This is not a climate action plan

The Scottish Government scrapped its climate targets last year and has repeatedly delayed the publication of its new climate action plan. It has finally been launched but has been described as “a major missed opportunity”, “dreadful” and “too woolly”, arguing it will “barely scratch the surface” of what is needed.

Common Weal has only done an initial scan of the plan and our initial reaction is that some of these comments may be a little generous. This follows in the tradition of Scottish Government 'action' plans which are made up of pages and pages of general narrative, a list of all the things that are purportedly happening already and a series of statements on new actions which are beyond vague.

To give you some examples of what is being proposed, here are some extracts:

“Heat networks: We are developing plans to boost heat networks by requiring certain properties to change from fossil fuel heating systems when a heat network is available”. Plans are being 'developed' to require 'certain' properties to do something 'where' a heat network is available? That is almost nowhere.

“Approximately 24,000 additional public charge points enabled [by 2030]”. Enabled? How many delivered? Could it be zero? “The need for new petrol and diesel cars and vans phased out [also 2030]”. How? How do you phase out a need? “Some of the Scottish Government ferry service is decarbonised [by 2040].” How? Procurement of hydrogen ferries? Or bulbs replaced with LED. Both meet the target.

“Intervention plan to guide long-term work on household food waste reduction behaviour change [2026-2027]”. Is this intervention or is this a guide? How long term is long term? How is behaviour going to change?

“45% of EfW sites (by emissions) install CCS, at 90% capture rate (with 50% of emissions from biogenic sources) [by 22032]”. Is this not somewhat fantastical? Virtually no-one in the world has achieved 90 per cent capture and this target is only six years away. Energy from Waste plants are not generally coastal. Where is the carbon being stored that it is secure for hundreds of years?

“Investigate technologies for alternative, improved or more efficient fertilisers”. Does 'investigate' count as an action in this context? Once investigated, what will happen? “Scotland’s agricultural machinery will have largely decarbonised, through efficiencies and the roll out of alternative fuels.” The passive voice is notable here – who is driving the efficiencies, who is rolling out the alternative fuels?.

But perhaps the sentence that stands out in all of this, which seems best to capture the essence of this 'action plan', is the one that closes the section on how to engage with the proposals:

“Crucially, as part of the consultation on this draft document, we are seeking your views on how the policies and proposals in this plan can deliver net zero.”

A straight reading of this seems absurd – the government has published climate change plans but it has no idea how they are supposed to work so it would appreciate it if you could have a look and try and make more sense of it than is possible by just reading it?

Another way to read this sentence is 'this is all you're getting, so could you try and persuade yourself this has any chance of working?'. Or is it an admission that at the moment these 'policies' aren't policies at all but the loosest aspirations, and that it is hoping someone can somehow make these stack up?

Or of course this could just be a word salad which has little purpose beyond that of the recent independence paper, or the Council Tax reform discussion document, or the 'digital security' strategy – simply to exist. All of these documents have reason to exist which are purely political. None of them contain content of any real merit.

But the real test of an action plan is whether it would work in achieving its own stated goals. It is very, very clear that if this action plan is all the action which is taken, there is really no credible chance of Scotland meeting climate targets by 2040.

At Common Weal we continue to believe that a crisis of this scale requires a response of the scale of the Common Home Plan. This document is not even nearly that.