Seòmar agus comataidhean

NatureScot and Scottish Forestry and are jointly working to enhance the ecological condition of native woodlands by improving woodland features currently in unfavourable condition. Scottish Forestry offer incentives to land owners through the Forestry Grant Scheme which includes options to help promote the regeneration of new woodlands, diversify forests and improve their conservation value.

Oil & gas, and wider energy policy is reserved to UK Government, including the licensing of exploration and extraction of offshore reserves. While tax and regulation powers over offshore oil and gas are reserved to Westminster, any Scottish Government support for the oil and gas sector in the North sea will be conditional upon the industry contributing to a sustainable, secure and inclusive energy transition.

We are wholly committed to ending Scotland’s contribution to climate change by 2045, and to ensuring we do it in a way that is just and leaves no-one behind.

T he IPCC’s recent scientific report only serves to underline how important it is that we take significant, near-term action in response to the climate emergency - for this and future generations. That is why the First Minister has called on the UK Government, who have the power to act in this instance, to urgently re-assess all approved oil licenses where drilling has not yet commenced against our climate commitments.

The oil and gas sector has a positive role to play in our journey to net zero. Indeed, we are clear that the North Sea has a vibrant future in renewable energy, hydrogen, and Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage. Meeting our climate obligations while ensuring a secure energy supply and supporting our highly skilled workforce to transition to the green jobs of the future must all go hand in hand. We will continue to work closely with industry, trade unions, communities and workers to ensure the right skills and training are in place to protect and create jobs as we become a net-zero economy.

Transport Scotland is an executive agency within the Scottish Government. This report, informed by extensive stakeholder engagement, which we have jointly developed and published with the Scottish Futures Trust, sets out the opportunities to support the growth and development of public electric vehicle charging infrastructure in Scotland. I fully endorse the report as reflected in my comments in the news release that accompanied its publication on 24 July.

Scotland’s devolved statutory climate targets are based on reporting through the Scottish component of the UK greenhouse gas emissions inventory, which is compiled in line with UN scientific reporting guidelines. Within the UK-wide inventory, emissions arising from the combustion of fossil fuel products are counted against the relevant nation, but those emissions arising directly from offshore oil & gas activity are not allocated to individual devolved administrations.

The First Minister’s recent letter to the UK Prime Minister sets out that the international picture is also vitally important, in particular the leadership role that governments such as Scotland and the UK offer. At a global scale, the scientific evidence provided by the IPCC clearly indicates that it is crucial that countries across the world must takes this opportunity to significantly raise global climate action and ambition if the goals of the Paris Agreement are to be met.

In terms of action to reduce emissions across all parts of Scotland’s economy as part of a just transition to net-zero by 2045, the Scottish Government’s updated Climate Change Plan (published in December 2020) sets out a comprehensive package of policies and proposals to deliver on this ambition over the period to 2032. We are focussed on implementing these policies.

We are wholly committed to becoming a net-zero economy by 2045 and, whilst oil and gas licensing is ultimately a reserved area, any Scottish Government support for oil and gas businesses operating in the North Sea is conditional upon them contributing to a sustainable and inclusive energy transition, and ensuring a secure energy supply.

The oil and gas sector has a positive role to play in our journey to net zero. Indeed, we are clear that the North Sea has a vibrant future in renewable energy, hydrogen, and Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage. Meeting our climate obligations while ensuring a secure energy supply and supporting our highly skilled workforce to transition to the green jobs of the future must all go hand in hand. We will continue to work closely with industry, trade unions, communities and workers to ensure the right skills and training are in place to protect and create jobs as we become a net-zero economy.

Oil & gas, and wider energy policy is reserved to UK Government, including the licensing of exploration and extraction of offshore reserves. UK Government did not consult with Scottish Government prior to issuing the licence for Cambo. On the 12 August, the First Minister wrote to the UK Government, making our position clear that the UK Government to reassess oil and gas licences already issued but where field development has not yet commenced. This would include the proposed Cambo Field. There was a further call for a four nations summit to be convened in order to discuss how we can work together, both in the run up to COP26 and beyond, to ensure that we provide clear leadership to ensure a just transition to net zero that does not repeat the mistakes of the past.

The Scottish Government has offered to work with the UK Government on a revised licence process – to ensure that licences already issued but where field development has not yet commenced are now reassessed in light of the global climate emergency which all of us now face. As part of this process, we would expect to see robust analysis of the climate impacts of the developments.

The full Native Woodland Survey of Scotland (NWSS) data set has been available for free download from the Scottish Forestry open data web pages since January 2020.

Prior to that it has been available on the Forestry Commission Scotland web pages since 2014.

Our 2021 campaign to raise awareness of the climate crisis is a core part of our approach to engagement, as set out in the draft Public Engagement Strategy (PES). As with all marketing activity, the Scottish Government has set objectives and evaluation plans from the outset of activity. In this case we will use quantitative research with our target audience to measure awareness and message recall of our domestic climate change campaign, as well as measuring the motivation by the public to take action as a result. In particular, we will identify whether there is a change in the proportion of the public agreeing that there is a climate emergency and, if so, assess changes in agreement that we all need to take action to tackle climate change.

Alongside this, we will use quantitative metrics to monitor the reach of paid for media associated with the campaign and supporting digital content.

The current ScotWind Leasing Round (the first to be administered by Crown Estate Scotland) is targeting 10GW of further offshore wind capacity, and offers significant inward investment opportunities in Scotland’s domestic supply chain, alongside the creation of new high value, high skilled jobs. Applicants to the Leasing Round are required to submit a Supply Chain Development Statement (SCDS) that sets out the anticipated level and location of supply chain impact, and the provision of jobs throughout the lifetime of the project. Crucially, those who do not comply with the commitments laid out in their SCDS can expect to face consequences ranging from financial penalties to an inability to progress to a seabed lease. The introduction of Supply Chain Development Statements demonstrates that the Scottish Government is serious about holding developers accountable if they do not honour their supply chain commitments and we fully expect developers and Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) to be engaging with the domestic supply chain from the outset to ensure that those commitments come to fruition. We have also been calling for, and welcome, the additional conditionality required by the UK Government for supply chain commitments in future Contracts for Difference (CfD) rounds.

Details of the grants awarded by Scottish Government through the Forestry Grant Scheme is shown in the following table: