Hansard

As convener of the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee, I welcome the opportunity to highlight the committee’s recent report on the updated climate change plan and to move the motion on behalf of the four committees that jointly considered the plan. That collaborative scrutiny and the need for immediate action across a broad range of cabinet secretary portfolios and committee remits demonstrate the cross-cutting and integrated nature of effective climate policy action and scrutiny. That approach must continue if we are to realise our ambitions.

The scrutiny process has been informed by the invaluable contributions of experts, stakeholders and communities from across Scotland and has been underpinned by our committee’s work on a green recovery. I thank everyone who contributed to our inquiry.

The debate represents an important opportunity to reflect on the strengths of the updated plan and to highlight improvements that are needed to turn it into a credible and ambitious blueprint for Scotland’s future. Our unanimously agreed report contains several action-focused recommendations, and we expect the Scottish Government to progress them, together with the other committees’ recommendations, to deliver a final plan that we can all have confidence in.

Sir David Attenborough recently told a virtual gathering of the United Nations Security Council that climate change is the

“biggest threat ... modern humans have ever faced.”

How we respond now will determine the world that our children and our grandchildren inherit.

Parliament recognised the urgency of the situation in passing legislation that set new and ambitious targets, and it is clear that we need to increase and accelerate our action in the near term to meet them. Doing so offers clear potential for innovation, jobs, the economy, the environment and the wellbeing of the people of Scotland and beyond. We want Scotland to be at the forefront in exploring, developing and investing in those opportunities and in the technology that will help us to reach our ambitious targets. That is why the updated plan must set out the foundation and pathways for increased action across society.

The committee recognises that we have challenging targets and that the plan update has been prepared in challenging times. There is significant support for the scale of the proposed emissions reductions and for the overall ambition that the updated plan sets out.

In particular, we welcome the strengthened focus on cross-sectoral working and the inclusion of the co-ordinated approach, which our committee has for many years called for. However, we heard from our correspondents that detail on how to reach the ambition was lacking, and concerns were raised about the achievability of the plan as set out.

Major action and transformational change across all sectors and all parts of society are urgently required to reflect the nature of the climate emergency, meet our Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 ambition and capture the immediate opportunities of a green recovery. We need to tackle the implementation gap that arises when solutions have been identified but not so far applied. We must capture and lock in positive behaviours and build resilience through valuing nature more.

To underpin all that, we must focus on people, innovation, skills and jobs. The pandemic has shown that we can act boldly and quickly in the face of a crisis. As David Attenborough said, climate change is the biggest crisis that faces humanity today and our response must reflect that.

I will move on to our recommendations, including those on the modelling and evidence used; the balance of effort across sectors; sectoral plans and governance arrangements; and behaviour change.

The committee has called on the Scottish Government to

“Demonstrate how the policies and proposals will deliver the envelopes that are presented for each sector. Understanding the relative emissions abatement significance of the policies and proposals is key to supporting implementation of the plan, by enabling potential risks and deficiencies to be identified and corrected.”

We have also called for

“greater clarity on the timescales associated with the policy and proposal commitments in the plan to develop, consult on, research or explore particular measures”.

The timescales should

“reflect the urgent nature of the climate emergency and the immediate opportunities to progress a green recovery.”

We would like a review to be carried out of the assumptions that underpin the plan and, in particular, of the

“abatement attributed to Negative Emission Technologies”—

or NETs. Given the uncertainties that are associated with that, we have called on the Scottish Government to set out an alternative plan

“for how equivalent abatement could be achieved.”

We have asked for

“greater detail about how the policies and proposals across all sectors reflect the opportunities and implications associated with just transition and green recovery”,

taking into account regional considerations.

We have also recommended that the final updated plan

“must take a more integrated approach to cutting emissions across agriculture and land use ... recognising that both depend on the management of a single resource and that these sectors are expected to become more closely aligned in policy and practice.”

Our report makes clear and detailed recommendations across a range of other areas, including waste and the circular economy, nature-based solutions and blue carbon.

The committee recognises that we are debating an updated plan. Time for scrutiny has been tight, and updates will never be as comprehensive or detailed as a complete new plan.

I would now like to look forward to the fourth climate change plan. Stakeholders and the Parliament need ample time to consider the detail in a new climate change plan, so the committee calls on the Government to lay the next full climate change plan in Parliament by the end of 2023. That will ensure that there is sufficient time for full stakeholder and parliamentary consideration before finalisation and publication of the fourth climate change plan in 2024.

This will be the last debate to be led by the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee in the current parliamentary session, and it is fair to say that our report on the climate change plan update is the culmination of a very heavy work schedule in this session. It has been a privilege to convene a committee that deals with such vital work. I would like to pay tribute to the extremely hard work of the committee clerks and our Scottish Parliament information centre research colleagues. Two long-serving members of the committee are retiring and making their last speeches today—Stewart Stevenson and Angus MacDonald—so I record my best wishes and thanks to them, and to all the members who have served with such dedication on the committee during the session.

It is sad that this afternoon’s debate might potentially have been the Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform’s last debate as well. She is unable to be here, but I wish her a speedy recovery and thank her for the constructive way in which she has worked with our committee, and for her many years of public service—not least in her stewardship in protecting the environment and tackling climate change.

Our committee members and the cabinet secretary know that there is no precedent in human history for the speed and scale of the change that is needed to tackle climate change and reduce harmful emissions. The changes that have been highlighted by the four parliamentary committees that have come together today will help to ensure that the final updated climate change plan provides an effective response to the current challenges. Our recommendations should help to provide a springboard for the swift action that is needed to tackle climate change and to deliver a truly green recovery for Scotland—a recovery in which no one is left behind. It is only by committing to significant action today that we can build a better Scotland for tomorrow.

I move,

That the Parliament notes the reports of the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee, the Economy, Energy and Fair Work Committee, the Local Government and Communities Committee and the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee on the Scottish Government document, Securing a green recovery on a path to net zero: climate change plan 2018—2032.