Climate change: Scottish National Adaptation Plan 2024-2029

Our Vision For A Well-Adapted Scotland

Adapting to climate change is at the heart of the Scottish Government’s mission to improve the wellbeing of people living in Scotland, now and in the future.

In 2024, the Scottish Government proposed that building Scotland’s resilience to climate change becomes a national outcome in Scotland’s National Performance Framework. Subject to Parliamentary approval, this change is proposed to drive climate action across Scottish society that aligns with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and addresses the urgency and scale of the climate crisis which impacts the wellbeing of people and planet.

Our vision is for a resilient, inclusive and well-adapted Scotland as the climate continues to change. The next five years will be critical to setting us on the right path. Our longer term vision, in line with the Adaptation Plan’s five outcomes, illustrates a Scotland where:

• Nature connects across our land, settlements, coasts and seas. Forests, grasslands, waters and other natural spaces create a rich network where plants and animals forage, feed and move as the climate changes. This network supports biodiversity and provides a shelter from extreme weather and changing conditions. There is no stark urban/rural divide as these networks connect. Parks, verges, coasts and other natural spaces in our towns and cities support physical and mental health, cool our urban areas in summer and help protect our places from heavy rain and floods. Adaptation has helped people connect with nature, and nature makes the places in which we live, work and play beautiful and fulfilling.
• Communities are creating climate-resilient, healthy and equitable places. People feel in control of their lives, even as the climate changes. The old and new buildings that form our settlements are safer from flooding and overheating, and communities play a full part in making the places where they live attractive and resilient. Community knowledge and connection are valued, especially where change at our coast will continue to occur, and our history, culture and creativeness support us during change. Adaptation has made Scotland fairer.
• Public services are collaborating in effective and inclusive adaptation action. People can reliably access the public services they need, such as health, education and social care. As the climate changes, people’s wellbeing is supported by safe and resilient transport, water and other essential infrastructure. Adaptation has created a Scotland where climate actions with multiple benefits for health, wellbeing and equity are delivered, and collaborating on shared challenges is easier.
• Economies and industries are adapting and realising opportunities in Scotland’s Just Transition. Scotland’s economy has become a wellbeing economy that can adapt to climate shocks and is growing fairly. As the climate changes our lands and seas, Scotland’s farming, forestry, fishing and aquaculture businesses are adapting and sustaining livelihoods. Businesses and our public services understand their risks and supply chains for food, medicine and other vital goods are secure, including for Scotland’s rural and island communities. Adaptation has helped make Scotland’s one of the most innovative small nations in the world.
• Scotland’s international role supports climate justice and enhanced global action on adaptation. Practical solidarity with countries in the Global South has supported a collective capacity to adapt and build climate resilience. Scotland’s role has supported the international cooperation needed to keep global temperatures below 2°C, to halt and reverse nature loss and to deliver climate justice for those who are being affected first and worst by climate change.

Just transition

“The effects of climate change will be felt across all of society, but they will not affect the whole of society equally.” Climate Change Committee, 2022

Achieving our vision for a well-adapted Scotland requires a just transition. This means recognising that some people and places in Scotland will be affected by climate change impacts worse than others. It also means ensuring that our adaptation policies are fair, by meeting the needs of different groups and delivering multiple ‘wins’ for health, wellbeing, equity and jobs.

Development of this Adaptation Plan included extensive use of impact assessments – see Annex B - to identify those who may be disproportionately affected or may lack the capacity to adapt. The impact assessments identified people and communities who are more likely to be exposed to climate hazards because of where they live, work or play; and people who require greater support to adapt, because they face additional barriers.

The whole Adaptation Plan aims to build Scotland’s resilience to climate change, with a focus on inclusive and place-based adaptation, as well as support for expanding Scotland’s network of regional adaptation partnerships. This means supporting people and communities most vulnerable to climate impacts and building resilient, healthy, and equitable places.

Public engagement

Our commitment to engage across Scotland throughout the lifetime of this Adaptation Plan will be central to delivering our vision for a well-adapted Scotland. It will ensure that our national approach remains informed by how people are experiencing the evolving impacts of climate change.

We will deliver this engagement with communities across Scotland over the next five years, in line with the objectives and principles of our Public Engagement Strategy for Climate Change (PES). The PES aims to enable people to actively participate in shaping just, fair and inclusive policies that promote mitigation of and adaptation to climate change. This includes those people most affected. We will work with trusted messengers, communities, and partner organisations to build public understanding of climate risks. We will enable people to participate in our strategies for reducing vulnerability to those risks, and we will support efforts and action to build resilience.

In developing this Adaptation Plan, we consulted on a draft Plan from January to April 2024, asking people and organisations across Scotland for their views on the proposed national response and whether this supported their priorities. To best capture views across Scotland on the breadth of interventions outlined consultation involved:

• written responses to a series of questions covering the Adaptation Plan’s five outcomes;
• public facing workshops in five locations representative of different Scottish geographies and communities, each facing differing exposure and vulnerability to climate hazards (workshops took place in Annan, Golspie, Montrose, Glasgow City and South Uist); and
• in-depth workshops with stakeholders and key delivery partners, focused on strengthening policy and ambition.

Insights shared in the 240 written responses and by workshop participants have been crucial to shaping this final Adaptation Plan. A full analysis of consultation responses, independently undertaken, identified a number of key themes around:

• Economic costs and investment: concern for the adverse economic impacts of climate change, including rising costs and disruptions to key services and supply chains, and the importance of adequate financial support, public and private investment;
• Infrastructure and public service resilience: strengthening the resilience of infrastructure and public services, including coastal and flood defences, public transport networks, energy systems and public utilities;
• Biodiversity: support for measures to protect Scotland’s natural environment and biodiversity as a priority adaptation action, including more trees and green spaces in built-up places and urban nature networks;
• Collaboration: enhancing collaboration and multi-stakeholder partnerships among government agencies, businesses, communities, and non-profit organisations;
• Community empowerment: empowering communities through resource provision, participatory approaches and inclusion of diverse perspectives to ensure local needs are met;
• Education and public awareness: public awareness campaigns and better education on the impacts of climate change in Scotland, including through Scotland’s curriculum and professional learning;
• Prioritising climate vulnerable groups: recognising the disproportionate impact of climate change on vulnerable groups, including the elderly and low-income households, and participatory approaches to ensure equitable outcomes;
• Considering health and wellbeing: concern over the implications of climate change on physical and mental health, and the need for greater integration of health considerations in the Plan, and;
• Fostering further innovation and research: supporting the innovation opportunities arising for climate change through education, training and business-to-business knowledge sharing.

These findings have informed policy development in this final Plan including, but not limited to:

• Committing to expand regional adaptation partnerships and to further guidance and support to help public services and infrastructure operators understand future climate scenarios;
• Integrating an increased focus on action to support coastal communities and progressing commitments to support community-led action, in the Plan’s outcome on Communities;
• Maintaining an emphasis on action to protect and enhance nature including nature-based solutions, as a key means of supporting resilience, as well integrating action to support landscape scale approaches in the Plan’s outcome on ‘Nature Connects’;
• Increasing educational resources, including through Learning for Sustainability commitments and the development of children’s version of the final Adaptation Plan to support learning;
• An increased focus on action to manage supply chain vulnerabilities for food and vital goods, action to mobilise increased responsible private investment, and progressing proposals for business support in the Plan’s outcome on Economy, Business and Industry;
• Integrating a greater focus on the relationship between climate and health, including mental health and wellbeing, across the Plan;
• Developing a robust approach to monitoring and evaluating adaptation progress, including new ideas for effective data sources.

Outcomes and objectives for adaptation

Figure 1: SNAP3 Outcomes and Objectives

Five adaptation outcomes; 23 objectives

Nature Connects

Nature connects across our lands, settlements, coasts and seas.

• NC1: Nature-based solutions
• NC2: Landscape scale solutions
• NC3: Development planning
• NC4: Nature networks
• NC5: Marine, coastal and the blue economy
• NC6: Natural carbon stores and sinks

Communities

Communities are creating climate-resilient, healthy and equitable place.

• C1: Regional and place-based collaborations
• C2: Locally-led adaptation
• C3: Community resilience
• C4: New and existing buildings
• C5: Culture and historic environment
• C6: Coastal communities

Public Services & Infrastructure

Public services are collaborating in effective and inclusive adaptation action.

• PS1: Public body duties and capacity
• PS2: Public service and infrastructure resilience
• PS3: Scotland’s water resources
• PS4: Transport system

Economy, Business & Industry

Economies and industries are adapting and realising opportunities in Scotland’s Just Transition.

• B1: Business understanding of climate risk
• B2: Support for farming, forestry, fishing and aquaculture sectors
• B3: Innovation opportunities
• B4: Economic development and supply chains

International Action

Scotland’s international role supports climate justice and enhanced global action.

• IA1: Supporting vulnerable communities globally
• IA2: International Advocacy
• IA3: Knowledge advocacy

To build Scotland’s resilience to climate change and meet our long term adaptation outcomes, the Adaptation Plan’s 23 objectives set out priorities for action over the next five years – as shown below, in Figure 1. Our associated data tool helps users navigate the Adaptation Plan, understand what climate risks are being addressed, and map the cross-cutting nature of adaptation policies. To drive delivery and accountability, each objective has an owner (or owners) with lead responsibility. We will report on progress annually in line with our transparent Monitoring and Evaluation Framework.

Monitoring and evaluating success

This Adaptation Plan is accompanied by a robust and comprehensive monitoring and evaluation framework that aims to place Scotland at the forefront of best practice in this area.

The existing UK Climate Change Risk Assessment process provides a full and independent measure of Scotland’s overall climate resilience every five years; and progress of Scotland’s adaptation plans and the actions within them will continue to be independently evaluated twice within every five-year period by the Climate Change Committee. This Adaptation Plan’s new monitoring and evaluation framework will support our existing annual reporting to Parliament and provide significantly better data and evidence to inform risk assessments, evaluate policy and understand delivery.

The monitoring framework, which will be reinforced during the lifespan of the Adaptation Plan, already includes:

• Monitoring maps which describe the pathways through which we expect our policy and delivery to contribute to building Scotland’s climate resilience, and provide a framework for measuring success and understanding change.
• 38 data-ready indicators to track progress of the Adaptation Plan’s five-year objectives and be reported to Parliament annually.
• 16 data-ready indicators to track higher level trends in resilience and longer term adaptation outcomes. Baseline data is published and will be reported again in 2029.
• Plans for policy evaluation, knowledge exchange and learning.

By May 2026, we will have tested the monitoring framework and have access to the first set of trend data. We will use this to understand how we are progressing on areas we know are important to improving Scotland’s climate resilience. This data will inform and be supported by key policy evaluations to further build our evidence base and understanding of how, why and in what ways our policies are leading to improvements in Scotland’s resilience. We will also work with stakeholders to better understand data gaps, and what our current monitoring and evaluation framework cannot tell us, so that we can consider updates to the indicators for 2027. This will be followed by a new programme of work to explore quantified standards or targets for climate resilience in response to the fourth Climate Change Risk Assessment which is due to be published in 2026.