Climate experts have warned the Scottish government its ambitious plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions lack credibility and risk stalling unless its strategies improve dramatically. The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) said the devolved government had so far led the UK in its efforts to cut emissions, reducing its actual CO2 emissions by 38% by 2015 compared with 35% at UK level. Scotland is now on the brink of meeting its 2020 target to cut emissions by 42% several years early. Nicola Sturgeon’s government is consulting on plans to set a fresh target of cutting emissions by 90% by 2050 but faces heavy criticism from anti-poverty charities and the Scottish Green party, who have urged the first minister to take faster, tougher action. The CCC, the UK’s government-funded advisory committee, said the policies needed to hit that target were too weak and ill thought out, singling out proposals in a draft plan to heavily cut emissions by sharply increasing low carbon home heating to 80% by 2032. Those were “very unlikely to be feasible”, it warned. The committee said ministers needed instead to put far greater emphasis on cutting the country’s rising transport emissions – an area largely neglected by the Scottish government until now.
Guardian 25th Sept 2017 read more »
