Seòmar agus comataidhean

This Government’s commitment to reaching net zero fairly remains unwavering. Responding to the climate emergency is both one of the most important challenges of our time and, done right, one of our country’s greatest economic opportunities, with benefits for everyone. I am proud of the progress that Scotland has already made in reducing our carbon emissions and unlocking new low-carbon economic opportunities. Others might try to present economic growth and emissions reduction as opposing aims, but we have shown that they go hand in hand. We are now more than halfway to net zero and, in the same period, we have grown our economy by more than 67 per cent. Although we know that the most challenging part of the journey lies ahead, I am confident that, with Scotland’s talent for innovation and skills, and the strengths of our people, we have what it takes to deliver.

Parliament can no longer sit on its hands. Since the previous climate change plan, we have seen parties in the chamber oppose even modest proposals for the sake of opposition when today’s citizens, as well as future generations, need us to back those aims with action and take responsibility. I hope that Parliament will engage constructively with the draft plan.

Delivering the plan will take more than Scottish Government action alone. The United Kingdom Government must do more to support Scotland by, crucially, reducing the price of electricity, which will unlock so many critical climate actions and improve people’s lives. I will continue to work constructively with the UK Government to make that happen.

That includes working on our shared commitment to decarbonise heat in buildings. It is an area where the Scottish Government has shown leadership, which is demonstrated by our legislative requirement for clean heat to be installed in new homes and our continued drive and ambition to promote investment and growth in heat networks. The plan maintains that leadership. It confirms our target to decarbonise the heat in Scotland’s buildings by 2045 in a manner consistent with our commitment to reduce fuel poverty by maintaining our support for those who need it most.

The UK Government must show similar leadership. The latest delay to its warm homes plan means that we still lack essential information on when and how the UK Government will use its reserved powers to make clean heat systems more affordable. I urge the UK Government to provide that clarity as soon as possible, and we remain ready to work with it to accelerate the transition to clean heat in our homes and buildings.

We will also continue to work collaboratively with other partners—local authorities, industry and the third sector—and we must bring people with us on that journey.

The voices of climate inaction are growing globally, and here at home. Some question the impact that a country of Scotland’s size can make. However, Scotland has demonstrated how smaller countries can contribute to global change. We continue to accelerate the ambition and action of partners globally through our leadership positions as Regions4 president and Under2 Coalition European co-chair.

We increasingly feel the real-life impacts of climate change domestically. The growing frequency of storms, heat waves and flooding events is impacting our health, our livelihoods and the resilience of our communities. Indeed, the Scottish climate survey shows that most of us see climate change as an immediate problem for our country.

Tackling the climate emergency remains a priority for this Government and must continue to be so for Parliament in this and future sessions. The draft climate change plan that we have laid before Parliament today sets out more than 150 actions that we must take between now and 2040 to grow our economy and reduce our carbon emissions. As well as reducing emissions, the plan is about how we unlock economic benefits, strengthen our communities, tackle poverty, restore nature and improve health and wellbeing.

Many of those wider benefits are already being delivered. The number of low-carbon, sustainable jobs is growing faster here than in the rest of the United Kingdom, thanks to consistent Scottish Government investment. Low or zero-carbon industries, such as renewable energy and hydrogen, have expanded by more than 20 per cent since 2022, contributing more than £9 billion to the economy and supporting more than 100,000 jobs. Our electricity sector exemplifies that. Between 1990 and 2022, emissions from electricity generation fell by 88 per cent, driven by our natural resources, community involvement, supportive planning and falling costs, with wind and solar now the lowest-cost forms of new generation. Today, Scotland generates more than half its electricity from renewables and, in 2020 alone, community benefit payments from renewables projects exceeded £30 million. There is still massive untapped potential in, for example, hydro, tidal and wave energy, anaerobic digestion and geothermal energy.

The transition and the action that we are taking are already ensuring major benefits for Scotland, with much more to come. However, as well as seizing those new opportunities, we have a particular responsibility to areas where change will inevitably be felt the most. That is why we have invested more than £120 million so far in the north-east through the just transition and energy transition funds, supporting workers into low-carbon jobs and enabling investment in offshore wind, port infrastructure and supply chains. We are also investing an additional £9 million in the oil and gas transition training fund to help North Sea workers to move into those low-carbon roles.

Those initiatives sit alongside the work that we are doing to support people through the transition and to deliver the wider benefits fairly. For example, the redesign of our energy and transport systems will also help to reduce household costs, improve air quality and enhance energy security. The draft plan includes new support for electric vehicle charging infrastructure and consumer incentives to encourage EV uptake. We will use commercial finance to support the decarbonisation of heavy goods vehicles. We are also introducing new energy performance certificate regulations and setting out proposals to boost heat network development by requiring large non-domestic premises, where they have the opportunity to connect to a heat network, to move away from fossil fuel heating systems. In that way, infrastructure and local places are being transformed to support health and wellbeing.

Our approach also focuses on nature-based solutions that will benefit communities, restore ecosystems and protect green spaces. In 2023, Scotland created more than 8,400 hectares of new woodland. To go further, we are supporting skills development in forestry management to increase farm productivity and tree planting.

We have restored more than 90,000 hectares of degraded peatland. Through the draft plan, Scotland’s new light detection and ranging—LiDAR—data will help us to accelerate the amount of peatland that is restored year on year. The speed of our decarbonisation follows advice from the Climate Change Committee. Scotland is delivering on the moral imperative to end our contribution to global emissions.

However, we will also make important departures from the committee’s policy advice, including on livestock numbers and agricultural emissions. We will support farmers, crofters and other land managers to continue to produce high-quality food and protect rural livelihoods, while enhancing diversity, soil health and agricultural business productivity. We can do that because of emissions savings in other sectors, including high fuel supply decarbonisation in energy supply and emissions reductions in peatlands. The plan reflects a distinctly Scottish way of achieving this.

I am grateful to the many people who have shaped our approach to the draft plan, including the climate change plan advisory group, the Just Transition Commission and scientific advisory bodies.

We know that involving people in the policy-making process makes policy smarter and more effective, so I encourage anyone who has an interest to respond to our consultation on the plan. My door remains open to any member who wants to engage constructively on the draft plan so that the final version is as strong as possible.

It is the Government’s responsibility to lead and, by doing so through the plan, we will enable others to act and innovate. However, we cannot reach net zero alone. People and businesses need to work with us on this shared national endeavour to fight against climate change and harness the possibilities that are before us. It is a national challenge that Scotland must win, because the prize is not only a healthier climate but warmer homes, cleaner air and happier, more equitable and prosperous communities.

Michael Matheson knows the area well, so he will know that the UK will not meet its 2050 target without Scotland meeting its 2045 target, and vice versa. When I mention the UK Government, it is not to have a go, but is to say that we need to work together on those things. We have a Labour Government that has shared objectives on net zero, so we have a moment in time when we are able to work together and achieve our shared aims.

The Climate Change Committee’s advice to the UK Government in carbon budget 7 was clear that between 30 and 60 per cent of the emissions reduction that will be required across Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will be in policy areas that are mostly reserved. That emphasises just how crucial intergovernmental co-operation will be in reaching not only Scotland’s net zero target but also the UK’s.

I have engaged, and will continue to engage, with the UK Government across many different forums. This week, I wrote to the secretary of state to reiterate our asks of the UK Government with regard to the climate change plan, not least on rebalancing energy prices to reduce the cost of electricity, which intervention the Climate Change Committee views as critical to delivering emissions reduction, as it does CCUS.

I wrote again yesterday with regard to the UK Government’s carbon budget 6 response, which I thought was lacking in detail.

I have published it so that we can have a finalised climate change plan by the end of this session of Parliament. Now that it is published, can we move on from the rhetoric around me taking my time to do things? I have been expediting work in this area, to allow Parliament the full period of time to scrutinise the plan—

As I said in my first answer, those involved are doing everything to suppress the smoke. Additional sand continues to be used effectively to suppress smoke and smouldering. Thermal imaging and temperature mapping confirm that the smouldering remains contained. Contractors and geotechnical specialists remain on site daily, with regular meetings taking place between the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service as part of the process.

I thank Martin Whitfield for that question, because it allows me to reiterate the approach that I always take to the legislation and the policies that I take through. I strongly believe that in this portfolio we must have as much consensus as possible. I hope that those in all the parties who lead on this policy area agree that I genuinely have an open-door approach.

Ahead of the plan being put forward today, I made sure that my colleagues in the groups that are associated with the policy decisions on carbon budgets have been sent invitations. Those who have worked with me on bills will know that I have worked with them to bring their opinions and suggestions into the work that I do.

This is Scotland’s climate change plan. It is not the Government’s climate change plan—it is our shared climate change plan. At the end of this session of Parliament, we will all be thinking about what we want to put in our new manifestos. I look forward to seeing everyone’s manifestos to see how they can ramp up climate action so that, when we come to the next session, those of us who believe that climate change is a real threat can work together against the voices that are out there that might be coming in here and denying that climate action is a necessity.

Certainly, and that gives me the opportunity to mention that Glasgow City Council and its partners, have been shortlisted for a 2025 nature of Scotland award in the nature and climate action category, in recognition of the innovative work that the council has been doing to tackle flooding while boosting biodiversity through nature-based solutions. That also involves canals, of which Glasgow has many.

By anchoring the health of our rivers, streams, lochs and wetlands in our biodiversity strategy and delivery plan, the Government has demonstrated its commitment to tackling the biodiversity crisis and protecting our magnificent rivers, species and habitats that the strategy and delivery plan support.

A point that came out of the speeches by Christine Grahame and Willie Rennie—in fact, it came out of everyone’s speeches, from Alexander Burnett to Audrey Nicoll—is that we cannot take the health of our rivers for granted, because the health of our communities very often depends on it. We can see the effects of climate change in water scarcity or in high levels of flooding in winter—indeed, Willie Rennie made that point, too—so we have to do everything that we can to protect and cherish rivers all the more.

I thank Audrey Nicoll for bringing this debate to the Parliament.

The data that Kevin Stewart has cited is from a range of industry bodies, and it emphasises what I said in response to his first question. Alongside other parts of the UK economy, the offshore energy sector must be treated fairly to unlock investment and ensure that workers are at the heart of a just transition by protecting their jobs for as long as possible. That is why we will continue to call on the UK Government to bring forward at the budget a stable and long-term fiscal regime that will replace the EPL and deliver much-needed business and investor certainty for the North Sea.

As Edward Mountain knows, the decision on spending is made at budget time. We are quite unusual in Scotland in that our climate change plan must include the costs and benefits associated with all the policies that it contains. No other country in the UK has to do that. The costs and benefits will apply not only to the Government but to everyone, including the private sector.

Edward Mountain said that we have finally published the climate change plan. I point out that, legally, I had until the start of December to publish it.

I appreciate that members have not had a great deal of time to look at the climate change plan. Perhaps when Patrick Harvie has time to read it more fully over the weekend, he will spot that it includes a 16 per cent reduction from car-based emissions.

I also want to address Patrick Harvie’s point about the Climate Change Committee’s advice—it is advice. I have spoken to the Climate Change Committee since we made our decision to take a different path by putting more of our emissions reduction into transport, as opposed to reducing livestock numbers. It has warmly welcomed the fact that we have made our own decisions in that area, because it respects the fact that Scotland has to plough its own furrow, if I can use that metaphor. We are absolutely clear that we need to reach net zero in a way that works for rural Scotland and plays to our strengths. Cutting our livestock numbers would mean that we would import more produce from outwith the UK. That would not help to reduce emissions globally.

As someone from a rural area, I know very well the work that has been done on farms to reduce their emissions and to improve the livestock, plant and soil health associated with their work. We need to bring farmers with us. We need to realise that they are part of the solution and not work against them. We have so much scope, particularly in reducing emissions that are associated with heat and transport, that we do not have to put an additional burden on farmers and effectively destroy the industry, which is very much part of the fabric of Scotland and is critical to our economy.

My officials have been in touch with North Lanarkshire Council and have been updated on the progress that has been made towards safely resolving the underground smouldering at the site in Coatbridge. Work has been led by specialist environmental engineers, in close co-ordination with the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service.

Air quality monitoring is carried out daily. The latest monitoring results show that air quality levels remain well within safe limits, and independent analysis confirms no exceedances of health-based thresholds.

Residents in the immediate area have received regular updates via letter, the council website and social media.