Environmental campaigners have expressed concern as the Scottish Government announced it had missed its climate target for 2022, marking the ninth out of the last 13 annual targets to be missed.
The Scottish Greenhouse Gas Emissions Statistics for 2022, released today, revealed a marginal decrease of just 0.1% in emissions from the previous year. Alarmingly, emissions in key sectors such as transport, electricity, and waste actually increased over the same period.
Campaigners have criticised the government’s approach, particularly its proposal to potentially abandon the 2030 climate target, amidst accusations of backtracking on commitments to phase out oil and gas.
In response to the latest figures, Caroline Rance, Climate and Energy Campaigner at Friends of the Earth Scotland, emphasised the urgency of the situation: “The Scottish Government has now missed nine of the last 13 year’s climate targets. Rather than taking the action needed to achieve them, they are now trying to ditch the 2030 target altogether.”
“These climate targets were based on science, and they all should and could have been met. It’s high time the Scottish Government got a grip of this dire situation,” Rance added. “They must commit to a fair and fast phase out of fossil fuels, beginning with rejecting SSE and Equinor’s application for a new gas-burning power station at Peterhead, and ramp up a renewable energy system that creates jobs, lowers bills and reduces climate pollution.”
The Scottish Government’s stance on environmental policy has faced increasing scrutiny, with calls for more stringent measures to combat climate change and adhere to international commitments.