A scathing report warning Scotland is failing to hit its climate goals should serve as a “wake up call”, Green minister Lorna Slater has admitted.
Speaking exclusively to the Daily Record, Slater, the Scottish Government’s biodiversity minister, conceded the country isn’t going fast enough in the mission to curb emissions. It comes after the independent Climate Change Committe’s damning verdict that Scotland’s record on hitting eco targets is a “trend of failure” - and warned the SNP -Green government’s entire climate plan was at risk.
In a candid interview, Slater said she “completely understands people's frustration” that net zero progress “isn’t going as fast as it needs to go”. She added: “I think the report is quite right to give us all a wake up call that we are not on track to meet our targets and that we have to do more.”
On key measures to drive down emissions by boosting nature - like tree-planting and restoring peatlands - the Green MSP said the country would have to “ramp up” to have any hope of meeting climate goals. Despite tree-planting rates in Scotland being the highest in the UK, the CCC warned the country’s progress had faltered and was “off track” from hitting a key 2025 target.
And the expert body said the Scottish Government’s ambitious overall plan to cut emissions by 75 per cent by 2030 - and turn the country carbon-neutral by 2045 - was at risk due to the lack of a “clear delivery plan”. Slater accepted the criticism but also defended the government’s approach, warning the huge scale of the challenge meant there were “lots of moving pieces” and it would “take time” to get policies right.
She said “low-hanging fruit” in the drive to net zero - such as boosting Scots renewables - was already getting done, but claimed the “harder bits” lay ahead. That includes insulating and decarbonising people’s homes - currently being overseen by Slater’s fellow Scottish Greens co-leader and minister Patrick Harvie.
The CCC hit out at the Holyrood administration’s progress on that issue, accusing ministers of “magical thinking” and saying measures were "not yet adequate… to deliver low-carbon heat and energy efficiency improvements at the required rate". Slater said: “Everything that we're working on is to ramp and scale up that as quickly as possible to take advantage of those opportunities, but also to get us toward our climate goals.”
On tree-planting, efforts to hit a target in Scotland to plant 18,000 hectares a year by 2024-25 had “plateaued” and fallen off in recent years, the CCC warned. Peatland restoration rates are also below target, with their progress report saying these were at "less than half of Scotland's own target of 20,000 hectares per year".
The CCC also noted that was "much less ambitious" than their recommended level of 45,000 hectares annually. The Scots biodiversity minister insisted these huge nature restoration projects could sometimes face “blockers” like a shortage of skilled workers or a lack of finance.
Speaking ahead of travelling today to the UN COP15 nature summit in Montreal, Slater said: “Those things do take time - because you have the option of rushing things and getting it wrong or the option of taking a bit of time in getting it right. You also have to bring communities along with you if you're going to change people's landscapes, if you're going to change what people's communities look like, how their businesses work.
“But that doesn't in any way separate out the need for radical action to get us there.” The Lothian MSP also admitted a report by green charities this week warning of a decline in protected nature areas was “bang on the money”.
The study, by the Scottish Environment LINK network, found although 19 per cent of Scotland’s land had legal protections, many of these weren’t working. It outlined how a fifth of features in protected areas - such as habitats and species - were in an “unfavourable” condition, and the number in good health had slipped since 2007.
Slater said: “Over the last 30 years - while we've been trying to protect it - Scotland has lost 24 per cent of its nature. It's absolutely clear that what we have been doing doesn't work. It isn't working, it isn't protecting nature, and it certainly isn't restoring it. The big overall picture is one of terrible decline." It comes as Scottish ministers are working on a new biodiversity strategy as well as a refreshed climate change plan.
And Slater hit back at criticism from opposition rivals this week - in the wake of the CCC’s report - that the Scottish Government’s eco rhetoric lay “in tatters”, and that her party was “a Green party in name only”.
She named the SNP-Green administration’s £500 million Just Transition Fund - aimed at supporting the North Sea sector in the shift away from fossil fuels - the booming renewables industry and the incoming deposit bottle return scheme as signs of progress. Slater said: “We've got lots of evidence of our commitment to tackling the nature and climate crisis."
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