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The Scottish Government is required to give effect to the newly amended Directive 2014/52/EU, known as the EIA Directive, by 16 May 2017. Further details of our proposals for implementing the required changes will be made available in due course.

Statutory procedures for conducting environmental impact assessment are set out in legislation in accordance with the requirements of European Directive 2011/92/EU, known as the EIA Directive. Following recent changes to the directive made at European level, the Scottish Government is giving consideration as to what changes may be required to existing statutory EIA regimes. Further details of our proposals for implementing the required changes will be made available in due course.

Scotland has had a statutory target in place since 2009 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% by 2050. Substantial progress is being made and Scotland is over three quarters of the way towards meeting the interim 2020 target of a 42% reduction in emissions.

Supporting the transition to a low carbon economy will help to meet our targets and is at the heart of our Programme for Government and Scotland’s Economic Strategy. As highlighted in the second report on proposals and policies, published in 2013, our support for the low carbon economy is provided through six channels: long term legal and institutional certainty; expanding renewable energy production; improvements in energy and resource efficiency in households and industry; transition of transport to a lower carbon basis; expansion of renewable sources of heat; and sustainable land use.

Although we have already made considerable progress, the Scottish Government announced in June 2015 a comprehensive new package of measures covering transport, environment and energy to strengthen the measures already in place, and Cabinet have agreed to embed climate change in this autumn’s budget process. Development of the third report on proposals and policies is underway and will focus on how we deliver our world leading climate change targets.

Our targets are not easy, but they are at the level the international community needs to match if the new climate treaty in Paris this year is to stand a good chance of limiting global temperature rise to no more than 2 degrees Celsius. That is why we have joined international partners with similar high ambition on the Under 2 Memorandum of Understanding group, and will continue to support efforts to secure an ambitious global deal on climate change this year.

Tracking the development of carbon capture storage (CCS) and the progress of the UK’s CCS Commercialisation Competition is managed through the Thermal Generation and CCS Industry Leadership Group (ILG) which I co-chair. The Department of Energy and Climate Change are members of this group.

The ILG last met on 23 June 2015 in Edinburgh where an update on the Peterhead CCS project was given by Shell and SSE (promoters of the project). A significant milestone was reached on the Peterhead CCS Project when planning permission was granted by Aberdeenshire Council on 18 June 2015.

The coal-fired power station at Cockenzie closed in March 2013 and is currently being decommissioned. The Scottish Government granted consent for a new combined-cycle gas turbine plant at Cockenzie on 5 October 2011. In terms of new thermal generation in Scotland, the Scottish Government sees an important role for clean thermal generation progressively fitted with carbon capture and storage.

In a recent letter to the Scottish Parliament’s Public Petitions Committee in January 2015 Hugh Finlay, Scottish Power’s Generation Director, made it clear that “There continues to be a number of obstacles in the way of the construction of the Combined Cycle Gas Turbines (CCGT) development, undoubtedly the biggest being the continuation of the Transmission Charging regime that discriminates against new generation in the north.”

We recognise the concerns expressed by companies including Scottish Power and numerous respondents to the Economy Energy and Tourism inquiry into security of supply that the current transmission charging regime acts as a disincentive to new thermal generation in Scotland. While specific investment plans for new generation at a particular site are primarily a matter for the companies concerned, Scottish Ministers have raised these regulatory barriers at the highest levels in the UK Government.

I visited the Peterhead power station on 23 April 2015 to meet the carbon capture and storage (CCS) project team and tour the facility.

Tracking the development of CCS and the progress of the UK's CCS commercialisation competition is managed through the Thermal Generation and CCS Industry Leadership Group (ILG).

The ILG is co-chaired by myself and DECC UK are members of this group. The ILG last met on 23 June 2015 where an update on the Peterhead CCS project was given by Shell and SSE (promoters of the project). A significant milestone was reached on the Peterhead CCS project when planning permission was granted by Aberdeenshire Council on 18 June 2015.

The Scottish Government took the opportunity at the ILG to express our continued support for this exciting project and to highlight the need for the UK Government to ensure that the competition timeline be maintained.

The Scottish Government believes that it is crucial that the UK Government also press ahead with contract for difference negotiations for follow-on (Phase 2) CCS projects such as the Summit Power project proposed for Grangemouth. On 27 March 2015 the Scottish and UK Governments announced joint funding of £4.2 million for the Summit Power project.