Time for Action: Climate Change Plan update

Our vision is for  100% renewable electricity generation in Scotland by 2032 with locally and community owned energy that has a real role in generating renewable electricity.

What we want the updated Climate Change Plan to include:

• Fast track the local use of renewable energy by working with local communities and companies licensed to distribute electricity to establish two Local Energy Zones. 
• Make sure 2GW of energy is locally owned by 2030, with at least 1GW in full community ownership
• Amend planning policy to:
  • ban new fossil fuel infrastructure for electricity generation
  • create a favourable planning framework for renewables
  • require much higher levels of local materials to be used to provide jobs and boost local economies and
  • make it a condition to minimise materials and carbon footprints of infrastructure.
• Establish the planned publicly-owned Energy Company, not as just another competing supplier in a crowded market, but to support the government’s wider strategic aims for just decarbonisation.
• Not rely on negative emission technologies such as Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) and BioEnergy Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) to decrease emissions.
• Given the carbon intensity of energy from waste, ban the building of new incinerators (see Circular Economy proposals)

Our vision is for better insulated homes, workplaces and public buildings to reduce emissions and improve our health. 

What we want the updated Climate Change Plan to include:  

• From next year, future emissions from housing reduced by ensuring that all new buildings provide high energy efficiency and low-carbon heating
• Create new green jobs by skilling up workers to retrofit homes with insufficient insulation.
• Double annual spending on schemes like loans and grants to help those who currently cannot afford to upgrade the energy efficiency of cold homes.   
• Set new minimum standards, so that, in future, buildings being rented out, sold or refurbished in a major way have to reach more efficient standards.
• Phase out high carbon heating like oil and LPG by 2025 in areas that have no mains gas and set a date for the phase-out of replacement gas boilers in existing homes on the gas grid.

Read more about how our buildings can be made fit for the future

Our vision is for cleaner, healthier towns and cities. We want a transport system that prioritises walking, cycling and affordable and accessible public transport. Investment should reflect this with money diverted away from expensive, high carbon infrastructure like motorways to public transport and active travel. 

What we want the updated Climate Change Plan to include:

• Increase funding for sustainable transport, with at least 10% of the transport budget going to active travel, and stop all new trunk road and motorway building
• Encourage the reduction of the use of cars for longer journeys by extending accessible and affordable public transport networks, accelerating the electrification of buses and extending concessionary fares. 
• Encourage the reduction of the use of cars for local journeys by: 
  • Putting in place safe pedestrian / cycle access into all villages and towns 
  • Setting up an integrated network of local walking and cycling routes using quiet roads in each town and city
  • Integrating  walking and cycling with public transport links 
  • Supporting measures such as car clubs, bike and scooter hire schemes
• Bring in a city-wide zero emission zone in every city by 2030.
• Make sure cycle lanes are physically separated from traffic along main routes into all towns and cities                               
• Ensure all new ferries are zero emission.
• Set up freight consolidation centres to support deliveries in zero emission zones.
• Introduce a Frequent Flyer Levy in addition to Air Departure Tax or Air Passenger Duty

Our vision is for an end to unnecessary waste and pollution and investment in recycling. This can create jobs – research by RREUSE has shown that 10,000 tonnes of waste can create only 1 job in incineration, and 6 jobs in landfill, but 36 jobs in recycling and up to 296 jobs in repair and reuse. 

What we want the updated Climate Change Plan to include:

• Ban the building of new incinerators in Scotland. Incineration wastes valuable resources and causes greenhouse gas emissions.
• Invest in more recycling facilities to meet our 70% target by 2025
• Reduce food waste by 50% from the 2013 baseline by 2032
• End the landfill of biodegradable waste, such as food waste, by the end of 2025
• Ban all items in the EU Single-Use Plastics Directive priority list by 2021 and actively support and promote reusable alternatives
• Implement the Deposit Return Scheme for drinks containers by July 2022, with glass included from the start.
• Introduce charges on single-use disposable drinks cups by July 2021
• Introduce a Circular Economy Bill with targets that reduce the emissions produced in creating everything we consume. The 2030 reduction for our minerals, metals and fossil fuel feedstocks should be 50% less than in 2020.

Read more about transitioning to a circular economy and what we want to see in the updated Climate Change Plan

Our vision is that marine environments are recognised for their potential for carbon storage and properly protected. Many marine species – from phytoplankton to cold-water corals – capture and store ‘blue’ carbon. Carbon densities in marine sediments can be six times higher than in peatlands.

What we want the updated Climate Change Plan to include:

• Develop and fund a research strategy on marine carbon and aquaculture
• Stop impacts on existing marine carbon stores (for instance by seabed trawling in sea-lochs) 
• by establishing appropriate areas.
• End damage to all biogenic reefs, seagrass, kelp, saltmarsh and other habitats which sequester carbon, and establish regeneration targets for each
• Urgently recover fish stocks to the point at which they can provide maximum sustainable
• yield to provide low emission protein source, this includes recovery by protecting the functioning of spawning grounds and juveniles from bycatch pressure.

Our vision is for all degraded peatlands to be restored, extensive native tree-planting projects and recognition of the value of protecting our seas as vital carbon stores

What we want the updated Climate Change Plan to include:

Forestry

• Long-term funding for jobs to increase woodland creation and tree and hedgerow planting, in particular native trees.
• Exercise caution around Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS): BECCS technologies to capture carbon dioxide from burning biomass remain technically and economically unproven and there is no clear evidence that they can ever be implemented sustainably. 

Peatlands 

• Increase the ambition – it will be a huge task to restore all, but do-able.
• Funded contract over several years to  boost confidence and allow flexibility in delivery. 
• Ban burning on peatlands in Scotland except as part of a licenced habitat restoration plan.  
• Ban commercial peat extraction for horticulture and the sale of peat for horticultural use.
• Stop invasive non-native trees establishing on peatlands: require developers to avoid siting development on sensitive peatlands and on deep peat in the first instance. Where losses are unavoidable, restoration opportunities should be maximised.  Require developers to robustly assess any losses, and maintain a national government overview. 

Deer management

• Set and enforce a maximum limit of ten red deer per square kilometre density over large areas of open range in the Highlands.
• Phase out public financial support for deer fencing.  A cost-benefit analysis of delivering woodland expansion via natural regeneration and sustainable deer management, rather than by tree planting and deer fencing, should be undertaken and used to guide policy implementation. 

Our vision is for climate and nature to be at the heart of Scotland’s plans for rural support. 

Agricultural emissions accounted for 18% of total emissions in 2018 and the wider food system contributed up to 30%. With three quarters of our land classified as agricultural, it is vital that agriculture plays a key and ambitious role in reducing its contribution to dangerous climate change.

What we want the updated Climate Change Plan to include:

• Increased ambition. WWF published a report in 2019 that found that Scottish agriculture could reduce its emissions by at least 35%, a lot more than the 9%, suggested in the current Climate Change Plan.
• Outline an integrated food and agriculture system based on Just Transition principles across production, consumption, health, environment and waste
•  Introduce a new integrated Scotland wide plan to reduce nitrogen waste, emissions, ecosystem degradation and impacts on water and air quality.
• Set targets to increase organic production as organic farming can play a large role in reducing emissions and supporting nature in Scotland. 
• Encourage low-carbon and nature-friendly farming by supporting farmers and their supply chains with financial mechanisms and whole-scale change in the advisory service
• Do not rely on voluntary behaviour change. Follow the advice of the UK govt’s own expert Climate Change Committee, which recommends a ‘strong regulatory baseline’.
• Set dates for crucial targets including the halting of soil carbon loss 
• Set a target of 10% of agricultural land to include agroforestry.

Our vision is that Scotland is a good global citizen and demonstrates world leadership by championing climate justice, and that people who have not been responsible for contributing to the climate emergency do not unjustly have to shoulder alone its worst effects.

What we want the updated Climate Change to include:

•  Use of our devolved powers in Scotland to provide far more finance to developing countries to help them adapt to the effects of climate change.
• Acceptance that emissions from goods we buy from abroad are our responsibility, part of our carbon footprint. It should not develop policies that ‘transfer’ our emissions elsewhere, reduce others’ ability to adapt to the changing climate or make it harder for other countries to make their own fair contribution to the global effort

Read more about why Scotland’s climate change plan can’t just be for Scots and what we want to see from the updated Climate Change Plan

Our vision is that the Climate Change Plan will set out how we will phase out our most polluting activities as part of a Just Transition to a low carbon future in a way that is fair and just for everyone. 

What we want the updated Climate Change Plan to include:

• Consult with impacted workers and communities, trade unions and environmentalists; and create a national Action Plan and rewritten Economic Strategy that:
  • focusses on a just transition, wellbeing and a more circular economy that reduces waste and keeps products in use for longer. 
  • includes regional and sectoral plans with targets and timescales for reducing emissions, investment and job creation.
• Give the Just Transition Commission a statutory remit and a representative membership
• Use public procurement to promote a Just Transition.