 Sechrafffawr. Ddiolch i'r 18th gweithio gwsgwch y Gwylbeth yng Nghymru'r FFWG a Gwylbeth Gwylbeth Cysylltu yng Nghymru. Rwy'r 1st adeg ythaniadau eich gyrfaenau sydd hynny oedd yn cynhyrchu ystafell gwaith i gyd .. Clifft 15 onder FFIC and consideration of the committee's draft report on the role of local government is cross sectoral partners in financing and delivering a net zero. We are all happy to take these items in private. We will then move on to agenda item 2. Before we move on to the question, I would like to make a decoration of interest. Members will know that in my declaration of interest I have declared I have an interest in agricultural farming partnership and also in property rental markets. I want to get that on the record because some of the subject areas that we will cover today will include those. Our second item of agenda is an evidence session on the Climate Change Committee's recently published review of the Scottish admissions targets and progress report to the Scottish Parliament. On 7 December, the CCC laid in Parliament its 11th annual progress report as required by the Climate Change Scotland Act 2009. This report sets out 99 recommendations to the Scottish Government for meeting Scotland's admissions reduction targets for the years 2020, 2030 and 2045. I refer members to the relevant papers under agenda item 2. I would like to welcome our panellists from the Climate Change Committee, who will join us remotely. First of all, the right hon. Lord Dieben, the chairman, Professor Keith Bell, the Scotland champion. I'm going to get this wrong. Is it Marilee? I'm fudging my words. Sorry, Marilee Buffenew, analyst for the devolved administrations. I hope that I got that right, finally. Emily Nurse, the team leader for carbon targets. Thank you all for accepting our invitation and we're delighted to have you here. Before we begin, I'd like to ask Lord Dieben to make an opening statement. Thank you very much. First of all, I'm very sorry that I am not with you in person, as I had intended to be. You will be pleased because I've got the filthiest of colds that you would not like to have caught. Unfortunately, the train service in the east of England, which I come from, is quite difficult. Anyway, we are all here. Chris Stark is actually in bed, so he is not with us, and I apologise for that. For him, he too is sorry, and he's not all that far away because he's in Glasgow, which is where he comes from. Now, this report, I'm sorry that we had not been able to continue the congratulations that we have been able to do in the past to the Scottish Government and Scottish people for the work that they are doing for climate change. As you know, we have used Scotland as an example to the rest of the United Kingdom for some of the things that you have been doing. Unfortunately, when it came this year for us to look at the achievement, the delivery, we had to say that, in a wide range of things, the delivery had not been satisfactory. That is very important because, of course, if it isn't, then that puts greater weight on what has to be done in succeeding years. We are now committed, as the United Kingdom and the individual countries, to targets for 2030 and 2035, as well as for 2050. The Scottish Government has, hopefully and usefully, made it clear internationally that Scotland will want to lead in this. The problem that we have—and it's not just in Scotland, frankly, but throughout the United Kingdom—is that it is easier to make policy than to deliver. I can say that, after 16 years of being a minister, I have noticed that right the way through, and it doesn't matter much who is in charge. It is always more difficult to deliver. We have had to say that there is a whole series of things that have to be improved if Scotland is to remain on course. I want to make it clear that we are very keen on pointing out when Scotland can't do what it should do because of problems with the relationships with the United Kingdom as a whole. In this case, we have to say that the areas that we have highlighted are areas in which the Scottish Government has control, and that some of the areas of success, or relative success, are areas in which the United Kingdom as a whole has control. It is not possible to say that this is all a problem between us, although I have to say in advance that it is really important for the relationships on climate change between the devolved Governments and the United Kingdom Government to become much closer and much more iterative. In the end, we have to solve these problems, and so many of them can only be solved by joint action. Thank you very much for that. As a convener, I will get the first question. I am not sure who would like to answer it. I would say that if you want to answer it, just raise your hand and I will bring you in. Of course, the danger is that if no one raises your hand, I will arbitrary pick somebody, which we do not want to get. However, the first question is, could we have a couple of examples? Lord Dieben, I do not know if you are saying something to me, but your microphone is off. When you indicate you want to speak, I can bring you in. Sorry, did you want to say something there? Well, I just wanted to say that if there is any difficulty about nobody answering, I am prepared to order somebody to do so, if I may put it like that. Of course, as an ex-soldier, I like the idea of ordering somebody to answer, it does not always work. The first question is, could we please have a couple of examples of good news projects where the UK has worked together with Scotland to achieve a target and a couple of examples briefly of areas where they have failed to work together, where they could have worked together and achieved more than has been achieved? I do not know who would like to head off with that one. Well, Maronnie or Emily, please. Emily? Sorry, yes. Yes, Emily, you are off. I am sorry, I cannot hear very well. I am really sorry, my headphones were not plugged in. Could you repeat the question? Yes, I am looking for a couple of examples of where targets have been achieved by the UK working together, i.e. Scotland and the United Kingdom as a whole, and a couple of areas where targets have not been achieved because there has not been combined working. In terms of targets, I will talk more about plans. For example, in the greenhouse gas removals, Scotland's plans were to have quite heavy reliance in greenhouse gas removals for the 2030 target, in fact about two thirds of the UK wide. That was assuming that the Scottish cluster would be chosen for track 1 of the CCUS cluster sequencing programme. Of course, I put in a bid and went on the reserve list, and this then has a knock-on effect for targets, hitting their targets because there is a huge reliance on that. This is an example where we have not had good co-ordination. I also think that because Scotland is wanting to go a lot further in 2030 than the UK across all sectors, there is, for example, in buildings and transport decarbonisation has to happen much faster than UK-wide. I do not think that there has been discussion on how that is going to happen when, for example, for rolling out heat pumps, the UK targets are slower than the Scottish ones. The Scottish policy is relying on the market-based approach that the UK Government has to get out without, at the moment, much extra policy on top of that. There has not been discussion on how it is going to go above and beyond the UK rates. Similarly, in transport, electric vehicles need to be rolled out much faster in order to reach the incredibly challenging decarbonisation in that sector. Again, the discussion of how that is going to happen does not happen so much. Keith, I think, wants to chip in as well. I am looking for a good example. Those seem to be both negative. Marilee, have you got a good example or Lord Deyman? Okay, sorry. Is that Keith? Is that you? Yeah, hi. Good morning, everybody. Perhaps the biggest success story to date about emission reduction over the last 10, 20 years has been in the energy sector, in particular in renewables and in the development of renewables. The energy of course is a reserved power to Westminster, but the success of the development of renewables has depended not just on market mechanisms set up by the UK Government, but also on the environment for investment that is created within Scotland. Positive approaches towards planning, general encouragement of investment and the development of the leadership shown by some of the companies that are based in Scotland. Of course, we are making use of the natural resources that we have. That is an enormous success story that is built upon efforts from many parties. Lord Deyman, did you want to come in and show your hand was raised? Well, just to say that I think that what Emily said is really important in the sense that you were pressing for specific examples. Unfortunately, what is happening is that the generality of Scotland meeting its tougher targets, which were laid down by the Scottish Parliament, has not resulted in a relationship with the United Kingdom Government that has made that possible. We are not suggesting that it is either side, but that it is just not happening. It is not happening in the sense that if Scotland is to do better, which is what it is committed to, the United Kingdom Government has got to make it possible for it to do better. It has to do that in a number of ways, and those that Emily showed were the most important. As I said in my introductory words, it is the most important thing that there is an iterative process, a constant iterative process, so that both sides can see how they can help the other to deliver what is both a separate and a single commitment. Separately, different targets, different ways of doing it, but united because that is what we have said internationally that the United Kingdom will deliver. I think that that is very helpful. I will come to Mark Ruskell, who has got some questions now. Mark Ruskell Thanks very much and good morning to you all. Good to see you again. I want to ask you about how Governments make decisions that are in line with Net Zero and in line with targets and lead to those delivery programmes that are needed on the ground. You will be aware of the work of the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government and the Fraser Valander Institute in producing a report on budget reforms. It focuses very much on the practice of how Government makes decisions as well as a critical Net Zero test. The three steps that have been agreed within that were the introduction of a climate narrative into this year's budget, revision to the taxonomy next year and then the year after that, the full implementation of the Net Zero test across Government. I wanted to get your views on that. Is that the right approach? Is there something missing in there? What is your analysis of the way that Government is intending to make decisions going forward? First of all, all those things are extremely useful, Mr Ruskell, because they all ensure that there is a common purpose running throughout the way in which the Government is operating. The thing that we notice most looking at the whole of the United Kingdom is that it is not just this disconnect between the joint actions of the countries, it is also the silos within the countries between ministries and between Government and local Government. Therefore, creating this kind of structure would seem to us to be valuable, but we would hope that it would be introduced in a way that was very sensitive to the fact that when you do one of those things, you do not just plonk an answer, you have to do it in a way that looks very carefully at how it is going to land and how people can buy into it. Some of the things that have been recommended are academically absolutely right, but you have to deal with people. We would very much advise the Government to have a degree of sensitivity, which I am sure you will be able to do. It is one of the advantages of being rather smaller because of devolution for you to be able to do that. Are there any other reflections on the exact actions that the Scottish Government has agreed in relation to budget? What would you expect to see, for example, in the years ahead? I do not know if others would like to come in on this. I should start by clarifying that, unfortunately, I have not had the chance to review in detail the budget and the work by the Fraser of Islander, but from having spoken to them in the past, after a series of visits that the committee carried out throughout the UK and in Scotland, one of the things that came out very strongly was a disconnect between the way that policy is designed, evaluated and the budget funding for such policy is allocated and achieving outcomes that are aligned with tackling climate change. The issue with that is that, sometimes, those outcomes are more long-term and are meant to span over a number of years. Fundamentally, the way in which we design policy in the UK and in Scotland is much more short-term than that. One of the things that we identified in the Scotland Progress Support was the need for the considerations around how policy is designed and what outcomes are decided to change and for funding to follow that. We heard a lot about the inability to deliver policy on a local level, for example, because the funding was insufficient to allow for the necessary amount of time for the policy to be deemed successful. It was not supported by the long-term certainty required sometimes to allow for private funding to come in, or to allow for policy makers to design policy in the longer term. I would say that this is probably one of the biggest challenges, in addition to potentially a net zero test that would allow the Scottish Government to centrally identify those elements of policy that need to be aligned with reducing emissions and adapting to climate change. The committee has spoken about the net zero test in the past. We would support something like that. It is just a matter of doing it in a way that it does not only add the amount of bureaucratic work that needs to be done around policy design and does deliver specific gains and targets in a way that identifies the right outcomes and helps the Government to move towards achieving them. I echo the welcome of the three actions in principle. They sound like the right things to do. I would say that a quantified analysis to back up the propositions is really important. There is something that we have observed in our progress report this year that is missing from significant areas of policy from Scottish Government. We are reassured by Mr Matheson for example that the work is on-going and we will see some of that quantified analysis coming out soon. Another part of that is the monitoring of outcomes. Of course, it is right that we have to set policy and to put some policies into action, but the outcomes then need to be monitored to see whether they are being effective in the way that is anticipated and to adjust the policy if necessary. Another thing that we have observed in our progress report this year is that there are a number of areas where the data is not sufficient to be able to see whether action is progressing in the right direction. A lot of those things are long-term, so in the short term you are looking for certain things that are starting to ramp up. If that is not happening, then the significant progress later in the decade or next decade is going to be very difficult to achieve. There are all sorts of interdependencies as we know, which is why a test across multiple departments is so important, but the private sector is extremely important in building up supply chains, skills and so on. That takes time to develop. We need to be able to have the data to see whether that really is being developed and have the opportunity to adjust policy if necessary. I am going to come to Monica. Lord Dimond, it might be helpful if we pose the questions and use your good military standing, as it were, to order the person to answer the question, so we get the right person. I think maybe suggest who answers it rather than order it. That is a twist in my way of looking at it. Monica, your question. Thank you, convener, and good morning to the panel. I hope you feel better soon, Lord Dimond, and best wishes to Chris as well. It is a shame that he is not able to join the panel today. I listened to the webinar last week when your report was launched, so like many others, I am worried about what we heard, but today we want to focus on what can be done, what are the tools that we are not currently using that the Scottish Government and partners could be using. My first question is to ask what specific policy options available to the Scottish Government do the committee feel are currently being underutilised or are poorly aligned with supporting the achievement of Scotland's decarbarisation targets? Lord Dimond. One general comment, and that is, you noticed that in what Keith said, he referred to the lack of information in certain cases, lack of actual facts on which to base decisions, and, secondly, the need to use much shorter-term measurements of outcomes. That is a practical thing that I think, Chris Lennon, that you would agree. In one's ordinary life, it is very easy to say, for example, that I am going to lose weight over the next five years, but what you actually have to start off with is how you are going to lose weight over the next month, because otherwise it gets put off all the way. The problem is, therefore, the measurement of outcomes and the replacement or the creation of the proper figuring that makes that possible are two things that really ought to be at the hands of the Government and which need to be. To go back there to Keith, that would be a good idea, because he will print some others. I think that the areas of policy that we highlighted particularly this year were in transport, buildings and agriculture and land. On the last of those, and maybe Emily will be able to come in and put some more detail on this in a second, there is an opportunity following Scotland's exit from the EU common agricultural policy to set some new dimensions around agriculture policy, but it is not clear yet what is really happening there. There is an opportunity that is definitely not being realised. There is a relationship also with diet and the impact that our dietary choices have on the use of land and emissions associated with agriculture. It is not a perfect link, because agriculture is used for exports as well as serving a local market, and there are imports that are used to meet our dietary needs. We are not talking about radical changes, but changes nonetheless that can have a positive impact both on health and on emissions. Any other part related to land is on peatland restoration, where Scottish Government has set a target that is not being met. Its target is less than the target that we recommended. On buildings, we have received a commitment in the programme for government, which is something like £1.8 billion of investment over this Parliament. It is something like £330 million promised for the coming financial year. That is very welcome action. As I mentioned before, it remains to be seen what the impact is, what the take-up is, and the development of the supply chain to be able to deliver it. Positive actions in terms of information provision, and we wait to see how effective that is. The other big one is transport that I just mentioned, where I think the target of reducing car kilometres by 20 per cent is fantastic, but we are yet to see the means by which that is going to be achieved. I think that those are the three big areas that I would highlight. Keith, we are going to come back to those three areas in some detail in a minute. I will definitely bring Emily in, but rest assured that those three areas are going to be part of further questioning, as you will not be surprised. No, Emily. I was going to give a bit more detail in the areas, but I will hold off. I will perhaps make a more general comment, which is that, in quite a few cases, because the decarbonisation of the sector and, in particular, buildings and transport, and in greenhouse gas removals as well, is so much faster than it is a recommended pathway, and there are very ambitious milestones such as the 20 per cent reduction in car kilometres, which goes so much further than our most ambitious scenarios. We actually have not got a policy package that would make those work, because in order to make those work, you need to make sure that everything is considered like the supply chain build-up, the skills build-up and all of these things scrappage of old technologies, etc. In some cases, it is not that we have a set of policies that we can necessarily suggest, because we think that those are very challenging targets to meet, and they go beyond what we had. I will leave the detailed examples that I had there until we go into those sectors. Thank you. That is truly helpful. And, convener, you explained that we are going to come into the subject areas, Lord Diebin. You will make this point even more strongly. The Scottish Government has been congratulated, as the Parliament, for committing itself to tougher targets, even than those that we proposed. However, the problem is that unless there is a clear movement towards those targets, they are not with meaning, because all that you have is a target and you have not got any proof, so to speak, that you are moving towards it. Our problem is that, because the target is further than that that we proposed, it is quite difficult for us to comment on how far you have moved towards it, if there really is no programme to reach those targets. There is a kind of hiatus that really needs to be filled. There needs to be a very clear programme, step by step, of how Scotland is going to achieve targets that it has supported, it has put forward and which are stretching beyond what we would have proposed. I think that today we want to explore how we can get away from what I think has been described as magical thinking to get meaningful targets that people believe can be achieved. Conveners, we are going to come back to transport and buildings and land and agriculture. Mark Ruskell asked about the budget. I just want to ask what more could be done to support emission reduction goals, thinking about options around non-domestic rates, land and buildings, transaction tax and council tax. You may be aware of some reports that have been published in recent months in Scotland, including the STUC report on options for increasing taxes in Scotland to fund investment in public services. That includes proposals around frequent flyer levy and carbon emissions tax, supported also by John Muir Trust. We have got the stop climate chaos Scotland report, financing climate justice and a vision for Scotland railways published last year that talks about a wealth tax to fund public transport and green bonds that could be issued by the Scottish Government and local authorities. I wonder if the panel has any views on the role that those reports and recommendations could play in helping to achieve what we want to achieve in Scotland. Of the climate change committee to lay down how governments reach the ends which they have set. Our job is to set the targets and then if you want to do more than the targets then we have to discuss with you how you're going to be able to do that and there will be a wide range of things. There are some things which we do think to be so individually important that we can say that. For example, peatland restoration is a vital part of that and the fact that Scotland is not achieving what it ought to be achieving when it has a significant problem in that area is an example of where we could say that. I don't think that it is up to us to say that you raise money by a wealth tax or that you encourage things by using the local government taxes and the rest of it. That is really for the government to make those decisions because that's the elected government's role. Our job is to say that if you don't make any of those decisions then the targets become fantasy rather than reality and so what we're trying to do is to say please make the decisions the sort of political decisions which you need to make so that we can see a real route to the ends which you have committed yourself to. In addition to that we do have to say that there are some areas which you really do have to look at for example we believe that we ought to be eating less meat but better meat. That should be very good for Scotland because you produce some of the best meat in the world and we would much prefer people to eat rather less of it, well not of it but of meat but eat the good meat that comes from Scotland. That ought to be something which Scotland could really major on but at the moment there's no sign of that being part of the programme and unfortunately it's that sort of thing that we look for a practical statement that that is what we're going to do and here is the way to do it and a real association with local government and farmers and the landowners and others to make that a reality. Thank you. Thank you I'm going to go to Jackie now, Jackie Dunbow with your questions. Okay thank you convener and good morning panel thank you for coming along. In Scotland we need to move quickly to achieve our ambitious targets but this could present a potential conflict with our commitment to a just transition. So how do we ensure that the just aspect of the transition remains our top priority and I'll leave it in your hands as to who's best to answer. I think I ought to start by saying you are quite right that the just transition is a crucial part. I don't think that you can divorce fairness if I may use that word from climate change transition because you can't do that for two reasons. One is it doesn't work if you don't make it fair and secondly people won't have it if you don't make it fair so I don't believe that this is a conflict I believe it's part of the same thing which is why one has had to say to the United Kingdom Government for example that fighting climate change means that you have to do the very things you've got to do to deal with the cost of living crisis which of course is one of the areas in which unfairness is most obvious so I don't believe that there is a conflict between the two and I believe you have to bring those two things together and that's part of the role it seems to me of the democratic government and it's also part of the role of the government working with local authorities. One of our issues is that we don't believe that in Scotland there is a sufficiently good partnership between government and local government to achieve a lot of these things and many of the things that we have to do if you think for example about the insulation of houses about making life easier for those in fuel poverty those cannot be done centrally they have to be done locally by the local authority that knows about the area and can make those decisions taught for that section of the community so it's getting a much better relationship there as partnership seems to us to be very important all I can say to you is I wouldn't be too upset in Scotland because it's true about the rest of the United Kingdom except for Wales which does seem to have achieved this extremely well but perhaps Emily you'd like to make any points about the about the congruence of justice and and and and deliver it I think marillie's going to come in on this one um so just to add to what lawdeedden has has just said considering just transition in the decarbonisation course um is a statutory commitment in Scotland it's part of the um it's part of the Scottish climate change act and from a central government perspective I know the Scottish government has committed to providing sectoral plans for the decarbonisation of each economic sector that are also meant to be incorporating just transition considerations in them and that will be starting with the um with an energy strategy that will also be a that will also include a just transition plan for the energy sector mainly considering the transition of skills and the transition of the workforce as required but um hopefully hopefully including certain aspects in there um around the aspects of fairness social fairness and what decarbonisation might mean for this sector but um just transition is a big question um opposes a big question on on skills and on transitioning the workforce um and this is this is really where kind of the the emphasis needs to be because um the skills and and having the right uh sort of the the right um workforce in place to deliver uh the decarbonisation of each sector is also one of the one of the big hurdles to achieving the kind of just going beyond um uh the pathway um that Scotland has been following so far in order to deliver those very very um stretching targets um but hopefully we'll be we'll be starting to we'll start to to see some of the um some uh just transition considerations being incorporated in policy from um going forward um also as a result of the just transition commission which is now I believe reinstated and it's it's meant to be advising the Scottish Government exactly on this how they can incorporate just transition aspects in the decarbonisation plans um but yes some some very big questions there is it's going to be difficult particularly because Scotland needs to go faster and it's a it's a matter of it's just making sure that when policy is designed it's designed well from the beginning and these these questions around fairness around transitioning the workforce are incorporated from from the very beginning yeah that thank you i'm i'm going to come uh on to the next section which the deputy convener Fierna Hyslop is going to start off with on buildings Fierna. Good morning all and I want to focus some questions on on buildings um why was it considered too early to say whether the government was on track with its low carbon heat ambitions um and what evidence would you need as a committee to adequately um adequately assess progress so lordewin if you could indicate who you'd like to answer that question please. Well I think Emily should answer that question and then perhaps come back to to Keith and me. Emily start please. Okay yeah I'm unmuted yeah um so it was it was too early to say because of this um well a couple of reasons so one is the um we just don't have the data this is something Keith raised earlier so particularly in the building set to this is an issue we don't have the data that we can use to monitor um how fast heat pump rollout is going how quickly energy efficiency installations are happening so this makes it quite difficult to make a call but the other thing is that this is um something where you know things need to happen really fast but they're just just getting started in terms of heat pump installation and we recognise that and so what we need to see is is this happening really fast in the next few years we need the data to assess that um and in terms of the judgment on the policy being good enough we don't have the detail in there again this is the issue of having to go faster than UK wide and faster than our recommendations much much faster in this sector we this sector the the Scottish government climate the update to the climate change plan sees a 70 reduction in buildings emissions compared to 2020 levels by 2030 so in 10 years which is in our pathway that was um much much less than that about 30 about 35 percent to about half that so the sort of the rate that the heat pumps need to come out is sort of double what we recommended in our pathway and that's a stretching pathway that's our most ambitious scenario so what we don't see is a sufficient policy to sort of show that um that we can go above and beyond and the reason it's too early to say as I said is because we don't have the data to see how it's actually happening on the ground Keith I think you were going to come in next yeah I mean um that's just to kind of add to what Emily has been saying you know that I mean for example there was a policy announced a couple of weeks ago uh for you know a grant of £750,000 for a heat pump installation and the budget available for that I think is something like £45 million over the coming year so that supports about five and a half thousand heat pumps which is good but it only scratches the surface really of what the ambition says should be achieved you know the kind of annual installation rate ramping up to sort of tens of thousands per year by the mid 2020s I think another thing we're building on something that we talked about a bit earlier where you know I think um and the slendon was talking about various reports giving different policy recommendations a lot of those talks about raising public funds and of course public investment is a really important part of all of this but so is private investment and the kind of uh you know the environment the set for private investment is a really important part of policy and part of that environment a really important one is is regulation so for example setting standards on energy efficiency in buildings and in homes in particular and there seems to be a bit of a gap there uh and in addition to that uh not just setting the standard but monitoring that the standards are adhered to so that that does you know the monitoring does cost some some public money but a lot of the achievement of standards certainly in the private ownership sector is going to be achieved by private investment so the policies to achieve that or uh you know the point of the kind of the life of a building maybe when it's changing hands for example uh to try to enforce something is is a is a really important part of it and as Emily said the ambition set by by the Scottish Government to deliver the 2030 mission reduction target is extremely challenging so we really need to see things getting going very soon okay Lord Diven point we have to see things getting going very soon indeed and I just want to emphasise the suggestion that one of the areas which would be very important would be that when buildings change hands that should be the moment in which one has the opportunity to improve the standards of the building but it's also true that Scotland hasn't made more quickly than the rest of the United Kingdom the standards which new building should be built at we've been pressing that for the United Kingdom as a whole I'm sorry that Scotland hasn't taken a unilateral position there and demanded higher standards for new building particularly new domestic building and it seems to me also that the point about enforcement is crucially important we don't have any real evidence that in Scotland what regulations you do have are being adequately enforced and if we have greater regulations which is what we think is necessary then regulation without proper enforcement is meaningless in the end what you need is proper enforcement and that again comes back to a relationship between central and local government and you need all that because the private sector demands it too because if they're going to invest as we want them to invest they want to invest in circumstances where they have certainty and where in fact in competitive terms they don't find themselves doing the right thing and then being undercut by someone else who's not doing the right thing because the enforcement or the regulations are not satisfactory so it is a question of bringing all that together and that's always true but it's particularly true if you have high standards it might be helpful to to share with you that only in the last few days it looks as if the Scottish Government has indicated that it will be bringing forward those standards that you talked about for for new build but I'll leave that one there the other question I wanted to ask is if the Scottish government does not have powers to restrict the sale of replacement fossil fuel boilers can it realistically expect to move faster than the rest of the UK on low carbon heat although I understand very recently the UK Government has got a consultation out on replacement fossil fuel boilers that they would need to be you know hydrogen compatible after a certain date is that the sort of thing that we are absolutely reliant on the UK government doing because they have the powers in that area Lordewin who would you like to answer that question well let me just say I'm entirely on your side when it comes to making sure that the partnership works properly and here is an area where the partnership has to work properly and I think that the United Kingdom Government has been slow at dealing with with the replacement boiler area and improving the situation that they had so I'm not blaming the scots I'm really saying but all together we haven't done this effectively but Keith has looked at this rather carefully from the point of view of the of energy so Keith we'll go to Keith and then we'll go to Emily because I think she had her hand up as well so Keith first and then we'll go to her first then I can't see the hand okay we'll go to Emily and I'll chip in yeah she had her hand up okay Emily yeah I think it's a really good point and it's another one of these things where obviously because of the 2030 things do need to go faster in Scotland than UK wide and so restricting the sale of of gas boilers is UK wide so what I guess and this is you know again this is a real challenge we don't have a suggestion for policy package out there to do that but what I guess the focus needs to be is to really encourage take up you can still do that even if the restriction to the sale has a different date but you need to make you know have other ways and policies in there to encourage take up of low carbon heat and that needs to start happening now basically so yeah Keith if you want to chip in I think that's a really important point about the market for boilers for the appliances it is it is going to be it's going to be a GB wide market a UK wide market to a certain extent so the regulations that are set on that you know analogous to for example you know a ban on the sale of new combustion engine vehicles that has you know if there's a commitment to that and this and the market has confidence that that it's going to be a firm policy that will be delivered on the market will respond to that signal and will start making the alternatives available for vehicles it's very much a global market it's slightly trickier in respect of heating appliances because I mean in within Europe I think it's us from the dutch that make the most use of gas boilers but on the on the positive side there is already across Europe a market for heat pumps albeit many of them are air to air rather than air to water which a lot of a lot of our buildings would require so yes there is there is a you know a UK wide dimension to it but there's also a Scotland dimension to it because as well as having the appliances by or you know new types of appliances when we can discuss whether being hydrogen ready is a good thing or a bad thing and what hydrogen readiness really means but you have to have the alternative available which and when we've talked about heat pumps and we recommend them in view of the low carbon supply of energy to heat pumps via electricity and the coefficient of performance you know the efficiency you get you know three times the amount of heat more or less out of a heat pump comparison with the energy that you that you put in so you have to have the opportunity to buy that that is a kind of you know GB wide market but it also depends on local fitters who know what they're doing you can install you know look at the building understand what's needed what sort of specification you need whether the radiators and so on are kind of fit for purpose enhancements of insulation and so on so that's the kind of marketplace that is much more local and where for example in terms of education and skills training provision in further education colleges. Scottish Government and local authorities here can have a big impact convener okay perfect we go to Jackie Dunbar Jackie thank you convener what aspects of buildings decarbonisation can the Scottish Government deliver on its own and which ones do you think would be more effectively delivered by jointly working with the rest of the UK well the first point about it is really to come back to Keith's point about the market the reason for a UK policy is very often pressed by the fact that the market is a UK market and if you want boilers for example to be as you want them they're going to do that for the whole of the UK and it's much better if you do it together on that front but there are other things which specifically the Scottish Government can do and that's largely in the area of regulation and standards which it can do for its own areas perfectly properly and one of the areas I've been pressing for I suppose almost 10 years now is that one of the advantages of devolution ought to be that countries say well frankly we're going to move faster than the United Kingdom on the subjects of for example the standards of people's new homes I mean in the United Kingdom as a whole we built one and a half million homes unfit for the future because we changed the regulations the government at the time conservative government at the time in 2017 changed the commitment to net zero homes and that's a million and a half homes which have got to be retrofitted now I just don't want that to go on and we're still waiting for the United Kingdom to get its future standards there's no reason why Scotland couldn't have its own future standards because the building is done locally and can be done and met those standards as long as they are enforced because one of the worries I have is that the present standards are very often not effectively enforced and that's why the relationship between government Scottish government and local government is so important that's the area that I would concentrate on in things that Scotland could do for itself without the rest of the United Kingdom but do you have things Keith that you'd like to add to that or Emily? Yeah I'd just say that another dimension to this I mean heat pumps in individual buildings is not the only option for decarbonisation of heat you can also have heat sources at scale you know larger heat sources where access to heat is via heat networks in other words district heating so that again is a very much a local planning thing closely involving local authorities but also other parties it works best within cities where you've got that sort of density of heat demand you haven't got to have long heat networks you can go very few meters and reach a lot of a lot of energy users so yeah that's very much a local thing there are complications I mean we've heard this discussed many times about quite how that gets going the public sector does have an important part to play in that though I think in terms of providing an anchor load you know to say well here's a guarantee of a large user of heat enough to kind of get the financial commitment to the heat network over the line and then once it's committed to it's being built then it becomes easier to kind of get others involved so again that's something that can be done within Scotland and within particularly cities in Scotland Keith you very neatly moved on to a question I think that wants to be asked next from Mark so I'm going to go to Mark to ask that question and then I've got a supplement from Liam and I'd quickly like to ask a question after that so Mark Ruskell yeah the question I was going to ask was about local heat and energy efficiency strategies whether that's the right approach and I was listening to you earlier response Keith in relation to the you know the the conversion the retrofitting the numbers that we can get through the current system do you think that Elhys could provide a real step change so a move maybe towards more area-based schemes where we're looking at whole communities or streets that are being retrofitted invested in does that provide the right incentive for private sector investment it just feels that we're struggling to find the real step change here and I know there's some work happening with Elhys at the moment but does that fill you with hope or is there still some way to go a bit of both I mean hope in the sense that I think the kind of the outline of the approach is right you know to look locally at what's the right solution for a particular place you know access to different heat sources the way of moving that energy around and so on but at the same time I think I think you're right that there's there's a long way to go it's a challenge to turn an outline of a strategy into delivery and that's something we you know we're coming back to again and again in this session to kind of commercial and regulatory environment doesn't make it easy and I'm not quite sure what's the best approach to kind of doing something about that so for example a local authority can can can outline what it believes having commissioned some analysis and again we've we've talked about different local authorities have different capacity to do this some are kind of doing it very well engaging with it quite strongly others find it difficult because of the resources that they've got the kind of lack of expertise locally so okay that's a whole other dimension to it let's assume they have got a strategy how is that how is that implemented it does depend on a lot of you know private investment whether at the scale of a heat network or as you say you know it stands the reason that it could be efficiencies cost efficiencies by going sort of street by street one of the mechanisms by which a contract can be let on that how does that interact with the kinds of energy supply contracts individual householders have you know with with you know the kind of gas and electricity supply some of those suppliers in the market are now offering some of these services themselves thank goodness there's finally some innovation in that and we'll we'll look forward I look forward to seeing how that plays out but that maybe works against a kind of a you know a street by street approach arguably you know and there is a dimension of choice which I think often gets overlooked you know the UK Parliament a ferris to the committees down there set up some climate assemblies when it when was it it was you know we're kind of finishing off their work at the style of the pandemic so guess the first half of 2020 and that was a big message that came out I think that struck me quite strongly was you know the members of the assembly as you know drawn from all sectors of society were persuaded of the kind of the rightness of the energy transition and of reducing emissions kind of more generally in spite of the cost and certainly the short-term cost in terms of the capital assets but they said we do want a choice on it we want to be able to kind of yeah make a decision for ourselves about exactly what solution is used so there is a tension there arguably between what an individual householder might want what is the most kind of cost effective solution for an area and and the delivery of it and so yeah I mean I'm sorry that's not that's not sounding very positive because it doesn't sort of suggest any answers although the positive bit is there is a willingness to kind of engage with it it points back I think possibly to the kind of the secret source here would be back to the local authorities the local authority in having a a democratic mandate locally where people have expressed their choice through through their votes so if that can be all kind of if it's a local authority proposition about about how to deal with heat decarbonisation is very clearly communicated to voters in the local area then arguably it gets some kind of legitimacy when they come to implement that policy that's the local level can ask you why is the ccc so resistant to boiler scrappage schemes and scrappage schemes in general because you know this is a really challenging report on government but I'm just wondering why there are some policy options that seem to be off the table I think you mentioned this earlier on Emily in terms of you know some skepticism about scrappage or what I said yeah what I said was that it needs to be considered when you're when you're considering going much much faster say with boilers which means that you then have to scrap boilers you have to of course consider the embodied emissions and take that into account and make sure that it's practical it's not that we would rule it out at all but it just needs to be part of the plan and it needs to be acknowledged how yeah how much scrappage there has to be and whether considering the embodied emissions in that whether that's something that we that we want to happen so it's more that that need we need to we need to understand given the fast rate of of rollout of new technologies what that means in terms of scrappage okay Liam I think you had a supplementary question yes thank you convener Lord Diemen you note in your report that it is currently this a quote it is currently very difficult to monitor progress against the necessary measures for decarbonising the building sector due to a lack of adequate and up-to-date data would you have expected data collection mechanisms to be in place already and in your experience which such mechanisms could and perhaps should be introduced to monitor and support delivery well I'm never one for expectation in the first place if I may say so Mr Kerr but let me try to turn it around in this way and if you are going to have high expectations and tough targets you really do have to start by knowing that you can tell how you're reaching it I mean it seems to me that the precursor and and the thing that has worried me about the Scottish tough targets is that nobody seems to have understood that you can't get there unless you can measure how you get there and so yes we would have expected them if not to be existent to have been introduced and the sort of measurements I mean even the very simple measurements in terms of the updating the measurements for energy measuring of energy use measuring of buildings there are great faults in what we have at the moment that was one area we might have expected we might have expected a much tougher view about new buildings both new measures in terms of regulation but also new measures in terms of measuring those in other words there are series of things you might have expected which were inevitably necessary if you have high standards and those standards were fixed by the Scottish Parliament and and government and it does seem to us that they lacked the ability to measure and if you can't measure you don't do and certainly not only don't you do it but you don't know whether you have done it or whether you have failed to do it all we can say is there is no evidence that it has been done or is being done yeah thank you lord demon i'm very grateful one further question on the heat and buildings strategy we heard earlier that 1.8 billion is being put towards this over i think five years by the Scottish government we also know that the cost of achieving the heat and buildings strategy is apparently 33 billion and that figure is now obviously dated i asked a parliamentary question as to what that figure actually is now with inflation of things and answer came there none in your view lord demon is 1.8 billion sufficient and do you get any sense of whether there is a concrete plan in place which will leverage 33 billion pound plus from that 1.8 billion contribution well in a sense you've answered the question yourself because there are two ways in which you can deliver or a mixture of the two the one is that the Government plays for it one thing the other is that the government creates a system whereby the very significant sums available in the private sector are drawn into doing this our concern here is that it is pretty difficult to see a programme on either front i mean clearly this is not a sum which is sufficient of itself to deliver on the other hand we don't see the detailed mechanism whereby the government says if we do it in this way this will draw in these sums to achieve this end elsewhere and that's what we're looking for we're looking for well frankly we're looking for what you would expect in a business if a business said to its shareholders we are going to do x ym z the shareholders would perfectly properly say we want to see the programme mr chairman as to how you're going to do that and it's that that we're asking for very grateful thank you liamon just before we leave this subject i i'm tried hard to restrain myself and i couldn't but i want to talk briefly about epsys when epsys were bought in uh i don't think there was anyone who thought they were a good idea and and a really good measure of efficiency energy efficiency in fact you could almost replace the lights in a property with led lights and get a higher rating as a result of that than putting in double glazed windows do we think epsys are the way forward or do we think that we need to come up with a cleverer plan rather than just say for example if you don't meet epsys the house isn't fit for occupancy so i don't know who would like to answer that question you you could just satisfy me by saying they're not great and we need a better system but i don't want to put words in your mouth uh i don't know lord debon who you want to well i will say that they are not great and we need a better system um i think life is about using what you've got to start with and then seeing that if it's not right you change it and i'm one of those who think that's exactly what we should be doing about epsys given that our biggest problem is that we don't have measurements to throw out what measurements you do have even if they're not competent ones it's not perhaps the best way forward but what you need to do is to change them and bring them up to date and that is something which the scotish government could do and set an example for the rest of the united kingdom and you see what i want you to do is to give me opportunities of being able to say to the united kingdom government for goodness sake if scotland can do it why can't you and that's a really important and valuable thing that you could do for us okay you i can't help when i'm on a roll keith you nodded so do you want to agree with me um and i'll leave it at that or if something else you want to agree that's yeah yeah definitely um and they're not they're not good they never have been good but i think as lord even says they're what we've got so it's better to have something to drive things in the kind of positive direction than nothing but absolutely work to kind of replace them with something better is is is over to you yeah thank you and uh i think i'll leave it there and go on to the next question which is going to come from monica monica thank you convener um so yeah i wanted to pick up on transport and um you'll be aware that pre pandemic in scotland our annual car kilometres were increasing um we know we've got the 20 car demand reduction target um but the committee you're very clear that there needs to be a paradigm shift if we're going to achieve that and a note in your report in terms of recommendations you link this target with um scottish government documents on the national planning framework for example and the strategic transport project review so clearly looking for more alignment with other strategies and programs would like to hear from the committee what policies you think the scottish government needs to use to support alternatives to the car use or to discourage car use because we've still got a long way to go to get that that modal shift to sustainable public transport and active travel i know you don't want to give recommendations to the government in terms of policy but it feels like we are lacking in courage at the moment in the government and in parliament to make some of these tough decisions because it's not all going to be popular so if you maybe can give us a bit of a steer on some of the carrots and sticks that could be looked at that would be helpful well um Keith will not like me for saying that he's going to answer this but i just want to make a single example which i think is worthwhile the problem with transport um as lennon is this as you well know is that the moment you try to touch any of it there's always a group of people for whom that is particularly damaging or difficult so i don't blame the government for being reticent in trying to get this right because it is extremely difficult but given that the Scottish government has been very strong in its policies in the sense of its aims it really does have to grab this and there is a series of things that could be done but i shall go over to eith to put forward those things but i just don't want anyone to misunderstand that we we're not saying this is an easy area it's a very difficult area but it is a crucial area we have to do it climate change won't wait while we find some answer which is miraculous eith yeah i mean i think you used um some some very key words in your question there courage and i think you're right it's both Scottish government and and parliament in terms of resolving some of those tensions that lord even alluded to where different interest groups will will kind of oppose different you know particular policies that you try to implement the ambition that i mean as we've said before is great you know the reduction of car kilometres by 20 per cent previous Scottish government reports have talked about a 20 minute neighbourhood which i think is a fantastic idea but waiting to see how that's going to be achieved and i think you're right as well in your question that it has to be a mixture of carrots and sticks the carrots you know it's encouraging people on to public transport the modal shift that you mentioned again is absolutely key there are some things that do sound really positive in that in that respect for example uh you know the free bus travel to what is it to people age 21 and under hopefully that will kind of not just encourage young people to be using using the buses but to get into the habit of using buses where they'll continue to do so but that depends on the bus service being really good and being you know reliable and frequent and there's great variation in the quality of bus services across not just you know particularly rural areas but but also in cities uh so you know i live in Glasgow i used to try to use the bus from time to time but it's a you know it's a bit of a lottery about whether the bus will actually turn up uh there are you know signs on the bus stop that that you imagine with we're telling you where the bus is and how long it's actually going to take but it turns out all it's doing is repeating the timetable or so it seems rather than having the active monitoring if you've got an app on your phone i'm told maybe that works but you know things like this that you know are perfectly achievable other cities managed to do it why can't we manage to do it in Glasgow so we've got to build up confidence in the public transport system thank you can i just stick with buses can i just stick with buses right now because you're making me think about you know our local situation in hamilton where the express bus service that was really popular was students for example from hamilton right into the centre of Glasgow for university and college and so on that bus was taken away during the pandemic and we don't have it back yet so other colleagues in the chamber in debates on these topics i've talked about public transport deserts in their local communities and in rural areas it can be really really challenging so it's really great to have more people having access to free bus passes but again if they don't have the service you know it's pretty useless so in terms of this 20 target to you know reduce car kilometres by the end of this decade do we need to see more action in that space around you know bus services and i suppose integrated public transport that actually works in terms of people's real lives and timetables whether that's you know university you know education work hospital appointments socialising shop and whatever because a lot of people say it's just so frustrating and so difficult to to get around and that's why they can't really give up their car or or use a private car so what more could be done around you know resourcing public transport i know again the report from your committee talks about continuing the Covid-19 pandemic support for you know operators and local transport authorities what's missing in that space and professor bale yeah well i mean this is where it's getting a bit beyond the kind of thing into the detail that i'm not familiar with but i think there is a question about the effectiveness of uh of public policy uh and and of the owner of the transport system so yes you know public support for in terms of investing here providing support for buses that might not on their own be be commercially viable and getting some you know getting some uh oasis in some of those deserts for example it's going to be a big big part of it but the co-ordination of public transport services you know the ability to kind of use tickets across different means again other cities have managed it i'm not quite sure why we don't manage it in parts of scotland i guess it's something to do with the contractual arrangements with the private service providers in particular you know the bus the bus providers i think it may well be kind of not you know uk wide legislation here you've heard you know the mayor of Manchester talking a lot about this about the ability for a local authority to take back control hey where did we hear that phrase before of public transport and it may well be that that's a kind of relevant thing in in parts of scotland as well there was going to be a link across different areas of policy as well transport policy cannot be seen in isolation it has to be seen in the context yes of course of emission reduction but also of spatial planning of access to public services you know the the planning permission that is given for housing developments to what extent are they linked in with access to amenities you know shops general practice surgery dentists and so on and so forth so this this has to all be brought together it's not easy but i don't know does it it does it depend on that that word courage again at the local authority level to insist on particular kind of services being provided particular parts of development plans before they will be approved to what extent does it depend on rules being set from Scottish government level that then have to be implemented locally i mean that gets into the policy detail that i'm not familiar with but it appears to me that there are levers that can be pulled and in particular around that coordination of policy okay thank you thank you monica uh Jackie i think you've got a couple of questions on this at least one just the one convener if you don't mind um can i it's about the low emission vehicles rather than public transport can i ask what the what can the scottish government do within the powers that it currently has to increase the market share of low emission vehicles in scotland whether that be electric vehicles or hydrogen vehicles well i think um Keith you know about that but i may i just job back a second and one of the things that we would like to emphasise is the importance of planning and the rules about planning if you're dealing with any of these things and particularly on transport the point that Keith said about transport and the need to have a planning system which actually does recognise that if you want to have the quarter of an hour living space that you can get to things in a quarter of an hour frankly you can't do that unless you've got a planning system which makes sure that it happens and that again is a hugely important part of what we would say can i just say before we move on you just sort of almost played the magical tune to monica because that's one of her areas of expertise on on planning so thank you for doing that and and keith back to you yes keith yeah i'm sure we're glad to be of service that's a low emission vehicles i mean the good news is that they are starting to prove popular especially electric vehicles you know the sales figures i think over the last couple of years that look very positive for them relative to combustion engine vehicles it's still a challenge because they are very expensive the upfront cost is is high a big part of the kind of uptake is of course about reputation and word gets around you know if you happen to know someone who's got one and they and they like it they find it you know a pleasure at the drive then that's that's all great you know word let's say word gets around you get encouraged to go for it yourself but there are negative kind of word that can get round as well about and a particular one at the moment i think is about the reliability of of charging infrastructure so relative to other parts of the uk i think in scotland we don't do too badly for the number of public charges or public accessible charges uh but we seem to have very mixed messages on quite how good they are when you turn up is it going to be in a working state uh and then you know have you got the right kind of means to to pay for it i think again was probably slightly better in scotland than other parts of the uk but not not consistently good so that good reputation has to be spread and any kind of bad reputation you have we have to take action to address it so i haven't had a chance to look into that i mean i think there was a there was a bbc documentary recently was looking at the kind of reliability of public charges and there seemed to be some very different opinions from what the uh what the bbc investigation had revealed in comparison with data that came back from transport scotland so yeah i'm sure that's already on your agenda for digging into quite where those differences have come from jackie is he he's had fun does it yeah does anyone i'm not sit uh emily did you want to come in on that yeah just yeah i mean a key story um made some of the points i was i was going to make but i guess i just want to make the point that in general this is an area that is more positive than some others um in particular with um offering of um scottish government offering grants for installing home charges and interest free loans that extend to second hand vehicles this is all very positive stuff again um and some of the concerns are to do with things like you know making sure this comes out to the full consumer base and so that's addressing price disparity with home and public charging points etc etc um but i guess i just wanted to make this point again that that the sort of challenge here despite good progress is that things really just need to go faster than the than UK wide and actually what we're seeing is that that she electric vehicle sales are actually slightly behind UK wide so again it's just sort of trying to sort of trying to go faster again faster than our most stretching pathway again so it's it this is always the challenge even though progress is generally quite good here okay mark i think you've got a supplementary on that you want just to refocus on on delivery programs again we just had the strategic transport projects review the second one launched in scotland i've been interested in your your views on that the next stage of that process is the prioritisation of a delivery plan um there's some big ideas in there such as mass transit schemes in the cities um are there things in stpr2 that you would question or is it all in line with the 75 target and the 2040 target um i'm not sure you would like to take that well if we start with lord debon and and he can then allocate it to me well i think um first of all in general yes um we we'll go along with this um if i without being too critical i mean the the real trouble is a game in the detail as you well know mr rascal it's about the detail so if we're not careful what we've got is yet another layer of what needs to be done another layer of of in generalities but i still want all the time to be pushing down to the basis of what actually has to be done who is going to do it who is going to provide the resources for it how it is actually going to work out on the ground and above all how you measure how successful it's been and i don't think that last has been has played enough part in in in what has so far been put forward but if i go to keith keith breath briefly so i'm actually just just to reinforce the same the same points you know it's fantastic set out some some bold ambitions and schemes but the reality of kind of taking them forward has to it also has to be addressed you know the implementation dimension is it is it is a really critical part of it setting out what that would look like how it would be funded and with credible projections on what impact it would have okay thank you both for those comments can i move on to aviation uh i mean obviously the Scottish Government has some limited powers over aviation but it does or it will have some powers over passenger duty it has powers over planning how do you think that the government should be tackling aviation right now particularly in the light of a forthcoming aviation strategy lord debon well i'll go to i'll go to keith a general but just to make the general point is that any aviation policy is bedeviled by the fact that immediately you say anything and i say this in support of all governments immediately you say anything a great howl comes out that you're stopping people's holidays or you're stopping people doing the things that they want to do whereas that's not what you need to do or should be doing and obviously there are two things which are crucial one is how do you make sure that using an aeroplane is less necessary and that really is something which isn't entirely in the hands of the Scottish Government but it is something which they ought to be pressing the United Kingdom Government for is to recognise that people will use alternatives if there are alternatives and what are those alternatives i would hate to get into the subject of ferries because that does seem to me to be probably not an error there won't be a good place to be but the fact is there is in Scotland a very special need for aviation but that shouldn't cover up the areas where you can actually replace aviation by other mechanisms and again it's a question of being accurate and precise and detailed about it and then the second thing is that the conditions around the aviation is an area where you can make big differences i'm talking about the land-based emissions around airports and such like where you really can make a huge difference on the amount of emissions if you take that seriously particularly as you are in an enclosed area where for example fuel cell driven machinery and such like are available in that so i do want people to think of aviation in the wider sense about about the services providing and how you could reduce their impact particularly in areas where you you can't reduce in the present technological situation the actual need for the use of the airplane itself but teeth yeah i think i think you've made pretty much all the points i would have made i think at that point about the land-based emissions at airports is a really good one i mean i think some work is going on there's some colleagues at university's track line i know we're involved in some work related to Glasgow airport for example but the thing i would kind of re-emphasise is about the demand side and so reducing the demand for aviation it doesn't mean stopping people from going you know one or two trips a year you know short-haul flights for holidays and so on but the frequent flyers are kind of the obvious kind of places of interest here and do they have to make so many flights and and what and can they make journeys by alternative means so the alternative means have to be built up and given confidence in which of course as little demon says links back to other forms of transport and you know let's say in respect of trips up and down to up and down to England you know the rail system has to be up to scratch french government's approach to banning certain domestic flights within two and a half hours travel whether there's a rail alternative i mean i think that was something that came out of the french citizens assembly that the government has taken on and is now actually delivering different contexts but that is absolutely true but one and i'm entirely in favour of that but it does mean that you have to provide a proper alternative and of course the french have been better at providing the rail alternative than we have been over many years this is so we have to patch up with that if we're going to do that properly and the other thing is that i don't think as far as scotland is concerned that's a help it's going to make a huge difference because you are talking very often about flights for which there really isn't an alternative i mean in the climate change committee we always use the train we don't come up on the airplane to scotland we take that as part of the job that we have to do does make the trains have to be running that is in fact the the role that we think we ought to play and one of the issues that we haven't mentioned is that very many journeys can in fact be avoided by doing what we are doing now now i would much prefer to be with you because i haven't been able to be during this last year and i wanted to make sure i was but we all know in business that for every four meetings there's no reason why three of them can't be remotely like this of course you've got to get together on time to time but i certainly find in my own businesses that we really have reduced our spending on air flights and such like simply by using this as a natural mechanism and i think that those pressures should be included should be added to by government advice and help and it's an area there where we can reduce the need for flights you can't reduce it if you want to go on holiday you can't reduce it if you've got to keep an eye on a particular factory but you can do three of the meetings of the factory without going there and the fourth one you do go it's that kind of choice and the way in which we treat it and talk about it and and behave and it's the way government behaves too the governments have got to be much better at using the extremely good video systems that we know i'm just going to bring in briefly emily but can i just say i'm absolutely conscious of the time and whilst i don't want to limit anyone's contributions i just know that if i don't get all the committee members their questions i'm not going to have a good christmas so emily i'll let you come in and then i'm going to go to liam kerb with the next lot of questions emily okay my challenge is to be brief i just wanted to say that given the 2030 target we we sort of really have to do everything in every single sector there's there's this big gap and i think aviation demand and peatlands restoration are in most cases Scottish government's ambition goes further than us and we worry about the delivery they're the two two examples where ambition is actually lower and we really think that's needed in order to sort of you know meet the target given the big gap that we see but i'll let you move on thank you emily liam thank you convener i'd like to turn to the area of agriculture and land use the climate change plan update aimed to reduce emissions from agriculture by around 28 between 2020 and 2030 your committee lord debon says it's unclear how this can be achieved and we also note that the recent agriculture bill consultation appeared to lack detail if we assume also that new policies won't be in place until 2024 and new practices particularly in this sector will take time to implement is it too late to achieve the target well i would be very unhappy to say that it's ever too late but certainly it would have been easier had we started rather early and it has put it in that way look the problem is that we do have to face the fact that we can't meet net zero by 2050 leave alone the specialist targets of Scotland we can't meet that unless we have a land use policy which actually deals with it and you have to take the whole of the agricultural community into your confidence in this and if you want to do that there are three very specific necessities first of all you have to be clear what you want to do and the mechanisms you're going to use people have to have confidence because we all know and i declare an interest as a small farmer we all know that when we are making choices about what we plant and how we do it we need to know what is the context in which we are making those choices now i don't think that farming in scotland knows that because the there is not enough clarity and clarity is crucially important the second thing is this business of partnership is absolutely important because the government doesn't do the planting and doesn't do the husbandry it's people do that and they must feel that there is a proper relationship and in the move from the common agricultural policy to our new system which i have to say is about the only advantage i can think of leaving european union but i will not get on to that the fact the matter is we should be using it but we're not using it and we're not using it effectively enough and it leaves people actually in the it leaves them in the lurch and the third thing that seems to me that is necessary is to be absolutely frank about what you're trying to do what we need to do is to accept that agriculture has a huge part of our emissions and that we've got to reduce that and we've also got to accept that agriculture has a real opportunity to help reduce emissions because of sequestration and we've got to find ways of helping agriculture to do both those things and that does mean again two simple things certainty and measurement and the biggest issue here is measurement because even if we had certainty we wouldn't have a means of measuring how successful our certain policies were thank you and staying in the same area and about taking people and industry along on this journey professor bell talked earlier of diet changes which of course echoes the biodiversity conference of cop 15 protecting nature is about protecting food now of course the climate change committee makes recommendations around diet change and i think encourages a move away from meat and poultry by 20 by 2030 the nfs would counter that this could have a negative impact not only on farmers and the economy but crucially on food security as well as increasing reliance on imports so lord demon have you assessed the environmental cost of greater reliance on imported food over locally sourced food and is there a danger that in the government trying to achieve its targets it perhaps unwittingly sacrifices food security livelihoods and potentially given import emissions the environment well no i don't think so if it does the policy properly and i do think frankly that the arguments are are really not well founded let's just go through them first of all imports of course you do not wish to replace home produced product by imported product if you're not going to do this first of all you mustn't have agreements with other countries which don't insist upon the same standards which is why the australian agreement and the new zealand agreement are entirely unacceptable because neither of them properly made sure that farmers were not going to have competition which was unfair because they were not meeting the same standards so the scott Scottish government has every right to say that the british government that that was a mistake and should not be continued secondly what we're saying is that we should shift from um we should eat less meat but we should eat better meat now british meat has the lowest carbon footprint of any meat in the world and therefore what we're looking for is people to actually buy rather less but better meat produced at home and the reality is that we're all eating too much leave alone meat we all know that our actual diet means that we are an obese nation we are the most obese nation in the whole of europe which is actually not very acceptable only the americans and i think the mexicans beat us and this is not a range which we ought to be in so we're talking about a very small change the health people tell us that we should be eating very much less meat it's not something i agree about and and i don't think anybody could blame me for being anything other than a carnival but it's a thing to me that it's such a simple mechanism and i do find that the attitude of of farmers in some parts of the country really don't see this for what it is it's a real it's a real chance for doing better you don't have a lot of feedlots in scotland you have well produced meat you should be selling the well produced meat from home production as the answer to this issue and that is what we should be doing and unless we get to the stage of recognising that a we're eating too much b we could change our diets without very much notice and c people are doing it already and the reason why i'm particularly keen that farmers should be on board is that their danger is not that people will object to what we're talking about but that people will increasingly say that the plant-based diet is the answer to our problems that is not true the truth is that we need farmers to have animals and we need mixed farming and we need to support that but we just need to eat less and better okay i'm sorry we are i'm feeling up up against it slightly fiona you've got a question full of by mark ruskin yes i want to focus on peatland restoration your report talks about the learning we have now have on historic emissions that needs adjustment for the current targets but your report also indicates that global warming will also have an impact in the future of what might happen with peatland restoration so peatland emissions so in terms of what needs to be done on peatland bearing in mind the scolish government is already investing 50 million pounds a year as part of a 250 million pound package which is substantial what needs to be done to dial up the action on peatland restoration to make an impact emily emily your your your off but okay there we are sorry i was on mute um yeah so i think well yeah so the issue is obviously that well there's a couple of issues one is that we think that the targets are not ambitious enough and the second is the targets are not being hit it things are improving um so i think there was an increase in um in the last recorded year and it's expected to go up again um but obviously it's far from the targets and it's it is an important source of emission and just to say that um you know we've got this gap in 2030 of about seven or eight megatons between what we think our pathway and the target and the lower peat ambition is one mega it means that that's in the scolish plans means that there'll be extra one megaton of emissions from that so we do think it's important to scale up both delivery and ambition what needs to have i think barriers need to be addressed right so there's we've been sort of highlighted that this this i think there's skills contractor availability i think there's some issues in financing and sort of people you know being sure of what what options are available for them and clarity in the um going forward so i think it's this sort of barriers that need to be adjusted but the truth is i'm not hunt what i don't think we're 100 sure why things are quite so far behind basically in terms of the scottish government's own targets i don't know if anyone else wants to add to that if anyone does it will need to be briefly i'm afraid who okay i'm sorry fienna do you want me to go into my next area no i'm quite keen i think mark ruskell had a question on agriculture uh as well well it's just a very brief question cavina on the back of um leon curse um point about um diet change just practically what you think government should be delivering on on the back of that i mean is it is it about you know change in the way that public canteens and kitchens are offering choice is it about food labelling what are the actual tools or is it all about market demand given what you said that people are generally moving tools eating less meat anyway when i think it's a mixture of all those things i think government setting examples by the way in which they procure curement is a hugely important and it would give the farmers much greater confidence if they felt that the procurement system really backed all this up it's about public knowledge when we took the climate change committee around the country as a whole of the united kingdom i think the thing that really struck the most was the degree to which good-hearted people who wanted to do the right thing didn't know didn't know what it was they should be doing and therefore to getting through all the extremists because unfortunately there are extremists who want to use this as a means of promoting their own agenda not the agenda of climate change getting through that to a sensible moderate way of saying to people these are the sort of choices that you can make a bit more help for teaching in schools about cooking and such like all that is of both boys and girls is what we need to do it as usual as one gets older one discovers that it's usually not either or but both and and i think it's a question of doing all those things in a way which means that people begin to take it just naturally but frankly they do have meat once a day but don't have it twice a day or do have it three times a week and when they do have it they pay a bit extra for it because they know it's good they know it's home produced and they know it's better for them and it's better for the climate too okay on that note we're going to move very uh to monaco who i think has got a question which is going to direct specifically to one person hopefully thank you convener yeah professor bale perhaps would be the best place to pick it up it's about the forthcoming circular economy bill i know again your recommendations covered that what would the committee expect to see in the Scottish government's bill on circular economy well i think i think there are enormous challenges in trying to achieve it because again you're back to sort of a lot of individual choices by consumers consumers at all scales not just us as individuals but businesses and and different public organisations as consumers of of stuff so how do we encourage different sorts of choices towards things that that encourage reuse that minimise waste there's got to be a range of things rather as Lordeven said and asked for the previous question i think it's got to be both and in certain terms of all sorts of policies and the public sector itself can take an important lead this i think yeah otherwise how how you kind of encourage everything else to move back back to information back to awareness raising but it's here i think it's got to be the kind of whole mixture of of policies that's that's how it seems to me anyway don't know whether anyone colleagues are coming on this sorry to interrupt you mentioned the public sector so just wonder if there's any specific examples of what public sector could do in this space because we've got a report from circularity Scotland saying that Scotland's economy is only 1.3 circular at the moment you talked about you know recycling more but we need to consume less in the in the first place so in terms of the public sector what levers could be used is it procurement is it something else well yeah i think i think procurement i mean but actually i mean it's not it's reusing before recycling as as we know you know that that's that's got to be an important first part of it you know repair of different sorts of you know appliances or products wherever that's possible if you're making a procurement procurement choice it's leaning towards things that are repairable or that have a longer life to the extent that you've got some idea about the embodied emissions in a product that's being or a service that's being bought again leaning towards that now those kind of benefits in a kind of standard accounting framework might be discounted heavily because there's some way into the future but the benefits will be there into the future so we shouldn't be discounting overly heavily in terms of the financial analysis of any of these kinds of actions so although it might be that certain products are appear more expensive in terms of the initial upfront cost they ought to be and if they're still more expensive in the long run not much more expensive and potentially cheaper in the long run so again it's all a kind of an encouragement towards these sorts of things that are kind of more efficient in our use of resources and and have a reduced impact on what we're taking out of the planet thank you okay thank you back to the deputy convener Fiona Hyslop the committee has taken a keen interest in carbon capture and storage and we had a short focus inquiry earlier this year could you comment on the the impact on the abatement figure of the potential of the Scottish cluster as part of a future carbon capture and storage we know that it wasn't part of track one but there's still a strong emphasis in Scotland on the need for this not only for our own abatement measures but also the rest of the UK and have you got any message for both governments the UK and the Scottish government about the importance of carbon capture and storage to deliver on our climate change targets but we we need to have carbon capture and storage we have particular advantages in the united kingdom as a whole which enables us to do it more effectively than some because we can store it more effectively than some Scotland obviously was a major competitor for one of the clusters it does seem to us that the two governments have really got to come to terms with the fact that if Scotland is going to deliver what Scotland wants to deliver then that does depend upon the significant role of which removing carbon actually has that is in your budget that is actually one of the clear bits in your budget so again if we have a message to both governments is carbon capture and storage is an essential part of doing what we need to do to reach net zero and it is also clearly an important part of the Scottish government's plans and so it seems to me that the more that the Scottish government defines the plans in other areas the more it has a responsibility to remind the United Kingdom government that it can't do this unless it has the help of the United Kingdom in enabling it to do the carbon capture and storage work that it needs to do so there's a double thing here I do think that the Scottish argument will be stronger if it is clearer about its means of reaching the things that it does have control over but at the same time it has a perfectly right policy to be able to say if we're going to do this as a contribution to the United Kingdom we do need to have the opportunity to do this which we don't at the moment just briefly the timescale for this for it to be effective in delivering on the targets movement would have to be very soon indeed I understand from approval from the UK government for acceleration for track 2 from the current reserve list to make a big impact I think that is true but in fact I know it's to be true but I think that Keith may well have an additional point on this piece no well I mean I'm not privy to the information about exactly how the UK government considerations are going on that track 2 and where it is but I'm just by understanding it's the same it's the same as yours that but it does need to move soon in order that the development that's been proposed from Scotland can can go ahead I mean that needs to be a strong proposal that's the proposal needs to be sufficiently robust to encourage the investment of UK taxpayers money but if it is sufficiently robust we want to see that kind of engagement from the UK government sooner rather than later and actually I think I see Emily has something to add here yeah sorry just just to add because you asked specifically for abatement so we have got an estimate of looking at a current pipeline of projects of about one megaton being taken minus one megaton from Queen Oskars removals looking at current projects by 2030 which is quite a lot less than what's in the climate change plan update which is 3.8 so it's a lot less than that and that's the sort of estimate that we have based on on current projects and of course that also means that things have to move really fast even to get to that level thank you thank you Fiona and Mark Ruskell coming back to you now yeah I mean just to sort of move beyond that in terms of wider industrial decarbonisation that may or may not feed into to acorn what what you see as the sort of progress the Scottish government can make working with industry between now and 2030 I mean what are the what are the options that are that are most deliverable within that timescale I mean for example I commissioned and released a report yesterday into decarbonisation options for Moss Moran I think it's the first time that you know reports been done looking at a site specific just transition what that might mean for that plant but what what are your thoughts around around wider industrial decarbonisation and what are the what are the big step changes that we can make well I'm first of all absolutely sure that the concept of localised work of the sort that you've just been talking on is absolutely crucial because again in order to make that work you've had to measure it and you've had to say what could happen and what the result could be and how you could check that it actually is delivered so I can see that that's an important part of what what needs to be done so certainly one of the things the government can do is is to concentrate on where actual action can take place and be measured so certainly that's one of the major ways forward but it looks to me as if as far as I could see from that that that Emily had some comments and then Keith actually I didn't on this one it was going straight to Keith on interest of time okay well Keith thank you well I think I think you're absolutely right to highlight the importance of particular sites we know in Scotland that industrial greenhouse gas emissions are dominated by a small number of large sites uh there seems to okay I'm not I'm not close to this as a subject area but when I have had some discussions with the Scottish government officials just I don't know whether this is fair to say or not I had the impression of a bit of defensiveness or nervousness about those those few large sites but that we you know we have to engage questions uh to get to get some progress on this sector as a whole the other point I think to make is that um they're not the only sources of industrial emissions I mean there's lots of production manufacturing that is quite dispersed distributed and and that in itself presents a large challenge adds up to a significant amount even if individual sites is not not quite so much so we shouldn't so we shouldn't overlook the importance of emission reduction in other parts of manufacturing and industry as well. Mark is that okay um thank you um and we've come to the end of all the questions so I'm going to have a nice Christmas uh because I've got all the committee members in but I'd like to thank you all uh for taking part and sharing your expertise um Lord Dimond I'd like to actually extend on behalf of the committee a special thanks for your input not only in the past but also today it was clear you have a huge depth of knowledge and and beautifully choreographed your team to make sure that we were able to draw on their expertise now I believe that I think I'm not breaking any uh uh confidences that you're standing down next year um so it might be that we don't get to see you in person which I know you may feel uh contributes to net zero but I think we will be uh would have liked to have seen you in person to benefit from the experience that you put in and uh I'd like to give you a special thanks on behalf of this committee and our predecessor committee for all the input that you've given and the hard work you've put in on this subject so a thank you to you and a thank you to your team for that and let's hope there might be an opportunity to catch up with you next year before you do stand down. Well thank you very much I've done my um my legally allowable 10 years and it's been extended until the end of of June so I have no doubt that we will find an opportunity because I do not wish to to leave the job without having another visit to Scotland which I much appreciate and again I want to be able to have a year this year when when I'm able again to or at least my successor is able again to congratulate Scotland and use you as I want to use you as a means of getting other people to do more than they are doing at the moment so thank you very much for your kindness and thank you too for the comments about the team and I would like to thank them too particularly for filling in without the presence of Chris Stark which we hoped even this morning to have but thank you very much indeed. Well thank you and I hope you and your team have a very happy Christmas and that we will get to see you next year. We are going to move straight on to the next item on our agenda which is agenda item three which is the consideration of a negative instrument the public service vehicles registration of local services Scotland. Now I've got that wrong there's so many brackets here so it's the public service vehicles registration of local services provision of service information Scotland regulations 2022 the instrument is laid under the negative procedure which means that its provisions will come into force unless the parliament agrees to a motion to annul them no motions to annul have been laid and I wondered if there are any comments from any of the members therefore there are no comments so I think we are agreed on that and that concludes our public meeting hold on okay so I just have to read this out technically to invite the committee to agree that it does not wish to make any further recommendations in relation to the instrument are we agreed we are agreed thank you that concludes our public meeting and we're now going to move into private session thank you