About the Inquiry
The Climate Change Plan update (CCPu), which is an update to the previous Climate Change Plan published in 2018, was laid in the Scottish Parliament on 16 December 2020.
Four parliamentary committees are scrutinising the effectiveness of the CCPu, examining the ambition of proposals and actions across all sectors. They are:
• Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee
• Economy, Energy and Fair Work Committee
• Local Government and Communities Committee
• Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee
Each committee will look at the parts of the CCPu that relate to their remit.
The CCPu also includes an overview section that details the Scottish Government’s approach to ‘Green Recovery.’ A green recovery describes the policies and solutions designed to recover from the Covid-19 health crisis and build a resilient, sustainable and inclusive society. Green recovery crosses all remits and so each committee will explore the extent to which the CCPu effectively delivers a green recovery.
The ECCLR Committee's scrutiny of the plan will focus on:
• Overview and ambition, development of updated Climate Change Plan
• climate change governance (including monitoring and evaluation)
• behaviour change
• water
• resource use
• land use (including peatlands and land use by the public sector)
• marine/blue carbon
• waste and circular economy
• green recovery as it relates to this Committee’s remit
• anything not covered by other committees
Following evidence sessions in January and February 2021, the four committees involved will then report directly to the Parliament in March 2021.
Consideration of the CCPu by other Scottish Parliament committees
As noted above, 3 other Scottish Parliament committees will look at the plan. Find out more about what they will cover here.
Evidence
Call for views (closed)
The four committee launched a joint call for views on 16 December 2020. The deadline for responses was 12 January 2021. Please follow the below link to the overview page to submit evidence to the relevant committee: Read the call for evidence.
Written evidence
Read the submissions received by the Committee.
Correspondence
In January 2021, the Committee wrote to the Cabinet Secretary requesting information on a number of points. Read the letter and the response:
In February 2021, the Cabinet Secretary wrote to the Committee with information on the UK National Statistics for territorial Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions for 2019, which also include confirmation of the UK Government’s approach to major changes to the technical inventory accounting methods for peatlands. Read the letter:
The Committee wrote to the Cabinet Secretary ahead of the finalisation of the Climate Change Plan update. Read the letter and the response:
Report
The Committee published it's response to the Scottish Government's Climate Change Plan update on 4 March 2021. Read the report: