Centre Honorary Professor makes major intervention on climate change
Published: 24 April 2024
Event recording
Honorary Professor Chris Stark spoke to Laura Kuenssberg about the Scottish Government’s decision to scrap climate change targets.
Chris Stark, CEO Climate Change Committee and Honorary Professor at the Centre for Public Policy gave a timely interview to Laura Kuenssberg over the weekend. During which he reflected on the recent Scottish Government decision to scrap its climate change targets and the need for leadership in climate policy.
In March the Climate Change Committee published a report on progress towards reducing emissions and assessing the policies in place for delivering future emissions reduction. This report found Scotland’s 2030 climate targets to be no longer credible. The committee reported that there was no comprehensive strategy for Scotland to decarbonise towards Net Zero and encouraged urgent publication of a Climate Change Plan.
Last week the Scottish Government announced it plans to scrap its annual and interim legislative targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. In a statement to parliament, Màiri McAllan, Cabinet Secretary for Wellbeing Economy, Net Zero and Energy set out the government’s position and response to the Climate Change Committee’s report. New legislation will be introduced which will be similar to the carbon budget system used by the UK and Welsh Government.
In his interview with Laura Kuenssberg, Chris Stark responded to the announcement with disappointment and underlined that ambition only matters if you deliver against it. While welcoming ambition in politics, he explained there had been no credible path to hit the targets. The Climate Change Committee set out what the government would need to do to meet these ambitions, but he felt the steps were not politically palatable and therefore not taken up.
At a UK level, Chris recognised the progress that’s been made in decarbonising how we generate electricity, but he explained we now need to focus on difficult topics such as how we heat our homes and industrial emissions from things like farming and transport systems. This is where we see a gap and need much stronger policy.
He felt the Prime Minister’s intervention in the autumn had set the UK back. The interview underlined the importance of leadership from the top to prioritise policy throughout government. Chris felt the civil service machine was producing lots of policy, but it’s not clear how that should be presented to the public. During this election year, he importantly warned against us getting to a place of full climate denialism and polarised politics around climate policy, like we see in the US and Australia.
Chris finished the interview by discussing the importance of getting our policy priorities right. He explained this is a transition, we’ve got time, but we need a plan that works across 10-15 years.
In November last year Chris chaired an event with the Centre for Public Policy where he outlined we were not on track to hit our Net Zero 2030 targets. He explained that there was no policy programme in place to decarbonise at the rate needed outside of the power sector.
The full event summary was published on the Centre for Public Policy.
First published: 24 April 2024