Scotland Abandons 2030 Net Zero Target

Cabinet Secretary for Wellbeing, Economy, Net Zero and Energy Mairi McAllan ahead of making a statement announcing a new package of climate action measures which she says we will deliver with partners to support Scotland's 'just transition to net zero' at the Scottish Parliament in Holyrood on April 18, 2024. Andrew Milligan/PA Wire

The Scottish Government has officially abandoned a key net zero target, admitting that reducing carbon emissions by 75 percent by 2030 was now “out of reach.”

Scotland’s net zero secretary Mairi McAllan confirmed on Thursday that the target, which was enshrined in Scottish law in 2019, had been dropped. Ms. McAllan told MSPs in Holyrood that ministers will introduce legislation to ensure that the environmental target “better reflects the reality of long-term climate policymaking.”

The announcement comes one month after the independent Climate Change Committee (CCC) said the 2030 goal was “now beyond what is credible.”

The Scottish Government will also drop its legally binding annual targets, which the country has missed for eight out of 12 years. Scotland’s target to reach net zero by 2045 will remain.

Earlier, First Minister Humza Yousaf had pledged that the 2045 target would “not move back a single month, a week or even a day.”

Net Zero Watch welcomed the Scottish Government’s decision to abandon its net zero interim target, with the campaign group’s director saying: “The SNP and their Green partners are the first administration to face up to reality, but they won’t be the last. The era of virtue-signalling climate targets is coming to an end.”

The group’s head of policy Harry Wilkinson added: “Most politicians across Europe still have their heads in the sand. They will have to change course eventually, but until they do their decarbonisation dogma will continue to wreak havoc in their economies.”

McAllan Blames Westminster

The net zero secretary blamed the UK’s central government, in part, for Scotland not being able to keep to its ambitious targets, telling Holyrood that the target had become out of reach amid a “challenging context of cuts and UK backtracking.”

Ms. McAllan told MSPs: “In this challenging context of cuts, UK backtracking, we accept the Climate Change Committee’s recent re-articulation that this parliament’s interim 2030 target is out of reach. We must now act to chart a course to 2045 at a pace and scale that is feasible, fair and just.

“With this in mind, I can today confirm that, working with parliament on a timetable, the Scottish Government will bring forward expedited legislation to address matters raised by the Climate Change Committee, and ensure our legislative framework better reflects the reality of long-term climate policymaking.”

The minister 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. I am asking MSPs across this chamber to work with us to call on the UK Government to reverse Scotland’s capital cut,” she added.

2030 Target ‘Beyond What Is Credible’

Last month, the CCC said the Scottish Government was “failing to achieve” the country’s “ambitious” climate goals. The committee said that to meet the target, emissions reduction in most sectors would have to increase by a factor of nine between now and 2030.

“The acceleration required in emissions reduction to meet the 2030 target is now beyond what is credible,” the report had said.

The report noted that “only three of the 14 key recommendations from the CCC’s 2022 Scottish Progress Report scored ‘good progress’. Two scored ‘moderate progress’, seven scored ‘some but insufficient progress’, and two made ‘no progress’ at all.”

A wind turbine at the Seagreen Offshore Wind Farm, under construction around 27 kilometres from the coast of Montrose, Angus, Scotland, in the North Sea, on June 8, 2023. Andy Buchanan/AFP via Getty Images

The CCC also chastised the Scottish Parliament for failing to publish its new draft Climate Change Plan, which was due for release in late 2023.

The UK government has set net zero targets but Scotland has its milestones for reducing carbon emissions, including the interim goal of reducing carbon emissions by 75 percent—compared to levels of territorial emissions in 1990—by 2030. The UK government aims for a 68 percent reduction by that year.

Scotland also has its own target for achieving net zero, which is by 2045, five years ahead of the UK.

Last month, the Scottish Fiscal Commission (SFC) analysed the financial implications of Scotland’s climate change targets, saying that the 2030 interim target was a “fiscal risk” that could be difficult to manage within the budget.

To achieve net zero, the SFC estimated the Scottish Government would have to spend an average of £1.1 billion a year by 2050, around 18 percent of its capital budget, a report has said.

PA Media contributed to this report.