Current status: Answered by Shona Robison on 29 September 2023
To ask the Scottish Government whether it has conducted a climate impact assessment of its Infrastructure Investment Plan for the period 2021-26, and, if so, when the assessment will be published.
Annex C of the Infrastructure Investment Plan (IIP), published February 2021, used a taxonomy approach to assess planned infrastructure spend into low, neutral and high carbon categories, drawing on the annual carbon assessment of the capital budget. The 2022-23 annual IIP progress report, published June 2023, considers Major Capital Projects within the IIP in the context of the climate change targets.
Scottish Ministers accept that the IIP material published to date falls short of the requirement on Ministers in section 94A of the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009, where they publish an Infrastructure Investment Plan, to also publish “an assessment of the extent to which investment in accordance with the plan is expected to contribute to the meeting of the emissions reduction targets”. Urgent work is underway to ensure that the duty is discharged in full and as soon as possible. The Scottish Government is also working with Environmental Standards Scotland to resolve this issue.