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Protecting the planet is a clear government priority which is why we must ensure that resourcing matches the scale of work required to deliver a net zero Scotland by 2045, balancing that with a need to ensure efficiencies in our public services.

We continually review staffing and resourcing, to support our commitments and ensure that the government’s ambition for tackling climate change is delivered as part of our regular assurance processes.

In addition, there is oversight of resourcing of climate change activity through the Global Climate Emergency Programme Board.

Our Public Engagement Strategy for Climate Change (PES) highlights the importance of effective engagement to build support for climate action. The Scottish Government continues to build on outcomes from Scotland’s most recent Climate Assembly, by delivering a programme of participative engagement in support of the just transition planning process. We are exploring options to establish an additional participative process to engage the public in order to build understanding of the transition to a net zero and climate resilient Scotland. This is further to our existing engagement work, including the £5.5m Community Climate Action Hubs, £425k Climate Action Schools programme, and awarding funding of £272k through our Climate Engagement Fund.

Medical packaging, such as blister packaging, is not easily recycled due to strict regulatory requirements for pharmaceutical packaging set by the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. However, the Scottish Government is taking steps to encourage businesses to reduce the amount of packaging waste and to improve recycling through implementation of extended producer responsibility for packaging from 2025. This includes obligations for producers of pharmaceutical packaging.

The Circular Economy (Scotland) Act 2024 requires that Scottish Ministers publish a circular economy strategy, which will be developed over the next two years. In advance of that, we will shortly be publishing a final version of our circular economy and waste route map, which will set out actions to deliver sustainable use of our resources and progress a circular economy to 2030. As part of these we will continue to consider medical packaging items.

Development of climate policy continues on an ongoing basis ahead of the publication of the draft climate change plan. Where any additional policy requires an expedited legislative vehicle, we will actively explore opportunities to do so, whilst ensuring that all measures are subject to appropriate level of Parliamentary scrutiny.

Meanwhile, the Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Act 2024 requires us to set carbon budgets levels via secondary legislation, once we have received advice from the Climate Change Committee. We have written to the Committee to request this advice, and will bring forward regulations to set carbon budgets once it has been received.

With partial rewetting, the water table in peatlands or peaty soils is held deeper underground than with full rewetting or restoration. In theory, this delivers a carbon benefit but also allows certain types of agriculture that may be limited by full rewetting to continue.

The Peatland Science and Technical Advisory Group have advised there may be some potential in lowland grassland systems and at the edges of some raised bogs where the use of ‘leaky dams’ may have a part to play in finer control of water table depth. However, significant areas of lowland agricultural peats are difficult to identify and map.

We have commissioned scientists at the James Hutton Institute to advise on the distribution of grassland on peat and on the relationship between water table depth and carbon emissions in peat grassland systems.

When complete, this will inform on-going work in government considering options for incorporating peatland protection, management and restoration within the new four-tier agricultural support framework.

Since 2011 the Scottish Government has provided interest free loans worth over £223 million to individuals and businesses across Scotland to support the transition to zero emission/ultra-low emission vehicles.

This financial year we are providing £15 million of loan funding to further accelerate the shift to zero emission transport. To support a just transition to net zero, funding has now been prioritised to focus solely on lower income households, as well as households in rural and Island locations, in addition to the taxi sector.

Recipients of the loan as well as individuals who reside in rural and Island locations can also access the domestic charge point fund which will provide up to £400 of funding to support the installation of a charge point for an electric vehicle.

Both of these funds are delivered by Energy Saving Trust on behalf of Scottish Ministers, additional information on the schemes supporting the transition to Net Zero and funded by the Scottish Government can be found here - Grants and loans to help you travel greener - Energy Saving Trust.

Our focus remains on mitigating any impact, to the best of our ability, that Petroineos’ decision to close the Grangemouth Refinery will have on the locality and wider economy. Petroineos’ consultation with their workforce is ongoing and, following its conclusion, we will be able to establish in more detail any potential impact that the closure of the Grangemouth Refinery will have.

The Scottish and UK Governments have announced a package of measures to support Grangemouth’s industrial future. This includes a skills intervention, jointly funded by Scottish Government and UK Government, to support those Petroineos workers affected by the recent closure announcement. This intervention will support workers at both the Grangemouth Refinery and Finnart Terminal, and will be provided by Forth Valley College.

Looking towards the long term future of the Refinery site, the Scottish and UK Government's are supporting the Project Willow cross site study which is examining the enablers and blockers to deploying low carbon technologies at Grangemouth. Such technologies will take time to be brought forward, but they offer a route to the creation of new, highly skilled jobs at Grangemouth and our focus is on accelerating the deployment of these projects and associated jobs.

Lastly, the Deputy First Minister and Secretary of State for Scotland have also signed an enhanced Falkirk and Grangemouth Growth Deal that will support wider economic development for those who live in the locality.

The Scottish Government has committed to the development of a just transition plan for Mossmorran following completion of the just transition plan for Grangemouth in 2025. As with the Grangemouth just transition plan, this work will be co-designed with key stakeholders including industry, the workforce and the community. The Scottish Government is actively engaging with relevant stakeholders as part of the scoping phase of this programme of work.

The Scottish Government is committed to reducing high deer numbers in order to help us to achieve our biodiversity and carbon objectives. In addition to the Cairngorms National Park Authority deer management incentives pilot, NatureScot launched two pilot schemes led by this autumn to incentivise deer managers to increase deer culls in specific parts of Scotland.

These pilot schemes have been implemented this year in different parts of Scotland to test different approaches to incentives and to better understand the barriers to deer management.

While these pilots do not constitute a single national scheme, we will use the findings from them to inform decisions on future incentive schemes.

The Scottish Government remains commitment to securing a long term, sustainable future for the Grangemouth industrial cluster, and highly skilled workforce located there. This is outlined in our draft Grangemouth Industrial Just Transition Plan which was published for consultation on 7 November.

This document is designed to set the strategic direction for Grangemouth’s transition to net zero, including a co-designed vision for the future of the cluster and a series of proposed actions to support this. The final plan will take cognisance of the outputs of Project Willow which is due to report in early 2025.