Climate change plan must improve if Scotland is to meet its targets finds Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee

22.03.2013

The Scottish Government needs to improve on proposals and policies (RPP2) in order to secure delivery of the step-change required for Scotland to meet its climate change targets, according to the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee.

The Committee welcomes the Scottish Government’s setting out how targets until 2027 will be met and accepts the challenges that are presented by planning 14 years into the future.

However, Committee Convener Rob Gibson MSP said:

“The statutory targets required by the Climate Change Act are world leading and the fact that we have this report from the Scottish Government which seeks to set out long term plans to tackle climate change in Scotland should be applauded. 

“But, the Committee is concerned that going forward some of the annual targets set out in the draft RPP2 report will be missed unless all policies and proposals are implemented. The Committee is also concerned that Scotland is currently over-reliant on the EU changing its emissions reduction target from 20 per cent to 30 per cent, as was envisaged when the Act was passed.

“The Committee is calling on the Scottish Government to beef up the report by putting more meat on the bones and address the concerns the Committee has highlighted in the final report.

“These concerns include a lack of detail on the policies and proposals and how they will be funded, delivered and monitored, as well as how Scotland, as a nation, can deliver the sweeping behaviour change required to reduce carbon emissions on the scale required.”

The Rural Affairs, Environment and Climate Change Committee is one of four Parliamentary Committees that have scrutinised the Scottish Government’s draft report and are publishing their findings today. This Committee has made the following recommendations:

In summary:

• The Committee applauds the Scottish Government, and the Scottish Parliament for establishing world-leading climate change targets, and is delighted that Scotland is at the top of the European league table for emissions reductions.
• It is clear from the draft RPP2 that there is only one combination of circumstances that will allow Scotland to meet each of its annual targets from 2013 until 2027.
• The Committee is therefore concerned that further annual targets, as set out in the 2009 Act, will be missed and recommends the Scottish Government ensure all proposals and policies outlined are implemented.
• The Committee is concerned that the draft RPP2 fails to strike the appropriate balance between policies and proposals and that in the case of some of the large number of proposals it is unclear if and / or when they would become firm policies and how these might be properly researched, monitored and funded.

Overall assessment of the draft RPP2’s likely effectiveness:

• The generally held view was that the draft RPP2 relies more on proposals rather than policies, lacks detail on policy delivery and flexibility and is insufficiently clear on how the policies and proposals in the document will be properly researched, monitored and evaluated going forward.
• Whilst recognising that as the draft RPP2 looks ahead until 2027 there will inevitably be a degree of uncertainty and assumption within it, the Committee acknowledges these concerns and agrees that the draft document needs to be strengthened.

EU Climate change target

• The Committee is concerned by the seeming over-reliance in the draft RPP2 of the EU increasing its emissions reduction target from 20 per cent to 30 per cent. Whilst the Committee shares the Minister’s disappointment that the move to a 30 per cent target has still not been achieved, it recommends that the final RPP2 be more explicit in demonstrating how greater domestic reductions could be achieved within the current 20 per cent EU target.

Cost of policies and proposals in the draft RPP2

• The Committee appreciates that estimating the costs of the proposals that might be implemented between 2020 and 2027 is a challenging task that will contain a degree of uncertainty. However, the cost estimates given for proposals in the rural land use part of the document in particular do not currently contain sufficient information on how they have been arrived at to enable robust analysis.
• The Committee also recommends that the Scottish government ensure the final RPP2 provides further details on the scheduling of costs across the 2013-2027 period and where responsibility for meeting those costs lie.

Behaviour change

• The Committee welcomes the ten page section in the draft RPP2 which addresses behaviour change, as it is firmly of the view that only through successful culture and behaviour change across the population will climate change ambitions truly be realised.
• However the Committee regrets the Scottish Government’s Behaviours Framework was not published alongside the draft RPP2 and was not published within a timescale that would have enabled the committees of the Parliament to scrutinise the document. 

Waste and resource use

• The Committee notes the achievements to date in delivering the Zero Waste agenda and the successes in behaviour change in domestic waste
• However, the Committee acknowledges the criticisms that have been made in evidence regarding the waste chapter. In particular the Committee notes the comments made regarding the waster chapter being disproportionately focused on reducing methane emissions from landfill sites, rather on the waste hierarchy, reducing waste and resource use.
• The Committee calls on the Scottish Government to provide more information on these issues in the final RPP2.

Rural land use

• The Committee notes concerns raised in evidence that the rural land use section, in general, relies too heavily on proposals rather than policies and the projected abatement from policies in the rural land use section of the draft RPP2 has been reduced, compared to RPP1.
• The Committee also notes concerns that abatement is overly reliant on the proposal for additional technical potential from low carbon land use, which lacks detail.
• The Committee sympathises with these concerns and recommends the final RPP2 document give a more robust, and policy focussed assessment of how carbon emissions will be reduced across the Rural Land Use sector.

Rural land use – agriculture

• The Committee calls for the Government’s Farming for a Better Climate programme to be extended and ramped-up to deliver increased emission reductions.
• The Committee recommends that the Scottish Government report back to the Committee on how Scotland can take forward the work, already underway in some other countries, to assess the carbon footprint and carbon reduction activities in place for every farm in Scotland.
• The Committee welcomes the proposal to achieve 90 per cent uptake amongst farmers of nitrogen efficiency measures and to potentially introduce regulation to support the uptake of such measures if required. However, the Committee also notes concerns raised in evidence that the proposal required clarity in terms of when it would become a policy and the circumstances in which regulations would be triggered.
• The Committee therefore recommends to the Scottish Government reflect on the wording of this proposal with a view to providing greater clarity in the final document on these issues.
• The Committee does not under-estimate the great challenge in achieving effective and wide-reaching behaviour change across the agricultural sector and recommends the Government make it a priority to address this issue.

Rural land use – forestry

• The Committee supports the tree planting targets but calls for clarity on the relationship between targets of 10,000 hectares of planting per year, and 100,000 hectares by 2022.
• The Committee call for planting targets beyond 2022 to be set out as early as is practicable, and in time for inclusion in RPP3.
• The Committee welcomes the proposal to use more Scottish timber in construction and recommends that the Government clarifies in the final RPP2 who will be responsible for coordinating this work and securing the necessary investment.

Rural land use – peatland

• The Committee joins witnesses in welcoming the inclusion of peatland restoration in the draft RPP2 and in the restated commitment from the Scottish Government to provide £1.7m of funding for restoration projects between 2012 and 2015.
• However, it is clear to the Committee that additional funding may be needed if the levels of restoration required are to be achieved and sustained. The Committee therefore recommends that the Scottish Government give consideration to the scope for increasing funding levels for peatland restoration in the next Spending Review.
• The Committee recommends that if the Scottish Government’s consultation on its proposals to restore 21,000 hectares of peatland per year is positive, and other uncertainties are resolved, that the proposals is taken forward as soon as is possible.

Marine

• The Committee believes that in the future, blue carbon (carbon sequestered in the marine environment) may have an important role in helping Scotland meet its climate change targets. Although work in this area is at too early a stage to include in detail in the final RPP2 the Committee would like to see reference to its potential for reducing emissions in the final document.

The Committee also made recommendations on the consultation process, the effectiveness/analysis of RPP1 and the missed 2010 target, the presentation of RPP2, scope for technical innovation, the appropriateness of timescales, and purchasing carbon unit credits.

Background

On 29 January 2013 the Scottish Government published Low Carbon Scotland: Meeting out Emissions Reductions Targets 2013-2027 – the draft second report on proposals and policies (RPP2).

The Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee was one of four parliamentary committees that considered this document. Their remit included looking at the development of RPP2, climate change governance, rural affairs, land use, resource use and behaviour change.

The other three Committee’s – Local Government and Regeneration, Economy, Energy and Tourism and Infrastructure and Capital Investment have all published their own reports into issues relating to their remit.