UPDATE: Scottish Government accepts 2030 climate change target is ‘out of reach’

The Scottish Government has formally ditched a key climate change target, with Net Zero Secretary Mairi McAllan accepting the goal of reducing emissions by 75% by 2030 is now “out of reach”.

She confirmed the target, which was included in legislation passed by the Scottish Parliament in 2019, was being abandoned.

Ministers will bring forward legislation to ensure the climate change target “better reflects the reality of long-term climate policymaking”, McAllan told MSPs.

This will also see the Scottish Government move away from legally binding annual targets – which it has missed for eight out of 12 years.

While progress in reducing emissions will continue to be reported annually, the Net Zero Secretary said that Scotland would move to a “target approach based on five yearly carbon budgets” – saying by making this change the country would be adopting the same approach as the UK and Welsh Governments.

Scotland’s target to reach net-zero emissions by 2045 - five years earlier than the UK - will remain, McAllan stressed.

First Minister Humza Yousaf had earlier told the Scottish Parliament that his government would “not move back by a single month, a week or even a day from that 2045 target for achieving net zero”.

But the ditching of the interim 2030 target comes just a month after independent experts at the Climate Change Committee (CCC) said that this goal was now “beyond credible”.

McAllan said that amid a “challenging context of cuts and UK backtracking” on environmental action, the Scottish Government accepted that the “interim 2030 target is out of reach”.

She added: “We must now act to chart a course to 2045 at a pace and scale which is feasible, fair and just.”

As part of that, she announced a “new package of climate action measures”, pledging the Scottish Government would work to treble the number of charging points available for electric vehicles, in a bid to encourage more people to switch away from petrol and diesel.

This could lead to approximately 24,000 additional charge points being installed across the country by 2030, the Net Zero Secretary added.

And to encourage more people to ditch cars, she added the government would “explore a new national integrated ticketing system for public transport in Scotland”.

Promising pilot projects to reduce emissions from agriculture and accelerate peatland restoration, McAllan insisted there was “no doubt about the seriousness with which this Government treats the climate and nature crisis”.

However, she said the “severe budgetary restrictions imposed by the UK Government” and the “continuing constraints of devolution”, meant the Scottish Government was trying to “deliver societal and economic transformation with one hand tied behind our back”.

And she warned “full delivery” of the Scottish Government’s plans would depend on Westminster “reversing the 9% cut to our capital budget”.

McAllan insisted: “This government and Parliament rightly has high ambitions, and it is beyond doubt that investing now in net zero is the right thing for our environment, our society and our economy, but we are being held back, so I am asking MSPs across this chamber to work with us to call on the UK Government to reverse Scotland’s capital cut.”

Net zero spokesman Douglas Lumsden said: “For all the boasting about their supposed environmental credentials, the reality is a succession of missed targets – and being forced to throw in the towel on this flagship pledge represents the biggest failure of the lot.

“This climbdown is not a surprise, given the damning report from the Climate Change Committee, but it is symptomatic of a nationalist coalition that routinely over-promises and under-delivers.”

The Scottish Government has missed its legally binding annual emissions reduction targets in eight out of the last 12 years.

Greenpeace UK political campaigner Ami McCarthy commented: “Legislating to reduce Scotland’s climate ambition, fresh off the back of the planet's hottest ever recorded 12-month period, is like striking a match in a petrol station.

“The problem was not the ambition of Scotland’s 2030 emissions reduction goal - it was entirely achievable when set five years ago - but the failure of the Scottish government to deliver the policies required to meet it.

“Lessons must be learned from this shameful backtrack, both in Holyrood and in Westminster,“ she added. “High ambition and bold targets are needed, but to actually tackle the greatest threat humanity has ever faced, they must come with equally ambitious policies and political will.”

Separately, the chief executive of Offshore Energies UK (OEUK) has stated that a Labour government should commit to supporting the UK’s oil and gas industry to aid the UK’s transition to green energy and boost the economy.

David Whitehouse told the PA news agency that fossil fuels will remain crucial as millions of homes will still be reliant on oil and gas by the end of the decade, which is Labour’s “clean power” deadline.

He added that a failure to protect domestic production would leave the UK reliant on more expensive and greater-polluting imports, and threaten thousands of jobs, particularly in small communities.

When asked to comment on Labour’s energy policy and what the party should do if it wins the next election, Whitehouse said: “In the debate about homegrown energy transition, we should be promoting our own jobs and our own skills. - we should be promoting our own companies.

“We should be creating real value here, we should not be seeking to import energy from elsewhere, we produce it cleaner here than those other areas.

“In a world where there is a genuine cost-of-living crisis, we need economic value in our society, and if the path forward is economic growth then we want policies that recognise that and support all sectors.”

“This will not only support our small communities up and down the country, but actually will be critical to delivering on our climate change ambitions.”

The oil and gas sector is worth £20bn a year to the UK economy and supports 200,000 jobs, including 90,000 in Scotland, across the supply chain.

Currently the industry provides about half the UK’s fossil fuel needs, with three quarters of domestic energy dependent on oil and gas.

Labour has said it would scrap investment relief in the windfall tax on North Sea producers and halt new oil and gas licenses, but will not end any already in place.

Whitehouse said the UK can ill-afford to allow domestic oil and gas production to dwindle as significant demand is expected to last for decades to come.

He added: “By the end of the decade we will still have millions of homes reliant on gas for heating and cooking and if we don’t continue to invest in domestic supplies then will we will be relying on somewhere in the region of at least 80% on imports.

“If you look at the geopolitical world that we are in at the moment, then there will be a real concern the UK will struggle.”

The comments came as a report commissioned by OEUK found the oil and gas sector’s supply chain has between 60 and 80% of the capabilities required to develop the UK’s low carbon energy provision from floating wind power, hydrogen and carbon capture storage.

The report identified an urgent need for “strategic action” to enable supply chain companies to seize a projected 4% annual increase in spending on these new technologies.

Whitehouse said it is important that both renewable energy and fossil fuel supply chains are supported so that different sectors can collaborate to “create a path for a really successful energy transition”.

He added: “There are many areas where the UK should be world-leading and the report highlights the capability that we already have in our existing oil and gas supply chain.

“If we embrace that then we can amplify those skills, build in areas we already have strength, recognise some of the bigger opportunities it starts to anchor real value in the UK economy.

“So the energy transition goes from being something we need to do from a climate change perspective to something that can also be a real driver of economic strength and the driver of high quality jobs up and down the country.

“We have got this great supply chain already, let’s use it.”

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