Scottish Greenhouse Gas Emissions 2018

There are two measures of greenhouse gases presented in this release:

1. SOURCE EMISSIONS

A measure of the actual emissions or removals of greenhouse gases in Scotland, including international aviation and shipping.  This measure can be used for UK and international comparisons.  Source emissions were 41.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2018; falling by 45.4 per cent between 1990 and 2018 and rising by 1.5 per cent between 2017 and 2018.

2. EMISSIONS FOR REPORTING AGAINST TARGETS

The Committee for Climate Change (CCC) recommended a new method of reporting emissions for the purposes of reporting against targets in this, and future, publications. This is known as the GHG Account and the calculation in detailed in section C of the statistics release.

On this basis, the GHG account reduced by 50.0 per cent between the baseline period and 2018. 

The Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Act 2019 specifies a 54.0 per cent reduction over the same period. 

Therefore the target for 2018 has not been met.

Background

The full statistical publication.

Figures have been revised since last year’s release to incorporate methodological improvements and new data.

MtCO₂e refers to million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent.  This is a consistent measure of assessing the contribution of greenhouse gases to global warming.

The Baseline Period for measuring progress against targets uses 1990 for carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide and 1995 for hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, sulphur hexafluoride and nitrogen trifluoride

The data on Greenhouse Gas Emissions used in this release have been compiled for all Nations of the UK by a consortium of independent contractors.  Further information on the National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory.

Official statistics are produced by professionally independent statistical staff – more information on the standards of official statistics in Scotland.