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1 Introduction
1.1 Background to the Study
In recent years Climate Change has moved to the centre stage of environmental, economic and transport policy in Scotland:
"This government wants Scotland to show leadership in tackling climate change…
… Our planned Scottish Climate Change Bill will set a mandatory long-term target to achieve an 80% reduction in our emissions by 2050
…To meet the 2050 target - and to move us along the trajectory towards that target - new policies will be needed
… We want Scotland to become a global leader in developing solutions to the challenge of climate change."
John Swinney, Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth - June 2007 6
The Scottish Government's commitment to leading was confirmed in the Government Economic Strategy, published in November 2007 7. This set two targets:
- To reduce emissions by 80 per cent by 2050.
- To reduce emissions over the period to 2011.
It is essential, therefore, to identify the policy options that will deliver this profound change, particularly in areas of the economy that to date have not been greatly affected by existing climate change policies. This will require identification of new policy options and also require consideration of the practical issues and public acceptability of policy implementation in areas where there may be significant resistance to change.
The Scottish Climate Change Bill public consultation closed on 23 April 2008, attracting over 21, 000 responses, the Bill will be introduced to Parliament before the end of 2008. This study will provide key evidence in development of the policy options for delivering climate change objectives, including the 80% target.
1.2 Objectives
This research addresses the following objectives:
- To generate a range of policy options aimed at achieving reductions in net greenhouse gas emissions in Scotland.
- To conduct an initial assessment of the impacts of policy options in terms of costs and effects in Scotland.
- To conduct an initial assessment of the feasibility, affordability and likely public acceptability of each option in Scotland.
Future work will be able to focus on the most promising options identified here once this initial assessment is complete.
1.3 Structure of this report
The remainder of this report is presented in the following sections:
Section 2 - Methodology - this section provides a summary of the methodology used to identify and assess the policy options.
Section 3 - GHG Emissions - this section reviews the scale, breakdown and trends in GHG emissions in Scotland.
Section 4 - Sector Profiles - for each of the 8 sectors. These provide:
- A definition of the sector.
- A baseline emissions trend.
- A list of policy options.
- An assessment of abatement potential and cost.
- A summary of acceptability and feasibility.
Section 5 - Cross Sector Analysis - where the sector measures are classified and the acceptability and feasibly is taken into account. These are then grouped into tranches of measures.
Section 6 - Conclusions - which presents the conclusions from this study including areas requiring further research.
Appendix 1 - Lists key data sources
Appendix 2 - Lists the key stakeholders contacted during the research
Appendix 3 to 10 - Lists in detail each policy measure for each sector
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