the light of the Paris agreement. Restoration of peatlands was a vital aspect of the point that she raised—again, that has been welcomed by the ECCLR Committee. She feels that the TIMES model is a step forward: the Scottish Government is, I think, the first Government in Europe to choose the model for live planning of climate change discussions. The cabinet secretary also raised the issue of low emissions zones which, I understand, the Government is planning to pilot in 2018.

In conclusion—I am very conscious of time—I was reading just the other day that the great military strategist Helmuth von Moltke said that

“No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.”

The enemy in this context is, of course, climate change.

I believe that the climate change plan sets out a positive vision for the future, but we need to be more ambitious, we need to have clearer actions, and we need to start now. In the words of Barack Obama,

“there is such a thing as being too late. And when it comes to climate change, that hour is almost upon us. But if we act here, if we act now, if we place our own short-term interests behind the air that our young people will breathe, and the food that they will eat, and the water that they will drink, and the hopes and dreams that sustain their lives, then we won’t be too late for them.”

16:37  

I refer members to my registered interests—in particular, those in agriculture and in renewable energy. I am glad that there has been a broad consensus within the debate that although the SNP’s targets are laudable, they are also unlikely to be delivered. Unfortunately for the cabinet secretary, the broad consensus among many members was agreement about the limitations of the plan. Many members mentioned the lack of detail and lack of information in the plan, which have made scrutiny difficult, as well as the lack of baseline data from which to move forward.

Members also spoke about the challenging timescale for scrutiny of the plans. The REC Committee—as we heard from Edward Mountain—has called for 120 days to do the work, and the other committees have also said that they would like more time.

We have heard that transport targets are unlikely to be achieved and that walking and cycling targets need to be much more ambitious. We also need to be much more ambitious in driving down the estimated 27 per cent increase in car usage that will happen over the next number of years. Many members also spoke about the limitations of the TIMES model, although the cabinet secretary defended it. There was also much criticism of the omission of any work on blue carbon—Finlay Carson certainly highlighted that.

However, to be fair, the cabinet secretary highlighted that much has already been achieved and that we are ahead of our previous targets, which is to be commended. She also argued that technology must be used to drive emissions down further. Of course that must be part of it, but my colleague Alexander Burnett and others questioned how much we can rely on technology, much of which has not even been invented yet.

Richard Leonard was very critical of the aspiration to move from using North Sea gas to hydrogen to heat our homes by 2032, saying that that is unachievable in the timescale. I tend to agree—targets are laudable, but as I have said, they are unlikely to be delivered. That is not to say that it is impossible to deliver them—only that we have seen little evidence that the Government is capable of delivering them.

I am fully committed to the need for us to improve on how we protect the environment and deal with climate change. Indeed, within agriculture—which is obviously my main interest—great strides have already been made. I remind everyone that emissions from agriculture are down 25 per cent since 1990. I reckon that that is a good result, given that everyone—including the cabinet secretary—agrees that it is more difficult to lower emissions in the agriculture sector. Much of that change has been down to successful use of improved technology. That has not just been good for the environment, but has boosted farm profitability.

There has been much discussion of the need for soil sampling. That is a conversation that we in agriculture need to have—not just because there is a mistaken determination to make soil sampling compulsory, which I do not support, but because in the right circumstances when done properly and comprehensively it pays huge dividends for farmers. Of course, sampling is just the start. The results must be acted upon and the lime, phosphate, potash and organic matter levels need to be adjusted as necessary for any benefits to be achieved. On grade 1 land, of course farmers should be sampling, but that does not apply on poor hill ground that never sees lime or fertiliser. In addition, maximising application of manures and slurries by using modern accurate machinery and then taking full account of the nutrients that have been applied can have a dramatic effect on reducing the need for bagged fertiliser.

Those are practical differences that we can make on the ground without the need for draconian penalties, because the extra work and attention delivers tangible results for our farmers. Education is the key to delivering a win for the environment and the farmers’ bottom lines.

There are also improvements that we can make in animal production, particularly in the beef and dairy sectors. For the record, I am totally opposed to the daft suggestion that telling folk to eat less Scottish beef or drink less Scottish milk will save the planet. By ensuring high health status and good animal welfare, and pushing for faster-growing stock that are taken to market as quickly as possible, we can reduce emissions in those key sectors.

Last week I discussed at length the work that has already been undertaken by Scottish farmers to boost biodiversity on their land. I am happy to say that a similar situation exists when it comes to safeguarding our environment. Farmers are contributing to our climate change targets by pioneering the new technologies that I have already spoken of, but also by restoring peat bogs and planting acres of trees. I reaffirm that we welcome the Government’s commitment to increase tree planting targets, although I add my earlier concerns regarding the likelihood of delivery of those targets.

The way to continue and improve upon that good work is through showing the benefits to our farmers and encouraging those who are sceptical of the benefits. We must raise awareness of the business benefits through education, whether that is through Scotland’s Rural College or the monitor-farm programmes, because they contribute so much to increasing farm business efficiency and profitability.

We have heard much today on the wing and a prayer method that was used in putting together the Scottish National Party’s climate change plan. It is a shame that in this policy area, on which there is much common ground across the chamber, the SNP has felt the need to rush the plan through without proper scrutiny.

Will the member take an intervention?

You were just that minute too late, Mr Dey.

I call Paul Wheelhouse—you have up to seven minutes, minister.

16:44  

Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am sure that you agree that it has been a lively and interesting debate, although not always a well-informed one. The Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 sets the timescales for consultation on the climate change plan and we all need to recognise that; 60 days is what we have to live with from the 2009 act and members across the chamber would do well to note that.

Through the delivery of the climate change plan, we will work with the Parliament and the people and businesses of Scotland to continue to drive down emissions by the equivalent of 66 per cent by 2032—an ambition which will see us not only achieve our climate change goals, but reap the many social and economic rewards. As Stewart Stevenson highlighted, we reached the 45.8 per cent target by 2014, six years early.

The draft climate change plan delivers a clear roadmap of the policy outcomes that need to be delivered, and at what scale, to hit our emissions reductions targets. The plan has at its root the robust analysis produced by TIMES, and it will be supported by our new monitoring framework.

Will the minister take an intervention?

I will just finish my point first.

Having had first-hand experience of leading the analytical work that underpinned RPP2, I know the amount of work that goes into creating a plan that addresses emissions in all areas of our society. That work is diligently done by Scottish Government officials and also involves extensive consultation. As the cabinet secretary said earlier, we have also built on the experience of the previous RPPs. However, Angus MacDonald was quite right to say that the TIMES model represents a significant step forward in the Government’s carbon planning. Members do not need to take our word for that, as Matthew Bell, the chief executive of the UK Committee on Climate Change said that

“the TIMES model is a very good, transparent and rigorous framework”.—[Official Report, Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee, 7 February 2017; c 5.]

The TIMES model has allowed us, for the first time, to make consistent judgments about where best to focus our efforts and to identify cost-effective pathways. However, we will of course consider the committees’ views on our approach as we use the model for the final plan.

Can the Government do another run of the TIMES model that removes carbon capture and storage but has increased ambition, particularly around modal shift?

It is certainly our intention to look closely at the committees’ recommendations in forming the final version of the document. I will touch on the issue of CCS later in my remarks, but the cabinet secretary will lead on that work. We will look at the work that is necessary for underpinning that document.

I will focus now on energy. The continued evolution and transformation of the energy sector in Scotland is absolutely critical to the delivery of the draft climate change plan. Scotland currently stands on an impressive record where the energy sector is concerned. The equivalent of over half of Scotland’s electricity consumption is now generated by renewable sources in Scotland. In 2015, the amount of electricity generated in Scotland by renewables equated to 59.4 per cent of the gross annual consumption of electricity in Scotland, compared to 12.2 per cent in 2000. Mr Carson, who indicated that we were missing targets, might want to note that fact, because the 2015 figure was 9.4 per cent beyond the 2015 target.

Scottish companies and research institutions are now at the forefront of innovation in renewable energy technologies and services. We are a world-leading location for the research, development and commercialisation of renewable energy. Scotland’s remote and island communities are successfully demonstrating complex, clean energy solutions. We will continue to support those developments to extend across the whole of Scotland the lessons learned. However, as I have acknowledged previously, significant challenges lie ahead if we are to continue to make progress towards meeting our ambitious climate change targets and to maximise the social and economic benefits of our transition to a low-carbon economy. Achieving our ambitions will require the belief and commitment of the members of this Parliament, our energy industry partners and the people of Scotland. It will also require ingenuity and innovation to overcome the constraints placed on us by UK Government policies.

The draft energy strategy supports the delivery of a stable, managed transition to a low-carbon economy, highlighting a range of technologies and fuels that will supply our energy needs over the coming decades. That includes a landmark proposal for a new 2030 all-energy renewables target, setting an ambitious challenge to deliver the equivalent of 50 per cent of Scotland’s energy requirements for heat, transport and electricity from renewable energy sources.

We remain committed to the development of carbon capture and storage in Scotland, despite the current setbacks and the UK Government flip-flopping on policy and funding. We believe, as do international authorities, that CCS is a cost-effective way of meeting our emissions targets. The UK Committee on Climate Change proposes CCS as an advanced way of reducing large-scale emissions, not only for the power sector but for industrial applications. Scotland is not only ideally placed to exploit renewables, but is well placed for CCS because it has the pipeline infrastructure and CO₂ storage capacity to support the development and deployment of commercial-scale CCS. However, we must protect those pipelines from early decommissioning.

Our draft energy strategy sets out a range of proposed new actions to support CCS in Scotland, including the application of bioenergy with CCS to produce negative emissions, as is set out in the draft plan. We are keen to ensure that the final climate change plan is clear about the points at which major decisions about CCS and other key technologies need to be taken and the milestones at which we anticipate key staging points in the development of those technologies.

In all our success in delivering clean energy supplies, we must acknowledge the role of the UK Government. The direction of its approach has shifted significantly since 2015 in, I would argue, a largely unhelpful direction. UK Government policy changes towards renewables and carbon capture and storage have created a huge dent in investor confidence that will be hard to regain, and the recent industrial strategy consultation was very light on energy measures.

In addition—Alexander Burnett might want to note this—it appears that the UK Government is unable to commit to publishing its emissions reductions plan, as rumours are coming out from a Tory back-bench MP that the plan might not appear until June, whereas it was originally due in 2016.

Securing safe, secure and sustainable supplies of energy in Scotland is only one part of the challenge. Transforming the way that energy is used will also be fundamental to our approach. Our vision is that, by 2050, through Scotland’s energy efficiency programme, we will have transformed the energy efficiency and heating of our buildings so that, where it is technically feasible and practical, buildings will be near to zero carbon. That will make our homes, shops, offices, schools and hospitals warmer and easier to heat, it will help to tackle fuel poverty, and it will help businesses to improve productivity and competitiveness.

We are consulting on the finer details of that approach under the energy strategy and SEEP consultations. We also have an onshore wind policy statement out for consultation, and district heating and local heat and energy efficiency plan consultations. We need to recognise that there is a lot of detail underpinning the energy strategy. The responses to those consultations will be considered as we finalise both the energy strategy and, ultimately, the climate change plan.

Securing the economic, environmental, social and commercial benefits of our new approach is a shared endeavour. Beyond the period of parliamentary scrutiny of the draft climate change plan, we will continue with the comprehensive consultation on the draft energy strategy, which closes on 30 May.

There is much else that I could say, but I have used up my time. Points were made about blue carbon, and we will be taking that forward. I point out to Conservative members that 83 per cent of all the forestry planting in 2015-16 was in Scotland.

16:51  

It is an honour to close the debate in my capacity as deputy convener of the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee. We have heard meaningful and helpful contributions on the draft third report on policies and proposals—the draft climate change plan—throughout the debate. A central tenet that we heard about from all the speakers was a commitment to recognise that climate change must be tackled and that doing so and leading the way in that process globally will mean taking some difficult and challenging decisions.

I will cover three key areas: scrutiny of the draft plan now and going forward; the contribution by the waste sector; and the contribution from the public sector. Before that, I will reflect on some of the points that were made in the debate.

Graeme Dey highlighted the need for further clarification of pathways to deliver on the plan, and he outlined issues around the application of the TIMES model. The Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform highlighted previous success in the area and believed that the use of the TIMES model should be seen as a significant step forward. She referred to a steep learning curve as regards its use but said that we should persevere with it. She also said that the emphasis on technological advancement is correct, and she summed up by concluding that we all need to work together to deliver on the plan—a point that I am sure we can all agree on.

On scrutiny, the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee welcomed the approach that brought together the expertise of four committees to critically enhance the draft plan; and, more generally, we support the mainstreaming of climate change issues in the work of the Scottish Parliament.

We heard the convener of each of the four committees outline their views. Gordon Lindhurst, speaking on behalf of the Economy, Jobs and Fair Work Committee, covered transparency, the timescale and behaviour change, and expressed a wish for more detail on budgets and timelines, before embarking, somewhat tangentially, on posing a question about whether androids sleep or indeed dream

Bob Doris, speaking on behalf of the Local Government and Communities Committee, said that we need to use the planning system to tackle climate change and highlighted concerns about how the decarbonisation of heat will be achieved.

Edward Mountain, speaking on behalf of the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee, outlined concerns about assumptions and delivery in relation to the agriculture, transport and forestry sectors.

Overall, the Scottish Government’s approach to developing the draft plan has differed from that used to create previous reports on policies and proposals. The consultation process involved hosting climate conversations with members of the public and sector-based workshops for stakeholders, as well as a stakeholder event on the draft plan as a whole. While the committee welcomes the intention in conducting a wide-ranging engagement process, it considers that it was not executed sufficiently far in advance to inform the plan or to give stakeholders confidence in the process. The committee expects the Scottish Government to engage further with stakeholders and to seek advice from the Committee on Climate Change when finalising the plan. Information on that further engagement should be included in the plan.

The committee believes that the Scottish Government’s approach of consulting on the draft energy strategy, in tandem with the parliamentary scrutiny process of the draft climate change plan, while unavoidable, was unhelpful and did not afford Parliament the opportunity to consider fully developed proposals within the draft plan. The final plan should state explicitly how the results of the draft energy strategy consultation have contributed to the plan, and it should clarify the relationship between the plan and all other relevant national strategies.

The committee plans to review the final climate change plan. It notes that it has been Scottish Government practice to present the final plan prior to the summer recess of the parliamentary year. However, given the issues identified by the stakeholders and the various committees, it encourages the Scottish Government to prioritise consideration of the matters raised by the scrutiny process over working to any deadline.

The committee looks forward to scrutinising the forthcoming Climate Change Bill, which it hopes will extend the period available to the Scottish Parliament for consideration of future reports on policies and proposals. The committee also seeks a commitment from the Scottish Government that any relevant changes to climate change legislation will be reflected in an updated plan.

On the issue of waste, the committee supports the Scottish Government commitment to explore how producer responsibility schemes can be made more effective. It recognises the extent of the contribution that must be made by the further development of the circular economy and recommends that the final climate change plan includes detailed information on the contribution of that to the policies and proposals in the waste sector.

Given the concerns raised by stakeholders about the challenges associated with meeting the target to end landfilling of biodegradable municipal waste by 2020, the committee recommends that the Scottish Government provides further detail about the actions that it is putting in place to achieve that while ensuring that it does not result in an increase in that waste being treated in energy from waste facilities.

Another major issue was the late timing of receipt of the clarification of how waste was included in the model, which made it impossible for the committee to carry out scrutiny and to consider that fully in its report. That clarification also revealed that the land use sector, in addition to agriculture, had been modelled externally. The committee considers receiving such significant briefings following the conclusion of its evidence taking to be very unhelpful. Furthermore, it believes that information of material importance to its consideration of the draft plan should have been contained in the plan itself. The committee strongly believes that all sectors should be considered consistently within the same model framework.

The committee considers that the public sector is vital to the successful delivery of the plan. However, it questions the current capacity and commitment of some public sector organisations. It considers that climate change leadership needs to be prioritised across the public sector and recommends that the Scottish Government reflects on the calls for action to address barriers to climate change leadership in the public sector. In the final climate change plan, further information should be provided on the action that the Government is taking to support strong leadership on climate change across the public sector.

In closing, the committee recognises Scotland’s ambitious and world-leading efforts in the quest to reduce carbon emissions and to curtail the pace of climate change. The Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 was an innovative step in that process, and the committee is pleased to be working to achieve the aims of that groundbreaking legislation.