Current status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 5 July 2024
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a breakdown of the outstanding medium-term Cleaner Air for Scotland 2 (CAFS2) recommendations that are not due to be completed until after 2024, as listed in the Cleaner Air for Scotland 2 - Towards a Better Place for Everyone: 2023/24 Progress Report, including for what reason they are outstanding in each case.
The Scottish Government published the annual Cleaner Air for Scotland 2 progress report on 17 June 2024, providing an update on progress on delivering the actions.
Of the twenty medium term actions, the timeframe for completing three of these actions has been extended beyond 2024. The reasons for this are as follows.
Action | Reason for extending |
The Scottish Government will support investigation into the method of assessing risk of significant harmful ecological effects from atmospheric nitrogen (nitrogen deposition and elevated concentrations of ammonia and NOx), comparing critical loads/levels with dose-response or other options. | Commissioned research under our Strategic Research Programme will deliver a number of the CAFS2 actions by 2026. The James Hutton Institute are leading on the Nitrogen Impacts on the Natural Environment (NINE) project which will deliver the outcomes of these two actions by 2026. |
The Scottish Government with support from SEPA and NatureScot will assess the potential costs of implementing identified improvements to the current site condition monitoring of designated conservation sites, to improve on current methods which don't detect air pollution effects. | |
Public bodies should incorporate travel from employee commutesas part of their corporate carbon footprint and will report these emissions via their public bodies duties reporting. | This action is being taken forward through new statutory guidance on public bodies’ climate change duties and climate change reporting which is due to be published in 2025.
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