 The next item of business is a statement by Michael Matheson on Climate Change Committee's review of Scottish emissions targets and progress report 2022. The cabinet secretary will take questions at the end of his statement, and so there should be no interventions or interruptions. I call on cabinet secretary Michael Matheson around 10 minutes, please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I thank the Climate Change Committee for the two documents published on 7 December, the latest annual Scottish Progress report, and the first five-year review of Scotland's emissions targets set by Parliament in the 2019 Scottish Climate Change Act. The report recognises many areas of progress and welcomes Scotland's extraordinary ambition with regard to climate change. However, we cannot ignore the fact that elements of the committee's advice make for difficult reading. It is evident that we are entering a very challenging chapter on our journey to net zero, with deep cuts to our emissions required over the course of this decade. We are committed to rising to that challenge and ending Scotland's contribution to climate change by 2045. The chamber is aware of the scale and urgency of the climate emergency. That was why the Scottish Parliament quite rightly passed extremely ambitious targets for Scotland to reduce emissions by 75 per cent by 2030, going beyond the target levels proposed by the Climate Change Committee and to reach net zero by 2045. Today, we are over halfway to net zero. There is a record that we should take pride in, especially as we continue to be ahead of the UK as a whole in delivering long-term emission reductions. However, we must be prepared for the possibility that the 2021 emissions statistics show a rebound when reported next June, as a consequence of Covid restrictions being lifted during 2021, while significant sources of peatland emissions will be brought within scope for the first time when next year's target reporting uses the most up-to-date set of inventory methods. As recognised by the Climate Change Committee, that will bring significant challenge for meaning already ambitious statutory targets through the 2020s. The emissions cut required to meet future targets will involve genuinely transformative decisions for Scotland, with significant long-term investment, demand management and behaviour change required. Similar decisions are currently being faced across the world. It is our responsibility to help Scotland to make that transition and to continue to demonstrate our well-respected global reputation for action on climate change. The transition to net zero is not just an environmental imperative but also an economic opportunity. We have seen great success in our renewable sector. Scotland, for example, represents the world's largest commercial round for floating offshore wind. Yesterday, we published our final onshore wind policy statement, setting out our ambition to deploy 20 gigawatts of onshore wind by 2030. Those successes need to be replicated in other sectors, as we harness the opportunity that the transition will bring to Scotland. In January, we will publish our energy strategy, just transition plan and renewables sector export plan. We agree with the Climate Change Committee that co-operation with the UK Government is key to realising both Scotland's ambitions and the full potential of Scotland's contribution to the UK's own decarbonisation plans. Given the significant powers reserved to Westminster, including on energy infrastructure, taxation and borrowing powers, the Scottish ministers will continue to discuss further with the UK Government ministers how we can ensure that our plans can progress at the speed that we all require them to progress at. Turning back to the report, the CCC has highlighted areas where we are making significant progress but clearly need to go further, including on buildings, people in restoration and on transport. I am pleased that the CCC recognises Scotland's ambition to decarbonise buildings much faster than the UK as a whole, as well as a substantial funding commitment and progress on enabling measures. Hearing our homes and workplaces causes 20 per cent of Scotland's emissions. We won't achieve our zero target without ending our use of gas boilers. Therefore, we are stepping up our investment in exhilarating deployment of heat and energy efficiency measures and to support those least able to pay, allocating at least £1.8 billion over the course of this Parliament. The funding is supporting a range of alternatives to fossil fuel heating, such as heat pumps, and measures to install better insulation, making homes easier and more affordable to heat, especially for those who need that help the most. We will also support investment in heat networks and in making sure that all of our public sector buildings can also move to zero emission heat. We will consult next year on a hearing buildings bill that will require all homes and buildings across Scotland to use net zero emission heating systems by 2045. Next year we will also see the launch of our public engagement strategy, making people aware of what we are proposing to do, why it matters so much and what that will mean in practice. On the second strategic transport project review that was published just two weeks ago, it confirms that the era of catering for unconstrained growth in private car use is well and truly over. The review follows the sustainable investment hierarchy, which aims to reduce the need to travel unsustainably and prioritise making the best use of enhancing existing infrastructure before investing in new capacity. Furthermore, we have set out how we will reduce car kilometres by 20 per cent by 2030 in our draft route map, a truly world-leading commitment demonstrating our level of ambition in meeting Scotland's statutory targets. The Scottish Government has commissioned research exploring demand management options to discourage car use, and using the research findings we will work with local and regional partners to develop a demand management framework by 2025. We have also committed to fully decarbonising passenger rail services in Scotland by 2035, pledged at least £320 million a year by 2024-25 on active travel infrastructure, access to bikes and behaviour change, awarded £25 million of bus priority funding to our living partnerships covering 28 local authorities and awarded £28 million of funding over the next four years to support innovation to decarbonise heavy vehicles, including battery and hydrogen technologies. On peatland, we have committed some £250 million to restoring 250,000 hectares of degraded peatland by 2030, including £26 million for the next financial year. Through supporting good green jobs in the rural economy, this investment will also play a part in Scotland's just transition to net zero by 2045. We have delivered around 57,000 hectares of restored peatland to date. That is good progress, but we know that we must go much further. We are working hard with delivery partners to tackle the barriers to upscaling peatland restoration. Our delivery forecast for this year estimates that we will achieve a 65 per cent increase in peatland restoration rates from last year. On the climate change committee's target advice, the climate change committee has suggested that the annual targets throughout the 2020s should be changed for technical reasons to align with the revised greenhouse gas inventory. I can advise the chamber today that we will consider this advice in the round and we will respond to it as soon as possible. In conclusion, we are making good steady progress on what will be a very difficult journey, and we welcome the advice from the climate change committee helping us along that journey. As part of our continuous review of policy, we will be working closely with the climate change committee to ensure that we benefit fully from their expertise while progressing delivery and considering possible new actions. The climate change committee's advice will also support development of the next climate change plan, which we have committed to publish in draft no later than November 2023. The Scottish ministers will now take the opportunity, the appropriate time, to consider the recommendations within the CCC's advice and we will respond in the spring of next year. The cabinet secretary will now take questions on the issues raised in his statement. I intend to allow around 20 minutes for questions, after which we will move on to the next item of business. It would be helpful if members who wish to ask a question were to press the request-to-speak buttons now, and I call on Liam Kerr. I thank the cabinet secretary for advance sight of his statement, but I am struggling to understand how, in the context of such a damning report, highlighting seven out of 11 emissions targets missed, car use increasing, minimal progress reducing agriculture emissions and abject failures on peatland restoration and tree planting, he nonetheless delivers a statement of such breathtaking complacency that he suggests that is a record we should take pride in and we are making good progress on what will be a very difficult journey. He talks of extremely ambitious targets, but the committee said that it is currently very difficult to monitor progress against the necessary measures due to a lack of adequate and up-to-date data. When I asked about exactly this last week, the cabinet secretary opened his response with, I will set out the process that is already in place. Cabinet secretary, the climate change committee is clear what is in place has failed. First of all, what has been done since the committee's report to ensure proper data collection, to collate the baseline data and measure progress on our journey to net zero. On decarbonising buildings, the cabinet secretary says that we are stepping up our investment and then in the next press says that he is allocating at least £1.8 billion over the course of this Parliament. A figure that was first announced about 18 months ago and way below the more than £33 billion that is required. Lord Daven said that the committee wants to see the programme of how the SNP Government is going to deliver this decarbonisation of heat. When will the SNP Government produce a detailed plan on decarbonising buildings, including how it intends to address this funding gap? I do not know whether the member was listening to the response that I gave in the urgent question or my statement where I accept the criticisms and the challenges that are set out in this report, but equally I am sure that the member would also want to recognise that the report acknowledges the progress that has been made. You could be forgetting for listening to Liam Kerr and thinking that no progress had been made, but the reality is that we are already over halfway there to achieving net zero, but we need to do much more and drive forward delivery much more effectively. That is a data that is out there right now that the member was making reference to and calling for more of. That is where we are in this particular journey. When he talks about criticism of Government, he will be aware of the very significant report that he issued on the UK Government offering very similar criticism on the lack of progress that it has been making, which is why Governments across the whole of the UK need to take more concerted action to address those matters. An issue such as he mentioned peatland restoration, for example, there have been challenges in scaling up the level of peatland restoration that we need to achieve. The target is to restore some 250,000 hectares of peatland between now and 2030. We have already achieved some 57,000 hectares. That is progress, but we need to go further. Part of the challenge in doing some of that has been the scaling up of the industry in order to undertake that work because of limitations to that. As I have mentioned, we are already starting to see the progress that is happening with the uplifts that we saw in peatland restoration this year. On the issue of heating buildings, which is a critical area, we have already set out their intention to bring forward primary legislation not to put in statute the requirement to speed up the deployment of the decarbonisation of homes in order to make sure that we are driving forward that agenda going forward. I want to assure the member that the final point that I want to make here is that in setting out the programme, as I also stated in the response and urgent question, is in our climate change plan update, which we published this year, where we will set out in much greater detail the link between policy choices and impact and the data that underpins that, in order to provide the CCC with the transparency that it is looking for in order to demonstrate the progress that we are making in key policy areas, both in terms of delivering climate change, but also in the economic opportunities that go with that and the costs that are associated with it. Colin Smyth. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and thank you to the cabinet secretary for advance sight of his statement, but listening to the cabinet secretary, you really would be forgiven for thinking that this is not an utterly scathin review from the climate change committee on the Government's failure, but it absolutely is, and it is clearly in denial. Seven out of 11 of our increasingly at risk legal targets are missed. Targets that the committee say are in danger of becoming meaningless. Progress on cutting emissions, they say, has largely stalled. On the three big emitters, transport, heat and buildings, land use, this report card is a clear fail. Fail. A year ago, the chairman of the climate change committee, Lord Devon, called for more clarity and transparency on Scottish climate policy and delivery. Cabinet secretary, why did that play in the words of Lord Devon go unanswered? The cabinet secretary said that there will be another draft plan along soon, November next year. We had a so-called plan in 2018, and we had another plan in 2020. The climate change committee still says that there is no clear delivery plan, no coherent explanation, no clue how Scotland will get to net zero. Cabinet secretary, does he think that they are right? What specifically will he do differently in next year's plan to make sure that it is third time lucky? Will we be back next year to debate on how much further Scotland is falling behind meeting our climate targets? In a number of key areas, we are already starting to make progress. Let me take for example an issues around transport. We have already set out the planet that we have to take forward in order to reduce car kilometres by 20 per cent. I hope that, given that the member is such an enthusiastic supporter of the targets that the CCC has set, he will be supporting policies that will deliver those outcomes. As we often find when it comes to policy matters, opposition members like to set targets, but they are very short when it comes to being able to detail the policy actions that they have implemented to deliver them. Or, when they are brought forward and they think that they are a bit controversial, they back off them. A bit like a support when it came to the parking charges issues as well, which you did not want to give to councils on as well. Cabinet secretary, please use your mute seat for a second. Mr Smith, I appreciate that you asked a number of questions in your slot. It would be helpful if we could all hear how the cabinet secretary responds to that. Therefore, including from the member who posed the question, that might be a good thing to do. I am sure that he would like to hear those answers and also the challenge to him in being able to step up to showing some leadership in the policies that he thinks should be pursued, which, as has been for years, has been missing for some time. The member says from a central position what you are doing about buses as well. We are on a point in Scotland where there are actually 2.3 million people travelling buses for free, almost half the population because of the actions that we have taken without travelling buses for free. No other part of the UK provides that, including Labour-led Wales, when it comes to it as well. I have invited the member to join the group that will be responsible for helping to shape the future climate change plan, including members from across the chamber, in order to help them to influence what the policy option should be in going forward, so that we can also make sure that the data is there and that we consider it very clearly what that pathway is going to be in the next climate change plan. The reason I am inviting those members is because it is fine for PAMP to set targets, which I think is the right thing to do, but we also have a collective responsibility, as a committee in climate change chair points out, to also set out the policy options that will deliver on those targets. I hope that members who have invited to that group will join me in helping to shape that policy and that policy programme in the next climate change plan. I call Fiona Hyslop to be followed by Edward Mountain. On Tuesday, Lord Dibyddon, chair of the UK Climate Change Committee, told this Parliament's net zero energy and transport committee that, in Scotland, there was not sufficient partnership between Scottish Government and local government, and a better planning and co-ordination relationship was needed to deliver on the net zero targets, which, while I remind people, were set by all parties in this Parliament. Will the cabinet secretary do so, as an example to look at, but commit to giving serious consideration to the student to be published in the net zero energy and transport committee's inquiry report into the role for local government and its partners in delivering net zero? In relation to the final point that the member made with regard to the committee's report, of course, I'll be more than happy to consider that report, which I would do, as a matter of course, and I've got no doubt that it will be very useful in helping to shape some of the actions and measures that we need to take forward in order to help to grow and develop our partnership with local authorities. We are presently undertaking work with COSLA and improvement services and local authorities to identify what further measures we can take to support them and be able to develop their climate change plans and how they can be implemented at a local level, because there's no doubt that our local authority partners have a key role to play in helping to meet our climate change targets. I'm keen to make sure that we build on that and whether there is good practice, whether it be in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland or anywhere else that we can learn from and helping to shape that. I'm very keen to make sure that we utilise that. So the suggestion that's been made by the member on the report and whether there is good practice, we will certainly look to address those issues but equally to assure of the actions that we are already taking in order to improve the partnership between national government and our colleagues within local government to deliver on climate change plans at a local level. I call Edward Mountain to be followed by Jackie Dunbar. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and I would like to make a declaration that I am part of a family farming partnership on my own and managed land. Now it's clear from the latest comments of the climate change committee that a lack of a coherent Scottish agriculture policy, which falls totally within the remit of the Scottish Government, is of serious concern. The Government is also clearly failing on its current peatler restoration targets and they fail for over 10 years on tree planting targets. If they are going to meet their net zero targets, they'll need to up their game. So a simple question Cabinet Secretary. When are you going to be able to meet your tree planting targets? Cabinet Secretary. Let me touch on the issue of agriculture first, because there is work being taken forward through the vision for agriculture, which outlines a range of measures that are going to be taken forward in order to support farming and food production in Scotland in order to make sure that it is much more sustainable and has a focus on regenerative agriculture. That is a piece of work that has been taken forward by my colleague, Mary Gouge, on at the present time. I have already touched upon the issue of peatland restoration and the work that we are taking, which we are already seeing the benefits of with our ramping up of capacity within the sector, which is now feeding through into this year's figures. In relation to woodlands generation and new woodlands planting, the member will be aware that 75 per cent of all of the United Kingdom's new woodland planting is taking place here in Scotland, which just demonstrates the scale of what we are doing and the depth of ambition and the lack of progress across the rest of the United Kingdom is 75 per cent of what is taking place in Scotland. What we want to do is to ramp that up further. What we are going to do is continue to make investment and to support skill development in those areas in order to allow that progress to continue to be made going forward. At this week's EDZEC Committee, Emily Nurse of the UK Climate Change Committee, highlighted the UK Government's decision to put the Scottish cluster on the reserve list has had a knock-on effect for hitting targets in Scotland. Does the cabinet secretary agree that the Scottish cluster, the ACORN CCS and the hydrogen project are important not just for the north-east but for the whole of Scotland and our ambitious net zero energy strategy? Can I ask what on-going discussions the Scottish Government is having with the UK about supporting those critical projects? The member raises a very important point, and Emily Nurse is correct in highlighting the critical importance of what I would describe as the mission critical nature of the ACORN project and the Scottish cluster to help him to support us in achieving our net zero targets. That is why, in the Committee on Climate Change, the view of negative emission technologies of this nature has been a necessity in order to achieve those targets. The reality is that the failure of the UK Government to give it track one status is a betrayal of the people of the north-east, and it is a betrayal of those who have actually been committed to taking forward key policy areas in order to achieve climate change within our heavy, heavy or energy-intensive industries. That is why we need to stop this dithering and the delay that is creating uncertainty for the industry and for jobs in the north-east and in other parts of Scotland because of the failure of leadership in the UK Government over this matter. That is why we continue to press them. I, in recent weeks, have been again in correspondence with Grant Shaps on this very issue, asking for urgency on it. As yet, we have not had a response that would suggest that there is any change in their position on it, but it is a blatant betrayal of the north-east of Scotland in particular in failing to take forward this project that is the most deliverable and the most ambitious in the whole of the UK. It is critical to Scotland meeting its net zero targets, and for the rest of the UK, in any further delay, it is going to cost jobs and it is going to undermine investment and also undermine the progress that we can make in meeting our climate change targets. The Scottish Government is looking to scale up the right of peatland restoration by increasing private sector investment through the peatland code. Dr Callum MacLeod, policy director at Community Land Scotland, has warned that this private sector investment could prevent Scottish communities from securing significant and lasting community benefits from restoration work. Will the minister outline what legal protections will be put in place through the upcoming land reform bill to ensure that it is the people of Scotland, not private investors, who benefit from peatland restoration work? I am not aware of the individual case that the member is referring to, but if she wants to pass on information to me, I am more than content to look into the matter. I will also ask my colleague Mary MacCallum to set out in more detail the exact measures that are being taken in the land reform bill, which will be coming before Parliament in detailing the response that we are going to be taking in order to help to support peatland restoration and ownership of land in that regard. I hope that that is helpful to the member. The west of Scotland is home to one of the most important remaining temperate rainforest sites in Europe, which is a key net carbon sink, with my constituency of Argyllin but being home to more than 50 per cent of it. Can the cabinet secretary outline what support the Scottish Government is providing to ensure that Scotland's rainforest, of which I am pleased to say that I am a nature champion for, is restored and expanded as a natural solution to the climate emergency? I think that everyone recognises now the importance of dealing with the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss. The outcome from COP15 itself helps to give a greater focus on the need for us to address the issue of biodiversity loss much more effectively, and that is why we as a Government are very much committed to ensuring that our rainforest in Scotland are protected. A project that is to restore Scotland's rainforest has already received more than £1.3 million to help to support the control of invasive rhododendrons and to restore ancient woodland previously planted with non-native trees and to manage the impact of wild deer on the new fragile forest ecosystems. That is all part of our nature restoration fund, which has this month recommended funding for three projects to restore the Atlantic rainforest in western Scotland. The rainforest will play an important part in helping to support our development of our support for our nature-based solutions in helping to address issues around biodiversity loss in a way in which Jenny Minto has highlighted. Thank you, Presiding Officer. That really is a bleak assessment of where Scotland is at in terms of its achievement of its climate targets. Lib Dem research suggests that the current rate of progress will take 300 years just to insulate few poor homes. The cabinet secretary talks of stepping up investment in retrofitting to improve on the £1.8 billion of allocated public funding, but the Government also estimates that it will require £33 billion to achieve this target. Given that the UK CCC chair has said that he sees no clear plan for drawing in the remaining private funds needed, where does the cabinet secretary expect to get these funds? The member may be aware that my colleague Patrick Harvie has already taken forward work in order to help to draw in private sector investment to help to support the work that will be necessary to assist with the decarbonisation of domestic premises, but it will also require a different approach to how we deliver heating, which is why helping to support things like heat networks will play an important role in supporting the decarbonisation of a greater number of properties rather than on an individual basis. The combination of public and private sector investment and also changing the way in which we deliver heating will play an important part in contributing towards achieving those targets. As I have stated earlier in response to Liam Kerr, we will also be bringing forward legislation that will make the statutory provisions for driving forward the changes that will be necessary to install net zero adhering systems as we move forward in the years ahead. Will the cabinet secretary consider pilot projects of using our rivers and water ways to help to move some freight but with carbon neutral solutions at either end to help to reduce the impact on the environment? We need to look at all alternative methods for transportation and there is presently a modal shift grant that operators can have access to for freight and freight by rail and coastal waters, which can be accessed in order to support alternative uses. If I recall correctly, we provide grant to support the transportation of wood from the Argyll Peninsula into Trunharbour, which is then used for making various wood products in order to remove the freight from the main road network itself. Funds are there to help to support that type of transition, whether it be in coastal waters or in rail to get freight off our roads. Can I welcome the tone of the cabinet secretary's statement this afternoon? His desire for a much more credible plan and also his desire to try and at least get a consensus in this Parliament on the really hard choices that we are going to have to make if we are to get any close to meeting those targets. The Moss Moran complex in Fife remains the third largest climate polluter in Scotland and it is unthinkable that we could meet climate targets without slashing the plant's emissions, but that has to be achieved in a way that leaves no workers behind. If he agrees that we now need a site-specific just transition plan for Moss Moran. I am aware of the work on the issues of concern that the member has raised previously on the issue of Moss Moran. I believe that the approach that we have taken within the Grangemouth Future Industry Board is a method and an approach that could also be used in Moss Moran in helping to shape how some of our major industrial clusters can be reshaped in a way that mirror climate change ambitions but also help to deliver a just transition. Some of the work that we are taking forward now through the Grangemouth Future Industry Board through the just transition plans that have been developed for the sites and also for the sectors could equally be applied to Moss Moran. I am certainly more than happy to engage with the member in looking at how we can support that moving forward. Scotland was ranked worst of all the countries surveyed in the recent circularity gap reports. Our economy is just 1.3% circular, well below the global average of 8.6%. I know the cabinet secretary was keen to talk up various plans and projects but the reality is the SNP have effectively made no progress in creating the sustainable economy we need to reach net zero. Adding to the problem the circular economy bill consultation was both flawed and unambitious. Does the cabinet secretary accept the need for urgent action to deliver a circular economy? I do, Presiding Officer, which is why we are taking actions like introducing the deposit return scheme and also why we are also going to be bringing forward a very ambitious circular economy bill, which will help to drive forward that change in the years ahead. I personally believe that it is very important that Scotland takes an international approach when it comes to climate change, and we have a responsibility especially for developing countries. Can the cabinet secretary say anything about loss and damage, in particular in relation to COP 27? There has been painfully slow progress in addressing the issue of loss and damage. An issue that was covered in the recent debate on COP 27 in this Parliament. COP 27 has been more progressed than has been the case in previous years. Clearly, we have taken very clear leadership action at COP 26, which has helped to be a catalyst for further investment from other countries. We are now seeing further progress being made where there were some positive outcomes around loss and damage from COP 27, but we need to see much more. The reality is that, very often, the people and communities in the countries that are experiencing the greatest brunt and negative impact of the climate change that is already locked into our climate are those who have contributed the least to creating a climate change, which is why we all have a collective responsibility to support them in meeting the challenges that they face. Thank you. That concludes the ministerial statement. We now move on to the next item of business, which is decision time, but there are no questions to be put as a result of today's business, so I would like to take this opportunity to wish all members and all staff in Parliament a very happy and peaceful Christmas. That concludes decision time, but we will now move on to members' business.