You won’t see this on BBC Scotland – Murrell! Murrell! Sturgeon! Murrell, more ferry delays….
Nor on BBC Scotland Business – climate change targets scrapped (lie), bank closures, shouting at fish markets….no Murrell….isn’t embezzlement a kind of business?
From the Scottish Government today:
The Scottish Government is stepping up action to tackle climate change with a suite of new policies on transport, including increasing the number of electric vehicle chargers, and land use.
The increase in charging points comes as part of a wider climate package that also includes an integrated ticketing system which can be used across all public transport. In agriculture and land use, a new carbon tax on large estates to incentivise peatland restoration, tree planting and renewable energy generation will be consulted on, and ways to reduce emissions from livestock through the use of special feedstuffs will be piloted.
Net Zero Secretary Màiri McAllan confirmed the Scottish Government’s unwavering commitment to reach net zero by 2045 and announced new legislation will be brought forward to introduce multi-year ‘Carbon budgets’ replacing the current, annual targets. In light of the UK-wide Climate Change Committee’s (CCC) recent rearticulation that the 2030 target for emissions reduction is not achievable, this will no longer be a statutory target.
Responding to the Climate Change Committee 2023 progress report for Scotland which challenged the Scottish and UK Governments to go further and faster, actions include:
- the publication of a new route map this year for the delivery of approximately 24,000 additional electric vehicle charge points by 2030
- an integrated ticketing system that can be used across all public transport
- a pilot scheme to support the roll out of methane suppressing food products to reduce emissions from livestock working closely with Scottish businesses
- consulting on a new carbon tax on largest estates to encourage peatland restoration, tree planting and renewable energy generation
- helping people reduce their reliance on cars with a 20% fall in their use by 2030
- the creation of a Just Transition plan for the Mossmorran industrial site developed in partnership with the operators of the plant, workforce and local community
Scotland is already around halfway to net zero and has decarbonised faster than the UK average. In 2022, 87.9% of electricity generation was from zero or low carbon sources, nearly 63% of new woodlands in the UK were created in Scotland in 2022 -23 and more than two million Scots are now eligible for free bus travel.
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
The so-called scrapping of the ‘target’ for 2030 shows the folly and vacuousness of many ‘targets’ and of the folly of grandstanding at things like Cop26.
I think it was the Blair Government that started ‘target’ setting in a mendacious attempt to demonstrate that it was ‘serious’ about change. Now, we should aspire to do things better and to collect data on which to evaluate things and to indicate potentially fruitful ways forward. But since Blair, targets have been a mechanism to control professional people and to curtail their ability to make decisions on how to move forward. There were, literally, hundreds of targets – it was micromanagement by external bodies using blame to force compliance by professionals. They became an end in themselves and have been used ever since by the media to BLAME and, for them BLAMING is an end in itself.
It has been clear that the ‘targets’ for 2030, which have been ‘scrapped’ were unlikely to be met, because climate change is a global phenomenon and neither Scotland nor any other country can be isolated from world wide effects, such those driven by planetary winds. In an interconnected world we need global cooperation to bring about the kind of changes the planet needs.
This is not to deny that on its own, Scotland can do effective things which benefit the population, such as by increasing the surface area with trees and other vegetation, by letting some rivers resume, as far as possible, to determine their own courses. By introducing low emission zones in towns and cities, reducing speed limits, and introducing low traffic neighbourhoods air quality in urban areas has improved as is shown by the improvements in high streets near me. We can introduce better housing standards which reduce the need for so much heating. Etc.
Alasdair Macdonald.
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While Scotland missed their 2021 target by 0.9%, it was better at reducing emissions than the rest of the UK.
Under ‘Notes to Editors’
https://www.theccc.org.uk/2024/03/20/scotlands-2030-climate-goals-are-no-longer-credible/
“Emissions were 41.6 MtCO2e in 2021, based on the 1990-2021 inventory.
This is a 2.4% increase since 2020 but remains 10.0% below pre-pandemic levels in 2019.
(there was a covid effect?)
Emissions in 2021 were 49.2% lower than levels in 1990.
(their target was 51.1%)
This represents a higher reduction in emissions compared to the UK, where 2021 emissions were 47.2% below 1990 levels.”
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SG can only go so far as the purse strings allow – Add a thoroughly hostile political opposition and Scottish media who will go out of their way to slam anything SG set out to achieve, it was always going to be an uphill struggle with setbacks.
I was reminded of that this morning when visiting BBC Scotland – An article by Calum Watson titled ” Were Scotland’s new gas-powered ferries a bad choice? “, sought to extend James Cook’s ‘Ferry-Stories’ franchise into pouring scorn on the logic behind two ship design concepts almost two decades before, yep you guessed it, FMEL part XXXVIII….
Is it any wonder that carbon sequestration by increasing woodland is all we have to show for it, when it is the only aspect the money men and thereby London supports as it furthers ‘profits’ – This is the same London who are almost out of water, swimming in shit, and bailing out utilities to keep ‘profits’ going…
So long as we remain shackled to the destructive mentality of those in power at Westminster etc., progress on the burning aspects of climate change will take as long a tree planted this year. Too little too late is the London way…..
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