Greenhouse Gases Challenge To UK

The Scottish Government has urged Westminster to match its high ambition'' to tackle climate change - as the Greens warn that Scotland is on course to miss its fourth annual climate target in a row.

Scottish Climate Change Minister Aileen McLeod has written to her new UK counterpart Amber Rudd complaining that Scotland is paying the price for the UK's lack of climate ambition''.

The Scottish Government will publish its 2013 Greenhouse Gas Inventory on Tuesday but only an unprecedented drop in emissions can save the SNP from reporting its fourth failure in a row, according to the Scottish Greens.

Greenhouse emissions rose by 400,000 tonnes in 2012 despite a projected drop of 178,000, but the target for 2013 will require a massive drop of eight million tonnes.

Ms McLeod said Scotland remains on track to meet our world-leading target of a 42% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020''.

International negotiations continue on a new global climate change treaty to be agreed in Paris in December.

Ms McLeod said: I am looking forward to working with Amber Rudd in the run up to the Paris climate talks and beyond.

For that treaty to stand a good chance of limiting global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius, the UK and the rest of the international community must match Scotland's high climate change ambition.

Scotland is on track to meet our world-leading target of a 42% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.''

And we are punching above our weight in the international effort to tackle climate change, outperforming the UK as a whole and the EU average for emissions reduction between 1990 and 2012.

But delivering our ambitious climate change targets is a serious challenge, made all the more difficult because of revisions to the baseline data they were based on.

Scottish emission levels also depend to a significant extent on policies at UK and EU level. And Scotland is paying the price for the UK's lack of climate ambition.

Green MSP Patrick Harvie, a member of Holyrood's economy and energy committee, said: Since the Scottish Parliament agreed to set challenging climate change targets there has been a failure of the current Scottish Government to pursue policies that will get our emissions down.

An area the Scottish Greens have consistently pushed in parliament has been community and public ownership of energy assets.

If Scottish ministers are serious about getting our climate ambitions back on track they would do well to emulate Germany's Energiewende programme of switching to renewables and reducing demand through widespread local ownership.

Giving communities and public bodies control over energy not only creates jobs and cuts energy bills but provides revenue to invest in greener transport, sustainable land use, cutting waste, and other priorities to finally turn good intentions into real action on climate change.

The Scottish Government needs to be bolder on community energy and should seek to increase not cut its investment, otherwise we can only conclude it does not understand the urgent need for a transformational policy agenda.''