The Scottish Government is set to ditch a key climate change target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 75% by 2030.

Net Zero Secretary Mairi McAllan is expected to confirm the pledge will be removed from legislation today, subject to parliamentary approval.

It's understood the country's goal to be net zero by 2045 will remain.

The Climate Change Committee (CCC) has warned the Scottish Government for years now that it's lost its lead over the rest of the UK in tackling climate change, and warned last month that the 2030 goal is no longer feasible.

Ms McAllan also delayed publishing her updated climate change plan detailing how the government was going to meet various targets. The plan has yet to be published.

The targets were first announced in 2019, before becoming the first country to declare a climate emergency as Glasgow hosted COP26.

But this afternoon's statement at Holyrood will see a slight backtracking on the goals set by the former First Minister, albeit a Scottish Government source says the "numbers are stacking up in the real world", in relation to the 2045 target.

A tale of missed targets

The Scottish Government has, thus far, missed eight out of 12 annual climate targets.

By 2021, the law required a 51.1% reduction in greenhouse has emissions in comparison to 1990 levels, but they'd only fallen by 49.2%.

Scrapping the legislation will no longer mean it's a legal requirement to reduce emissions by a certain amount.

More like this…

View all