The Scottish Government must take immediate action if it is to meet the country’s climate targets, according to new analysis from the UK’s climate watchdog, which argues that investment in electric technologies will pave the way for achieving net zero by 2045.
The Climate Change Committee’s (CCC) latest report, Scotland’s Carbon Budgets, warned that reaching net zero within the next twenty years will require ‘immediate action, at pace and scale’ across core sectors of the Scottish economy, including in renewables, housing, transport, and agriculture.
The CCC study recommends that over the next five years, the Scottish Government should set its first Carbon Budget at a level 57% below 1990 emissions, with emissions falling by as much as 94% by 2045.
Delivering these reductions is estimated to have a net cost of around 0.4% of Scotland’s GDP per year, around £750 million per year.
Achieving those targets will take serious investment, however, particularly in electric technologies, expected to account for nearly half of future emissions reductions, however, the CCC warned that current policies won’t be enough to meet that lofty goal.
“Scotland’s new system of carbon budgets will help guide the action we need to get to net zero by 2045,” said Professor Piers Forster, interim chair of the Climate Change Committee.
“But we do need to see action now. The Scottish Government has devolved powers to deliver the necessary emissions reductions in key sectors, particularly buildings, surface transport, agriculture, and land use.
“We encourage them to exercise these powers as quickly and fully as possible.”
Among the eighteen priority recommendations the report makes to get the country on track, is that the Scottish Government should quickly support electric vehicle (EV) adoption by deploying more public charge points across the country.
The report estimates that with the right support, by 2035 around three-fifths of cars and vans on Scottish roads will be fully electric (compared to 2.2% for cars and 0.8% for vans in 2023), rising to a staggering 94% by 2045.
With prices for new and second-hand EVs falling, the CCC said there is an opportunity for rapid take-up provided the right infrastructure is in place, and although Scotland already has 7% more charge points than the UK average, this would need to rapidly increase to support such as widespread expansion of EVs.
Another urgent recommendation is more government backing for the installation of low-carbon heating in Scottish homes.
The CCC said that Scotland needs to rapidly transition to low-carbon electrified heat to meet its net zero targets, which could come in the form of more heat pumps. According to the report, by 2035, 40% of existing homes could be heated by low-carbon electric systems, rising to 92% by 2045 and reaching all homes by 2050.
Meeting that goal would right now require nearly 35,000 heat pump installations a year by 2030, a target the report calls ‘feasible’ but demanding immediate policy support.
Perhaps most impactful, however, would be the CCC’s recommendations around renewables and the low-carbon supply of energy.
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According to the report, Scotland’s electrical capacity in variable renewables, including offshore and onshore wind and solar, could more than triple from 15 GW in 2023 to 49 GW by 2035, increasing to 66 GW by 2045.
That would provide 98% of electricity generation in Scotland in 2035 and cater for increasing demand in Scotland as well as the rest of Britain.
The Scottish Government’s acting net zero secretary, Gillian Martin, said that the Committee’s report would be carefully considered before the carbon budgets are set, however opposition leaders were quick to call out a perceived lack of progress by the SNP.
Scottish Labour’s net zero spokesperson, Sarah Boyack, told the Guardian: “The SNP has already torn up one set of targets – we urgently need a real plan to meet the Scottish government’s remaining targets.”
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