Scottish Greenhouse Gas Emissions 2019

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. Source emissions were 47.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2019; falling by 43.8 per cent between 1990 and 2018 and falling by 2.3 per cent between 2018 and 2019.

2. EMISSIONS FOR REPORTING AGAINST TARGETS

The Climate Change Committee (CCC) recommended a new method of reporting emissions for the purposes of reporting against targets which was implanted for the first time in June 2020. 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 51.5 per cent between the baseline period and 2019. 

The Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Act 2019 specifies a 55.0 per cent reduction over the same period. 

Therefore the target for 2019 has not been met.

Background

The full statistical publication is available on the Scottish Government website.  

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 can be found at http://naei.defra.gov.uk/about/

Official statistics are produced by professionally independent statistical staff – more information on the standards of official statistics in Scotland can be accessed at: https://www2.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/About