Vote to scrap Scotland's climate change targets branded ‘day of shame’

Tuesday will be a “day of shame”, the Scottish Government has been told, as MSPs vote on whether to scrap the country’s legally binding targets on climate change.

Opposition parties rounded on the Government ahead of the stage 3 vote on the Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Bill.

The legislation was brought in after ministers were forced to abandon their key target of reducing greenhouse emissions by 75% by 2030.

The Scottish Greens said the decision was due to a “vast scale of failures” going back decades, while Labour said Government inaction had left the targets “in tatters”.

The Scottish Liberal Democrats said it was “yet another mess of the SNP’s own making”.

The Government accepted in April that the goal was “out of reach”, but because it was included in climate change legislation, ministers have had to bring forward the Bill to amend it.

As well as amending the previous legislation in 2019, it will see Scotland move to a five-year cycle of carbon budgeting, instead of aiming to reduce emissions by a certain proportion by a set time, while still retaining the ultimate target of reaching net zero by 2045.

Labour said ministers must now present MSPs with a “real plan” to reach its targets.

Sarah Boyack, the party’s net-zero spokesperson in Holyrood, said: “This is a day of shame for the SNP Government, whose inaction has left our climate targets in tatters.

“The SNP cannot make the same mistakes again – this Bill must be backed up with a real plan to meet our remaining targets and ensure our homes, transport and communities can deliver the just transition we urgently need.

“Scottish Labour has strengthened this Bill to deliver the accountability and transparency needed to ensure the SNP cannot continue to abdicate its responsibilities.”

As a minority Government, the SNP will need votes from other parties to pass the Bill at stage 3, the final stage before it can receive royal assent and become law.

The Scottish Greens said they would only be willing to vote for it if the Scottish Government “commits to accelerated climate action after years of collective failure”.

“We should not be in this position,” co-leader Patrick Harvie said. “The fact that we are underlines the vast scale of failure going back to before these targets were set 15 years ago.

“All politicians bear a shared responsibility for what has happened, or, rather, what has not happened.

“Far too many have celebrated the targets while blocking the action needed to reach them. The result is that we are far behind where we need to be, and, with global temperatures rising, we cannot afford to repeat this failure.

“We are living through a climate emergency and temperatures are rising, so our governments need to start acting like it. That means showing leadership and urgently and rapidly delivering the policies that will make a difference and secure the net-zero transition.”

Mr Harvie criticised the Government for supporting projects such as the dualling of the A9 while making more climate-friendly forms of travel, such as rail, more expensive by ending the pilot that scrapped peak rail fares.

Scottish Lib Dem MSP Liam McArthur added: “This is yet another mess of the SNP’s own making.

“Ambitious targets were repeatedly undermined by SNP and Green ministers failing to do the hard graft of insulating homes, making transport cleaner or creating green jobs.

“Those failures led the UK’s climate watchdog to state that the targets were simply not credible.”

He added: “This Bill cannot be an escape hatch for the Government. Ministers should now be moving heaven and earth to develop a new plan that will finally deliver for both the climate and communities.”

Scottish Conservative MSP Douglas Lumsden said: “When it comes to climate change, the SNP are full of hot air.

“Today’s humiliating climbdown is the culmination of years of abject failure by them when it comes to meeting climate change targets.

“Ministers like to claim they are world-leading on this issue, but the reality is that the SNP have missed crucial targets in nine out of the last 13 years.

“Now they have had to ditch them altogether after typically overpromising and underdelivering.”

A spokesperson for the Scottish Government said: “The Scottish Government’s commitment to ending Scotland’s contribution to global emissions by 2045 at the latest is unwavering and it is crucial that our pathway to net zero is set at a pace and scale that is feasible and reflects the latest independent expert advice of the Climate Change Committee.

“With emissions in Scotland already cut in half, we are well positioned to continue leading on climate action that is fair, ambitious and capable of rising to the emergency before us.

“We will set out the ambitious pathway to do that in our draft climate change plan.”