Portfolio Question Time – in the Scottish Parliament at on 1 May 2024.
Baroness Katy Clark
Labour
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide further details of its reasons for removing its annual and interim targets for carbon emissions. (S6O-03356)
Richard Lochhead
Scottish National Party
As the member is aware, the Scottish Government proposed a 70 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by 2030 in the Climate Change (Scotland) Bill, and a Scottish Labour Amendment proposed a 75 per cent reduction, which the Climate Change Committee advised was likely to be unachievable. Although the cross-party ambition of Parliament was clear, there is no doubt that Parliament understood the scale of the challenge.
The Climate Change Committee has now firmly assessed that the target for 2030 is not feasible, which we accept in the challenging context of United Kingdom Government cuts and backtracking. Our current rigid linear annual target approach is not fit for purpose, it poorly reflects realities such as harsher winters and it does not allow precision when estimating the impact of developing technologies.
Baroness Katy Clark
Labour
In 2020, the Climate Change Committee wrote to the Scottish Government, saying that the interim targets were difficult but not impossible to achieve, and it outlined what needed to be done in order to achieve them. Does the Minister not accept that the necessary action was not taken? Does he accept that we must now set out a plan to achieve the maximum reductions and set out targets, given the climate emergency and its impact on humanity?
Richard Lochhead
Scottish National Party
It is really important that we all work together to look at the impact on humanity and, I hope, ensure that this Parliament unites around the measures that are required to reduce emissions and achieve our overall net zero targets in Scotland. I think that we can all agree on that.
All members are obviously aware that, when some proposals are made, political bandwagons are often suddenly created and parties jump on them, and that there is political Opposition to some of the measures that we must take in order to reduce emissions in Scotland, whether those be low-emission zones or deposit return schemes. In my time in Parliament, the Government has made proposals on a whole host of issues that Opposition parties have opposed. It is very difficult to make progress under those circumstances. We have to unite where possible and move forward with the long-term targets and with our carbon budgets—which, of course, the rest of the UK follows—working together to achieve those ambitions.
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