Scotland’s Climate Advisors Are Clear: Delay Is No Longer an Option

In a major report released today, the Climate Change Committee (CCC) has set out for the first time the level of carbon budgets that Scotland must meet between 2026 and 2045 to stay on track for Net Zero. These five-year carbon budgets will replace the annual emissions targets that were scrapped earlier this year after repeated failures to meet them.

The CCC's new advice sets a progressively more stretching set of emissions cuts and says Scotland can meet them, but only if Ministers act decisively by speeding up the shift to clean heating, public transport and green jobs, while protecting those on the lowest incomes from the cost of change.

Oxfam Scotland says the CCC’s recommendations highlight the urgent need for public investment in climate solutions, funded through fair taxes on the biggest polluters and the better off. Without this, progress in key areas, like clean heating, risks being too little, too late.

Jamie Livingstone, Head of Oxfam Scotland, said: “Scotland’s climate action so far has been too slow, too shallow and too soft on polluters and that’s got to change. To stick within these proposed Carbon Budgets we must swap delay and dither with proper investment in warm homes, sustainable travel and green jobs.”

Heating homes: a test Scotland can’t afford to fail

Among the clearest warnings in the CCC report is that the pace of progress on clean heating must rapidly increase. It says two-fifths of homes should be heated using low-carbon electric systems by 2035, most of them using heat pumps, with that figure rising to over 90% by 2045.

To get there, heat pump installations in existing homes need to ramp up fast, reaching nearly 35,000 a year by the end of this decade.  The CCC says this scale of growth is absolutely doable, if the right policies are in place now.

But instead of powering up the transition, the Scottish Government has weakened its plans. Proposals to require homeowners to switch to clean heating when selling their property have been ditched, and vital legislation, the Heat in Buildings Bill, has been watered down.

Oxfam Scotland says decarbonising buildings is essential to hitting Scotland’s 2045 climate target. To enable the urgent shift needed, Ministers must now commit to a grants-based system that offers households financial support with the upfront costs of switching to clean heat, with full support for low-income households, funded over time by fair taxes.

Campaigners say an obvious place to start would be landing a fair tax on the pollution-spewing private jets choking Scottish skies: a policy the First Minister says he backs but has yet to act on. The money raised from the tax, estimated to be up to £30 million a year, could be used to invest in green initiatives that benefit everyone.

Jamie Livingstone added: “Fair taxes can fund the fairer, greener future that people in Scotland want: starting with landing a no-brainer tax on pollution-spewing private jets, which could raise tens of millions of pounds a year extra to invest in climate action. Ministers must stop stalling and start delivering.”

/ENDS

For more information and interviews, please contact: Rebecca Lozza, Media and Communications Adviser, Oxfam Scotland: rlozza1@oxfam.org.uk / 07917738450