First Minister and Net Zero Secretary attendance at Cop28 in the United Arab Emirates: FOI release

Information requested

You asked for "all minutes, details and briefing notes of meetings held by First Minister Humza Yousaf and Net Zero Secretary Mairi McAllan while at Cop28 in the United Arab Emirates", noting that these should include "who was met, which companies or organisations the First Minister and Net Zero Secretary met with and what was discussed."

Response

I enclose a copy of some of the information you requested.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested. In some cases, the meetings held by the First Minister and the Cabinet Secretary at COP28 were arranged at short notice, or were informal and/or brief, meaning they went ahead without formal written briefings. Some briefings or minutes were not held at the time of your request, therefore have not been provided. Wherever the relevant briefings or minutes were available, they have been included in the document attached.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we are unable to provide some of the information you have requested because exemptions under sections s.29(1)(a) - formulation/development of government policy, s.30(b)(1) - substantial inhibition to free and frank provision of advice, s.32(1)(a) - substantial prejudice to international relations, s.33(1)(b) - substantial prejudice to commercial interests, and s.38(1)(b) - third party personal data, of FOISA apply to that information.

These exemptions are subject to the 'public interest test'. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

FOI 202400401966 - Information Released - Document

File type

257 page PDF

File size

3.0 MB