Scottish ministers’ latest plan to tackle climate change contains “high ambition” but must be backed up by more detailed policies on how it will be achieved, a Holyrood committee has been told.
The Scottish Government’s new route map for tackling climate change was published in February, setting out how it intend to achieve a target of reducing emissions by 66% by 2032.
Appearing before the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee at Holyrood, Adrian Gault, acting chief executive of the independent Committee on Climate Change, said the advisory body had not yet looked in detail and assessed the final document.
However he said: “I think it is clear that when you look at the plan there are some areas where there is high ambition, but still a lot more to do to bring forward details of the policies and instruments that will be used to deliver on that ambition.
“For example there are very good plans around energy efficiency, and a very high level of ambition for energy efficiency for buildings.
“But there is a route map that is going to be produced for the Scottish energy efficiency programme later this year which needs to provide more detail about how that ambition is going to be achieved.
“That’s true in a number of areas where there is a lot more policy development work that still would need to happen to deliver that ambition.”
The Committee on Climate Change previously said a draft of the plan “lacks credibility in meeting the emissions targets for 2032, and fails to prepare properly for deeper decarbonisation in the longer term”.
Meanwhile, environmental campaigners have criticised the final plan for failing to go far enough, with Stop Climate Chaos Scotland stating it failed to put in place any credible plan to help farmers reduce their climate impacts.
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