Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) of the Scottish Climate Change Bill: Consultation Proposals: Environmental Report

Note on Post Consultation Re-Issue of this Environmental Report

The consultation on the Scottish Climate Change Bill ( SCCB) Proposals closed on the 23rd April 2008. 21,046 responses were received on the Bill consultation itself; however, only two responses were received on the Strategic Environmental Assessment Environmental Report ( ER). These two responses were received from SEPA and SNH, in their role as Statutory SEA Consultees. No response was received from Historic Scotland; however, at the Environmental Report stage, they are not obliged to respond. One of the wider consultation responses to the SCCB (from RSPB) recommended the addition of a provision to allow alteration of the permitted dates for muirburn practice in upland management. The Scottish Government have been considering such a provision and, as a consequence, asked for an additional SEA assessment to be included within this re-issue to cover its inclusion in the SCCB.

SEPA and SNH acknowledged and welcomed the fact that the SEA provided a comprehensive assessment of the potential environmental implications associated with a wide range of measures envisaged to meet an 80% emissions reduction target. Their major criticism; however, referred to the fact that the comprehensive nature of the assessments led to the report being difficult to read in places, with a lack of a clear summary of key findings.

SEPA noted that the Non-Technical Summary did provide a reasonable summary of findings, although they suggested that the SEA Post Adoption Statement could be used to provide a more easily accessible summary, to aid any Parliamentary debate. This recommendation will be taken forward, and this re-issued Environmental Report is therefore not wholly rewritten, it merely acknowledges and provides changes recommended to the original content. Similarly, as the consultation comments do not change any of the findings of the assessments, the Non-Technical Summary is not reviewed.

Specific comments on particular aspects of the Report, and assessments, have been addressed and incorporated through the body of the text, using comments boxes highlighted in green, for example:

The comment boxes can be found on the following pages of this re-issued Report:

Two new Appendices have also been added to this re-issue:

• Consultation Response and Comments Table (Appendix H)
• Addition of Muirburn Proposals - Post Consultation Assessment (Appendix I)