 The next item of business today is a statement by Roseanna Cunningham on the Scottish greenhouse gas emissions annual target report for 2016, setting Scotland's future direction on the low-carbon transition. The cabinet secretary will take questions after her statement, so any member who wishes to ask a question, I would encourage you to press your request to speak button now. Roseanna Cunningham, I have an opportunity to update Parliament on Scotland's contribution to global efforts to tackle climate change. The need for rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented global change in response to the challenge of climate change has been clearly set out in the recent report from the UN into governmental panel on climate change. I welcome the report and I am pleased that we have moved away from debating whether climate change is real or not. The evidence that is set out by the IPCC is the culmination of a comprehensive global assessment of the science underpinning the Paris agreement aim of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees. The report makes clear that achieving that, as opposed to allowing warming of two degrees or more, would significantly reduce the negative impacts for humans and the environment. All countries, as well as businesses and individuals, need to act now if the Paris agreement aims are to be met. We can be proud that Scotland has been one of the first countries to respond to the agreement with proposals for strengthened, legally binding emissions reduction targets. That is the purpose of the climate change bill, which was introduced in May. The IPCC report says that we must act quickly. Scotland has already reduced its emissions by almost half, and our climate change plan sets out a credible package of immediate on-the-ground delivery measures to continue driving those down. The new bill sets targets for 2020 and 2030 that are the most stretching statutory goals of any country in the world. The IPCC report says that the world needs to be carbon neutral, meaning net zero CO2 emissions, by 2050. With our current bill targets, that is exactly where Scotland will be. The bill not only sets new targets, but builds on the world-leading approach that was established by this Parliament's 2009 act. That is recognised by representatives of other leading countries, for example Anders Weichmann, chair of the climate kick think tank and former Swedish lawmaker, said in evidence to the ECCLR committee earlier this week that he very much applauds the Scottish approach of including a fair share of the emissions from international aviation and shipping in our targets. I suspect that that is because Sweden does not. The transition to a carbon neutral Scotland will fundamentally reshape our economy and society over the coming decades. There will be many opportunities but also some challenges and we must ensure that no one is left behind. That is why the Scottish Government is establishing a Just Transition Commission to provide expert advice on adjusting to a low-carbon economy in a fair way. Professor Jim Sgear has already been named as chair of the commission and together we will ensure that further commission appointments have the breadth of experience that is needed. The independent expert advice of the UK Committee on Climate Change plays a key role in setting emissions reduction targets that are both stretching and credible. Credibility is vital. Without it, there is a risk of committing future Governments to actions that are in any practical sense unachievable. However, the Scottish Government does want to achieve net zero emissions of all greenhouse gases as soon as possible. It is our intention to get there and we will set a target date for this as soon as it can be done credibly and responsibly. In light of the IPCC's report, I have joined the UK and Welsh Governments in writing to the CCC to ask that it provides updated advice on national target levels. We have asked the committee to provide its advice no later than March next year. If it advises that even more ambitious Scottish targets are now credible, we will adopt them. Certainly, other countries around the world need to step up and match Scotland's ambition and action if the Paris agreement is to be delivered. However, if we look closer to home, Scotland will reach net zero emissions sooner if all parts of the UK work together. Many of the key levers, such as decarbonising the gas grid, remain reserved to the UK Government. That is why it is important that the Committee for Climate Change's advice considers what is feasible across all parts of the UK. The risk of a no-deal Brexit, and what that means for our environment, is also very real. I call on the UK Government to ensure that its approach to this does not jeopardise the delivery of emissions reductions. The Scottish Government supports continued participation in the EU emissions trading system as the most cost-effective route to decarbonise energy intensive industry. The UK Government's approach to a no-deal exit would mean that we would lose access to the EU ETS. We are deeply concerned that the UK Government intends to introduce a carbon tax in its place, which would remove accountability to the Scottish Parliament for emissions reduction from key sectors of the Scottish economy since the tax would be reserved. Such a reduction in devolved powers and accountability is unacceptable to the Scottish Government, and we have written jointly with the Welsh Government to express our concerns and urgently request ministerial meetings between all four Administrations. On a more positive note, I would now like to turn to Scotland's progress to date in reducing emissions. The statutory Scottish Greenhouse Gas Emissions annual target report was laid in Parliament yesterday and confirms that Scotland's annual emissions reduction target for 2016 was met, meaning that we have reached our target for the third year in a row. Most importantly, Scotland's actual emissions are now down by almost half in the long term, a 49 per cent reduction since the 1990 baseline. We continue to outperform the UK as well as Western European countries, in fact, only Sweden has done better. Scotland's excellent progress has been recognised by the Committee for Climate Change in its recent annual progress report. The committee also found that our current climate change plan represents an ambitious statement of intent and a stretching and credible pathway to delivering further reductions. One of the key features of Scotland's current climate change plan is that it includes a monitoring framework that will help us to keep track of where changes in approach may become necessary. Yesterday, we published the first annual monitoring report from the framework. The information in the report complements the annual emissions statistics and independent overviews of progress from the Committee for Climate Change by providing more detail on the ground implementation of the policies in the plan. I appreciate that expectations around the monitoring framework will quite rightly be high. However, it has been less than a year since the plan itself was published and it is simply too early to make an assessment of whether the plan, as a whole, is on track. For example, quality-assured data for 2018 is not yet available for many of the indicators. However, this first year's reporting does provide a baseline for future assessments of progress. It also provides the foundation from which we will continue to develop and improve the monitoring framework itself. The new bill proposes that the framework be placed on the statutory footing for future years with individual sector by sector monitoring reports being laid before Parliament. Most of my statements so far have been about climate change mitigation, but I would also like to take this opportunity to raise Parliament's awareness of our work on adaptation, which featured strongly in this year's programme for government. Next year, a second Scottish climate change adaptation programme will be published. An outcomes-based approach derived from both the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and Scotland's national performance framework is being developed. Over the course of the next few months, the Scottish Government will be engaging with stakeholders and consulting widely on how we can secure the right outcomes for Scotland from our approach to adaptation. I have been pleased to update Parliament on Scotland's excellent progress in tackling climate change. This success has been founded on an evidence-based approach and we are committed to maintaining it. We recognise the global importance of the new report from the IPCC and we have joined the UK and Welsh Governments in commissioning updated independent expert advice from the Committee on Climate Change on what that means for our own targets. I will also be proud to take Scotland's positive messages to the UN climate change conference in Poland in December. This meeting, COP24, will take stock of global efforts through the culmination of the Talanoa dialogue process and seek to agree the rulebook for how the Paris agreement will be implemented. Scotland has a very strong message to share with the rest of the world. Our low-carbon transition demonstrates that deep emissions reductions are achievable and that they can be delivered in a way that promotes sustainable and fair economic growth. I should say that this is a statement delivered in keeping with the statutory responsibility that was laid out in the 2009 Climate Change Act. If the new climate change bill comes into force before this time next year, this will turn out to have been the last of those statements. We turn now to questions, and we begin with Maurice Golden to be followed by Claude Abie-Wish. I thank the cabinet secretary for advance copy of the statement. A low-carbon transition is a vital component of reducing Scotland's greenhouse gas emissions and achieving our climate change targets. The recent IPCC report on global warming states that, if urgent action is not taken to cut emissions, global warming could reach 1.5°C as early as 2030. Scotland has already made good progress in transitioning to a low-carbon economy by decarbonising our electricity and waste sectors. However, it is imperative that we look to other sectors, particularly transport, to meet our future targets, specifically post 2032. Both the UK and Scottish Governments have sought expert advice from the UK Committee on Climate Change on achieving an achievable pathway to net zero by 2050. If the UK CCC identifies a pathway, will the cabinet secretary adopt that in full? Yes, that is the commitment that I have made and that the Government has made. What has held us back to now is the CCC being unable to outline that credible pathway. In the absence of that being available to us, we felt that to draft the bill in any other way that we have done at the moment would be unwise, but we do want to get there. If the newly commissioned advice comes forward with that credible pathway, then absolutely we will do so and we will ensure that the bill reflects that advice. Mark Ruskell My thanks to the cabinet secretary for prior sight of the statement. Scottish Labour welcomes the success of a 49 per cent actual emissions reduction between 1990 and 2016, proving to the chamber that once seemingly ambitious targets drive innovation and bolster climate action. The IPCC report has the strongest warning yet, which we all know about. Has or will the Scottish Government assess the draft climate change bill in terms of Scotland's carbon budget and in terms of its contribution to global temperature rise? We must heed the IPCC's call for rapid and far-reaching transitions in the sectors that we are talking about today. That is why Scottish Labour calls for a target of 77 per cent emissions reductions by 2030. Will the cabinet secretary act on that now? We have the information to set a pathway for that now. Finally, given the climate change plan's discrepancies in sectoral ambition, what is the cabinet secretary doing to address that? Has she considered sectoral targets to ensure that all sectors play their fair part to adapt by 2030 and beyond? Scottish Labour wishes the cabinet secretary very good luck for Poland. I thank Claudia Beamish for her good luck for Katowice in December. I hope that, by December, the weather in Poland is amenable to travel in a reasonable amount of time. To take on board her points in respect of the IPCC, I feel as if I have made it fairly clear that we are very closely looking at and heeding the advice that we are getting. We are asking the UK Committee on Climate Change to give us some of the detail and some of the credible pathway advice that they were unable to give us in their last advice. That is because of what the IPCC has said. We have acted as a result of what we have seen in the IPCC. The bill, in the way that it is currently drafted, all of the statements that were made by myself by the First Minister make it very clear that the intention is to do net zero greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible, when it is credible when the pathway is clear. If that is made clear to us in the next few months, then absolutely that is how we will approach it. I think that my response to Maurice Golden made that clear as well. In respect of sectoral targets—this is an old discussion, I guess—we are taking a whole economy approach in respect of it. We do set sectoral envelopes, but we are not fixing statutory targets. That is for a very good reason. First of all, the difficulty—I think that I have said this before in the chamber—is the difficulty of assigning measures to particular sectors when they will cut right across sectors. There is a lot of work being done in energy efficiency just now. Do energy efficiency measures contribute to reducing emissions in energy supply? Or do they contribute to reducing emissions in residential and public sector buildings? How do we make that decision? If you set a target for one and not the other, you end up not really achieving what you are trying to achieve. We have done incredibly well. Sectoral targets could also be highly uncertain, because in certain areas, data revisions can have a disproportionate effect on specific sectors. For example, land use and forestry, it would have been extremely difficult to set sectoral targets over the past few years, because the data revisions, the science around all of that, has changed so significantly that any attempt to set sectoral targets would have come apart. Those are reasons why—and it is not just Scotland that does not have sectoral emission targets. From my understanding of the evidence from the Swedish representatives at the committee on Tuesday, Sweden does not do sectoral targets for much the same reason that we have chosen not to do them. We are still of the view that the whole economy approach is the most sensible way to do it, and that sectoral emission targets will provide an unnecessarily inflexible approach and will not be particularly helpful in the long run. Mark Ruskell, to be followed by Liam McArthur. The cabinet secretary mentions the urgent warning in the IPCC report, and we must act quickly. However, what is not mentioned in the statement is the authors warning that the actions that we take between now and 2030 are the most crucial for delivering low-carbon transport, warm homes and greener farming. The proposed target for 2030 sets the bar too low, so that barely any extra action needs to be taken beyond what has already been discussed. If Scotland has to stand any chance of meeting a future net zero emissions target, why is the Scottish Government not committing to more ambition on our next milestone target for 2030? Why is it not considering the benefits that strong technical innovation can bring? Estimates so far have been based on very conservative thinking about what is technically possible. The problem with basing our plans on technical innovations is that we have no idea about creating a difficulty. It is possible that we can take a view that we simply set targets and shrug our shoulders and hope for the best, which appears to be in some places what happens. It is not the approach that we have been taking in Scotland, and I would rather stick to the dogged continued success of the approach that we have taken in Scotland, and it has been shown to be successful in achieving our ends. We continue in that manner because that is the way I believe that we will achieve the outcomes that we are looking for. I remind people that this bill was introduced to Parliament before the IPCC report, so we were already looking at increasing our targets. We were already looking at increasing our ambition. The IPCC report does bring some more urgency into it, which is exactly why we have asked the UK Committee on Climate Change to reassess what we are doing in the light of the urgency raised by the IPCC. We will wait to listen to the advice of our statutory advisers and we will act accordingly. Liam McArthur, to be followed by Stuart Stevenson. I thank the cabinet secretary for early sight of her statement and welcome confirmation that further advice has been sought from the UK Committee on Climate Change. The latest advice from IPCC could not be more stark in the case for upping our efforts to combat climate change more compelling. She referred to the appointment of Professor Jim Ski as the chair of the Just Transition Commission. Could she set out the timetable for appointing the additional members and when she would expect the commission to come forward with recommendations? Given that, in 2015, the energy efficiency of Scotland's buildings was set as a national infrastructure priority since when we have seen residential emissions rise in 2015 and 2016, when does she expect that trend to begin to be reversed? As the member referred to, I have already appointed Jim Ski as the chair of the commission. What we have to do now is to ensure that the members of the commission reflect the range of issues that will need to be discussed. Since our intention is that the commission will run for approximately two years in its initial work, I would hope that we have the commission up and running early in the new year. I am not wanting to put a specific time on that, because it depends on us being able to ensure that we are populating the commission itself with the right people. The member then went on to ask me about some more specific issues in respect of buildings, if I am correct. There is a lot of work being done, as the member knows, that will change the emissions in terms of buildings. Energy-efficient Scotland is going to help to remove poor energy efficiency. That will have a positive impact in terms of fuel poverty, as well as reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The member will know that there is an enormous amount of work currently going on in respect of energy efficiency in this Parliament. We have a number of commitments that we want to make in respect of Scotland's homes and buildings. If the member is looking for much more specific responses, I will ask my colleague Kevin Stewart to write to him specifically on the particular areas. We are on track to deliver a 2016 programme for government commitment in respect of energy efficiency, and we believe that we are going to be able to make good progress in that area. I appreciate that there have been detailed questions and detailed answers. There are now eight minutes for the remaining nine questions and answers. Stewart Stevenson is to be followed by John Scott. John Gummer, when he appeared in front of the Environment, Committee, and he is the chair of the Climate Change Committee, said that it would be challenging to deliver an answer for UK, Scotland and Wales by March next year. Is the Committee satisfied that jointly commissioning advice is the correct thing to do? Will Scotland get particular advice out of that that is going to be useful for us? Climate change is a global issue, and it requires a cross-border response. We are probably in the right place to do that. No one country is going to deliver the whole solution. Therefore, the joint letter that was signed was an appropriate way to progress that. Obviously, some of our activity is influenced by the ambitions and actions of neighbours. I referenced in my statement the issue with the gas grid. For those reasons, I think that joining with the UK and Welsh Governments was the right thing to do. I have asked that the advice be available in time for Parliament, the Scottish Parliament, both to consider it and to complete the passage of the climate change bill before the summer recess. However, the most important thing from the point of view of the bill is that our decisions are informed by the advice of the Committee on Climate Change. I would not want to see the bill proceed before we have that advice. The plan is to get that advice in a timely manner to allow us to take the bill forward, but let us see if the Committee on Climate Change can do so in the timescale that we have asked. John Scott, followed by Gil Paterson. The cabinet secretary rightly recognises that expectations surrounding the monitoring framework for the climate change plan are high. When can we expect an assessment to be made of whether the plan is on track or not, and when will the individual sector by sector reports first be laid before Parliament? That was interesting. I did not realise that the individual sector by sector reports were being awaited so enthusiastically. Future years for the monitoring reports, the timing of that. Obviously, this is the very first one. By its nature, it will not be complete. We are expecting it to be produced each October when it is published. That is the statutory footing that I referred to earlier. Assessing whether individual indicators are on track one by one, for this first year's reporting, the assessments have been based on the judgment of lead officials for that area. That is obviously not what will go on being the case, because we are keen to explore ways to make the assessment process as consistent and transparent as possible for future reports. We are obviously discussing with stakeholders how that will be progressed. At the moment, there are some indicators where I am cautious that there is no data available. It is just a function of this being the very first to be published. Stakeholder engagement is on-going, and we will ensure that Parliament and the committee are kept updated on the work that is being done. Can the cabinet secretary expand a bit further on what she has said on adaptation, and can she confirm that stakeholders' engagement will play a key role in that? Yes, indeed. The Scottish Government is required to set out our climate change adaptation programme every five years. The programme has to include policies and proposals, both for action and for research. We are taking an outcomes-based approach. We are not just identifying risks, we are working on the outcomes that we want for Scotland as we adapt to climate change in terms of our communities, infrastructure and natural environment in the economy, and those are closely linked to the national performance framework and the sustainable development goals. Digital and face-to-face stakeholder engagement sessions are taking place over the next few months to help to develop the programme prior to formal consultation early next year. As part of the process, we are developing adaptation-focused climate conversations to engage communities throughout Scotland from the borders to Shetland. Those people who engage on Twitter may already have seen two Twitter sessions on natural resources and infrastructure have already taken place, and the first face-to-face workshop was held yesterday in Inverness. Engagement has been lively so far and I look forward to that continuing. I look forward to the committee's continued interest. Of course, some of the interesting outcomes in terms of adaptation are seen when you look at things such as the climate-ready Clyde initiative, which has quite a lot of coverage this morning. Edinburgh adapts. Those are often being done on a more regional basis, and I advise members to keep a good look out if there is one coming for their own local area. Pauline McNeill will be followed by Bill Kidd. The textile sector alone accounts for 6 or 7 per cent of the direct and indirect carbon emissions in the world. There are many examples of electronics that are deliberately designed for single use. What action is the Scottish Government taking to improve the sustainability of the growing consumption in the fashion and the electronics industries, both for consumers and the industries themselves? As it happens, I have flagged up to officials that I think that the textile industry in particular is probably one of the coming big issues that is going to confront us. At the moment, it is quite limited in terms of what we can do. One of the big issues will be around the just transition concerns, because, obviously, many of the textile products that we use are made a very long way away by people who do not get paid terribly much but whose jobs are nevertheless important. It is a tricky issue to deal with, and it needs to be dealt with globally. Pauline McNeill can rest assured that I have already flagged up to officials that I have already warned them that we will start getting questions about this, and here is the first, so I congratulate Pauline on being the first. Electronics, I suppose, sits in that same kind of conversation, because none of us want to be without the electronics that we use, but managing a sustainable way to have them produced again is going to take a very big global conversation. Bill Kidd The third, fourth and fifth carbon budgets are excluded from the scope of advice being requested from the Committee on Climate Change. As climate change is a devolved issue, was there ever a possibility that that would mean that Scotland's targets up to 2032 would also be seen as out of scope? No, that was a confusion arising out of the fact that the letter was being signed by three different Administrations. I had presumed that people would see the carbon budget line and know that that was about Westminster, but, since that appeared not to be the case, we have just separately written to clear up that. We want all the targets that are proposed in the bill to be looked at. We have no difficulty with that whatsoever. We have made that absolutely clear. That was just one of those items of confusion that arose out of the fact that you had three Administrations signing a letter. Thank you very much. My apologies to Finlay Carson, Fulton MacGregor, Alex Rowley and John Mason, but I'm afraid we have no time this afternoon. I would ask all the members and ministers to reflect on the length of questions and answers. We'll move on to the next item of business, which is a statement on the Aberdeen western peripheral route update. I will just take a few seconds if we can to change seats.