Cleaner Air for Scotland 2 strategy: progress report

1. Foreword

The quality of the air we breathe is fundamental to our health, and our ecosystem. Scotland enjoys good air quality compared with much of Europe and globally, with significant reductions achieved across all the main air pollutants over the past three decades, but we are determined to go further to protect human health and the environment. Our vision is for Scotland to have the cleanest air in Europe.

The World Health Organisation considers air pollution to be the biggest environmental risk to human health. That is why we are taking action, including supporting the implementation of the Low Emission Zones in Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee this year, alongside the LEZ already in place in Glasgow, helping us reduce emissions and pollution in our city centres.

Good progress has been made this year in delivering our actions in Cleaner Air for Scotland 2. Since publication of the strategy in July 2021, we have worked with partners to deliver more than half of the actions, with seventeen actions completed since the last progress report. For the second consecutive year, Scotland is meeting air quality objectives. This is a great achievement and evidences the hard work we have been doing collectively with partners.

I look forward to continuing our journey together to improving Scotland's air quality.

Màiri McAllan MSP

Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero and Energy