The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) report on Scotland’s slow progress towards meeting Net Zero targets should act as a reality check which signals an end to the era of headlines as substitutes for actions. Let’s start again on the basis of realism.
In the past, the CCC has been generous in praising the Scottish Government for its ambition in setting targets which went beyond the rest of the UK.
These included 2045 rather than 2050 being the appointed year of Net Zero.
Those of us familiar with the ways and wiles of the Scottish Government never took these distinctions seriously.
It was axiomatic for St Andrew’s House to present itself as more virtuous, more ambitious, more environmentally friendly than Tory laggards in the south.
But where was the substance? The CCC has caught up on realities and is asking hard questions.
It points out, for example, that a Progress Report to Holyrood on the 2030 staging post towards Net Zero, promised last year, still hasn’t emerged.
“Scotland”, the CCC report observes acidly, “is therefore still missing a coherent, transparent and quantified plan on how it will meet its stretching 2030 target”.
It then offers “a list of priority recommendations”.
However tempting political schadenfreude might be, the issues at stake are too serious for that.
By turning itself into a place where virtue signalling became an acceptable substitute for action, Scotland failed to focus on the lower-hanging fruit of attainable progress.
It is now up to all political parties and pressure groups to be explicit about what they would do differently and better.
While it is certainly true that the current Scottish Government is failing to deliver on years of overblown rhetoric, it is by no means apparent that anyone else has specific ideas about how to do better or the will to question fundamentals.
Maybe we need to have a complete re-set of objectives even if that means bringing them into line with what reasonable people might regard as attainable, after years of “targets” unmatched by delivery.
As the CCC points out, we are a land without a plan and that comes at a cost. Failure to persuade people that transition really is moving ahead at the pace promised will continue to heighten scepticism among those whose livelihoods depend on what actually exists, not least in the North Sea.
Of course, not all the powers lie with the Scottish Government and the critical issue of transitioning electricity supply from fossil fuels to renewables requires maximum co-operation between Edinburgh and Whitehall, of which there is little sign. That too has to change.
The CCC says: “The Scottish and UK Governments must work together effectively to ensure both the Scottish targets and the UK wide objective of a decarbonised electricity system by 2035 are achieved”. It calls for “a delivery plan” based on “practical measures”.
It is not only the CCC which would welcome that particular plan. The credibility of a “just transition” depends on clear evidence that it is happening. This literally has to be seen to be believed which is not the reality at present.
The absence of a clear strategy for delivery of the ScotWind programme is a prime example of why most people find it difficult to buy into the bigger vision.
Is it going to happen? Where is it going to happen? When is it going to happen? Nobody even tries to answer these questions at any strategic level.
We’re just supposed to watch, wait and hope. Can anyone tell me who, in Scotland, is the champion of the just transition we hear so much about?
Where is the Scottish Government Minister who should be inspiring the country to believe something big is happening and that we can all play a part? I honestly haven’t a clue.
Instead, every high-profile ambition seems to run into the same barrier of credibility. A wholesale transition to heat pumps in Scottish homes is a case in point.
Many people would be perfectly happy to convert to heat pumps but either they cannot afford them or their property – perhaps a tenement flat – is unsuitable.
The Green Minister, Patrick Harvie, says that at least 100,000 homes a year must convert to heat pumps in order to meet the 2030 target.
In the real world, the number for last year was 6338. That is not so much a credibility gap as a chasm which does nothing to enhance faith in wider Net Zero objectives.
There is no point shouting at people that they must convert to heat pumps when the reality of their circumstances makes that impossible.
So by all means carry on encouraging but do not rely on the fiction that this is going to happen by 2030.
For many households, home insulation is a far more plausible means of reducing energy demand and keeping warm.
I have always been suspicious of target-setting where the timescales involved extend far beyond the expected longevity of the politicians responsible.
Far better to concentrate on what is deliverable in the here and now, for which current political policy-setters can be held accountable.
CCC’s high-minded criticisms could be borne stoically if we could answer honestly: “We are doing our best and trying to do more”.
The Scottish Government made a rod for its own back with grandiose ambitions and underdelivery. Others should not follow them down that path.
