Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is fully committed to meeting the world-leading emissions reduction targets set in the Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Act 2019. Our update to the 2018 Climate Change Plan, published in December 2020, articulates our pathway to meeting these targets over the period to 2032.

The update to the 2018 Plan includes over 100 new policies and scales up the ambition of more than forty policies and proposals across all sectors. In line with the requirements of section 36 of the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009, the policy package is also designed to make up for the excess emissions that arose from the previously missed 2017 and 2018 annual targets.

The updated Plan acknowledges that meeting all annual targets out to 2032 as part of a just transition to net-zero by 2045 will be not always be easy and is not for the Scottish Government to deliver alone, but will need to be a national endeavour across all sections of society and business. Furthermore, as the CCC have highlighted, UK Government action in areas that remain reserved will be crucial in ensuring we meet our targets. While we are also contending with significant uncertainties including those relating to exiting the European Union, the rate of technological advances and ongoing scientific revisions to the ways in which emissions are measured, we are absolutely committed to meeting our targets.

The Plan update includes a refreshed monitoring framework to support the learning by doing approach recommended by our stakeholders. Annual reporting to Parliament on progress, on a sector by sector basis, will begin this May.