Today's blog comes from Andrew Midgely, RSPB Scotland Senior Land Use Policy Officer.
That headline – that Scotland’s climate targets are in danger of becoming meaningless – is a bold statement. It is the sort of statement that any environmental activist or policy worker like me could say. But it is not my headline. It jumped out at me because of who said it. The Climate Change Committee (CCC) is the independent expert body that advises the Scottish Government and provides reports on progress to the Scottish Parliament. It was their headline in a press release that accompanied their most recent report on progress in reducing emissions.
It should be ringing alarm bells inside the Scottish Government.
The CCC progress report says that the Scottish Government has still failed to provide a clear delivery plan on how it will meet its climate targets and that there are glaring gaps that need to be addressed.
More specifically, the CCC point to the need for a clear set of policies for how it will reduce emissions from agriculture. The government hopes to reduce agricultural emissions by 28% compared to 2020 levels by 2030, so policy implementation is required now. But the CCC says it is not clear how this can be delivered in the absence of new policies. While the government is bringing forward an Agriculture Bill next year, it won’t drive substantial change until beyond 2025.
Time is ticking. 2030 is not that far away and change in farming takes time.
Nature friendly farming at Balnakeil Farm in Sutherland. Image credit: Andy Hay (rspb-images.com)
Another issue that is close to our hearts at RSPB Scotland is peatland restoration. Unfortunately, the CCC’s report highlights that peatland restoration is also way off track. 8,000 ha of restoration took place in 2021, but the government is aiming for 20,000ha per annum and the CCC recommends restoring 45,000ha each year. This is a huge issue for Scotland because peatlands cover more than 20% of Scotland and around 80% of those peatlands are degraded. As a result, our peatlands are a major source of greenhouse gases. Peatland restoration has to be a priority and a clear plan is needed for how the government is going to increase restoration action.
So we see this report as adding important weight to arguments we have been making for some time.
But there is one thing we wanted to see more of in this report, and that was nature.
The report does refer to how healthy functioning ecosystems offer resilience in the face of a changing climate, but in reading this report you wouldn’t think that we face a nature and climate emergency. Importantly for us, although there are measures to reduce emissions that , there is no analysis of what meeting climate targets might mean for nature.
A large expansion of bioenergy crops, for example, on top of the current targets for woodland and forest expansion, could have consequences for species that are already struggling. So our plea to the Scottish Government as it moves forward to address these issues is that it remembers that we face a dual nature and climate crisis and these issues need to be addressed together.
We cannot allow the sun to set on Scotland's climate targets. Image credit: James Duncan (rspb-images.com)
Further reading
Report: Scottish Emission Targets & Progress in reducing emissions in Scotland – 2022 Report to Parliament - Climate Change Committee
Press release: Scotland’s climate targets are in danger of becoming meaningless - Climate Change Committee
Header image credit: Colin Wilkinson (rspb-images.com)