Meeting the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 interim target: progress report

Part 3 - Progress towards the 2050 Target

The NSEAs for each of the years from 2010 and 2013 demonstrate that Scotland is outperforming the rates of reduction required by the Act for these years.

Section 3(2) of the Act indicates that the Climate Change targets are not set to allow consistent annual percentage reductions in each year. Instead, there are differences in the growth rates over time.

This is demonstrated in Chart 3, which shows that the annual average percentage reductions required to meet the 42% reduction target in 2020 are less than those required to achieve the 80% Reduction Target in each year from 2020 to 2050 and this is implied within the Act. This will require greater percentage reductions in later years to meet the 2050 Target.

However, the progress in reducing the NSEA so far demonstrates that Scotland has, to date, exceeded the percentage reductions required at this point to be on the extrapolated trajectory required to deliver the 2050 target. This is shown in Chart 4.

Chart 3. Progress required to meet 42% and 80% reduction targets, as prescribed in the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009. Values in MtCO ₂e

Chart 4. Progress required to meet 42% and 80% reduction targets, as prescribed in the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009. Values in MtCO ₂e