 Good morning, welcome to the 20th meeting of 2018 and of the environment, I'm a climate change and land reform committee. Before we startomp categories, can I advise members as being in minute silence at 12pm to commemorate the victims of the LGBT Park bombing a year ago? Before we move to the first, I have a big general consent on that agenda I have apologies for Donald Cameron and Alex Neil, everyone present in the switch off mobile phones and other electronic devices, as he's may affect the broadcasting system. The first item on the agenda is for the committee to consider whether to take item six in private. Are we all agreed? We are agreed, thank you. The second item of business today is to hear evidence from the Scottish Government officials on stage one of the climate change bill. I welcome Mark Eglagian, Sarah Grainger, John Rawr, Tom Rossan a Calum Webster. I will move straight to questions as Stuart Stevenson. Thank you very much, convener. The first question is in addition to the UK Climate Change Committee, which is the primary source of scientific advice for government, Mae'r ddefnyddio ddysgioddau wnaeth i'ch gwneud積wurau yn arwyrill yn gymentw'r bobl? Rhaid i'ch dweithio nifer oedd y cynfer yn cael ei gweld. Diolch yn fydd chi'n gweld ar y Comisi Aelodau UK o'r Cyflwyno Aelodau yw'r cyflwyno a'r rhaid i'r gwleilach i'r hyn yn gwybod sydd wedi ddau'r rhaglen. Mae'r rhaid i'r rhaglen y ffordd ar y parlyment 2009. Mae'r rhaglen rhaid i'r rhaid i'r rhaglen y mynd i'r mewn ffordd a'u cymryd a'u cyfwyllfa mewn y bryd i'r rhaglen a'u cyd-dwyllfa ar y bryd, ac mae'n gwybod cymryd a'u cymryd a'u cefryd. The second reason we take their advice is, particularly, seriously, that it's hard to think of another body that has the same level of expertise contained within it. Ond mae'r UK wants to hear about the breadth and depth of expertise of the people within it, both at the secretariat and at the committee level. It covers various different climate science specialisms, behavioural science, economic, cognitive science, technology— I am certainly missing some, but I think you get my point. So, they really are the sort of ideal set of people to provide advice. However, there is nothing in the act that means that we can't look more widely and we certainly do consider information and analysis and opinions from a much broader range of people. The CCC themselves, in coming to their advice, one of the first things that they do is issue a call for evidence. To the best of my knowledge, that's entirely open. Any body within the UK, probably internationally, I guess, can contribute to that. That forms, so that contributes to the advice that they give. When we get the advice and when we got the advice on this occasion, we test it out with a few people, we do some internal analysis and some internal thinking and we then consult on the basis of that advice. Ministers were of the view that they did want to take one of the CCC's options, so we consulted on that, which of course provides an opportunity for a much broader range of people to put forward their views. We conducted some analysis ourselves. I mentioned both using times and looking into nationally various examples of good practice and interesting practice. So I think, if I'm answering your question, then yes, in conclusion, we do primarily rely on the advice from the CCC because we are required under the legislation and because they are excellent, but we are not closed to other sources of information. As we try to do an awful lot in the time that we've got, I don't want to go down that level too far, but I suspect that it will be quite useful if you give us a note of all the sources of scientific advice in particular that you've taken into account. I've got one other relatively small point in relation to the UK climate change committee's advice. The 90 per cent figure that they say is the outer edge of achievability. I understand includes a 100 per cent reduction of carbon dioxide emissions and I'd just like to get on the record that that is the case. That's very much the case, yes. Maybe just to take the opportunity and the light of that, I have already drafted an amendment to the bill which would put right at the front that the Scottish ministers must ensure that the net Scottish emissions of carbon dioxide for the year 2050 is at least 100 per cent lower than the baseline. The phrase at least 100 per cent is, of course, interesting because it could be more than 100 per cent and that option is left open. Mark Ruskell. The international scientific consensus on climate change is very much driven by the IPCC and they are scheduled to bring out a fresh report on the climate science in October. Now, there are some draft leak copies of this report that are appearing on the internet. I don't know if you've seen them at all, but what it does say in these leaks is that the world must move towards a net zero carbon target by 2050. I'm wondering on the back of that, if that is the conclusion of the IPCC, what kind of scientific advice and support will you be requesting from the UK climate change committee about how to deliver that? Okay, I am aware that the IPCC report has been leaked. I haven't studied it and we won't be looking at leaked copies in any depth. We'll wait until the final version is available, which I understand is going to be the 8th of October, but certainly early October, I think. The cabinet secretary wrote to the relevant UK minister, Claire Perry, requesting that the advice that the UK Government has indicated that they're going to be asking the CCCC for on the back of the IPCC report is commissioned jointly from the Scottish Government as well because clearly we're going to need much the same information. I understand that Claire Perry has responded to that letter agreeing that the UK Government and the Scottish Government should work together on that, but no further details are available on that just at the moment, so I'm really not able to tell you anything about exactly what that request for advice will cover and much less what the advice may be for coming from the Committee on Climate Change. There isn't really very far I can go in saying how that might play out. But time scales are obviously very important here in terms of this committee's consideration of the bill, so will that advice come back to this committee before consideration of stage 2 amendment? Because I'm not able to say anything about the time scales for that advice. I don't know either when the request will issue. Do you think it should? I don't think that that's for me to say. I think that that's a matter both for ministers and the committee and the Parliament. My understanding is that the decisions on the timescale for the stages of the bill now it's in Parliament is a matter for Parliament, so I'm not sure my opinion is of a great deal. If I could just come back to the IPCC advice then. There does seem to be a little bit of confusion within the policy memorandum for this bill because the target we're aiming for in order to prevent, you know, catastrophic loss of wildlife, prevent environmental refugees and save the economy. The target seems to vary between two degrees increase in global temperatures and 1.5 degrees and the references in the policy memorandum switch from one to the other. So which one is it? What are we aiming for here? Are we aiming for a world that's 1.5 degrees warmer or 2 degrees warmer? Because there is a big difference in terms of the impact on our economy, the impact on nature, the impact on the environmental systems that sustain us. Yeah, there certainly is a big, big difference. I think that the wording of the Paris agreement, and I'm hoping Tom will correct me if I get this wrong, is to aim for well below two degrees and to agree to efforts to... to near 1.5? Yeah, to pursue further efforts, limit it to 1.5 degrees. So why is there a reference to two, two temperature targets in your bill? Well, because the Paris agreement references two targets, it references trying to keep temperatures well below two degrees and to nearer 1.5 degrees. Right, so what is the target then? Is it well below? Is it 1.5? Is it 1.6? Is it is it 2 and then going back to 1.5? I'm not really clear what we're aiming for here. I'm not clear what... I think that... I don't think that we can be any more clear than what's given in the Paris agreement and the way that we... Are you wanting to come in, Tom? Tom would like to come in. So the... the kind of the defining central concept in the 2009 act is Scotland's fair contribution to avoiding dangerous climate change. It's put in those terms, it's not put in terms of two degrees, which would have been the concept that was predominant back in 2008, nor is it put in terms of 1.5 degrees. Now, I think one way that the Paris agreement can be understood is that that's kind of revised the interpretation of what dangerous climate change means. But the... yes, the... Neither the 2009 act nor the new bill has one of those temperature targets kind of placed numerically at its heart. What is at its heart is the idea of avoiding dangerous climate change. And the subject that we... the minister's requested advice from the UK Committee on Climate Change on was on appropriate targets to meet that... to meet that objective. In what the differences are between a world that's warming at two degrees and a world that's warming at 1.5 degrees in terms of impact on the environment, people, community, nations around the world? I think we are sufficiently clear on that, yes, and we do understand the need and the purpose of the Paris agreement being to limit temperature rise to well below two degrees. Right. Can I just add one for the thing? So, in the original advice on the target levels for the bill, the CCC set out the two options, I'm sure you'll recall, for the remaining at 80% for now, or going to a stretch target of 90%. And the... yeah, so the CCC's advice on those two options was that the 80% kind of remained in line with a two degree goal, but that the 90% will be more in line with the 1.5 degree goal. Okay. Obviously, IPCC report coming out in October might paint a very different picture about what is dangerous and what's not dangerous. It may do await the report. Okay. John Scott. Thank you, convener. Can I ask you to have a lot dating their targets without updating all their activities and duties in the 2009 act produced the best results? And why was increased target setting considered without also considering what will be required to meet the targets? Sorry, can I ask you to repeat that? How will updating the targets without updating all the activities and duties in the 2009 act produce the best results? Why was increased target setting considered without also considering what will be required to meet the targets? Gotcha, thank you. So the purpose of the bill, the scope of the bill is the decision for ministers, and it was very much made in light of the Paris agreement and ministers enthusiasm and commitment to be at the limits of ambition and to be keeping up-to-date, indeed at the forefront of the global response to climate change and the global response to Paris agreement. The sort of raisin nature of the bill is to increase the target levels. We have taken the opportunity as well to improve some elements of the current act, which have proven to be particularly problematic, namely the ETS adjustment, which we do every year and causes no end of confusion, not least amongst ourselves. So we are keen to remove the particularly problematic areas of the act, but otherwise there is a strong feeling that the act is working. The framework that we have in Scotland is achieving a great deal. Scotland is doing really very well in terms of reducing emissions. The proof is in the pudding that the act is really doing its job, so the aim is really just to increase the targets. Would your contention be that, in terms of the point that Mr Scott is making, it is the climate plan that provides the detail on how we achieve those targets? Yes, very much so. I was taking a bit too long getting to the point. Beyond having the knowledge and the assurance that the target levels are achievable at a push, a very substantial push, the details of how we achieve our targets need to be set up in climate change plans and will continue to be done so. That is where we will think about activities. In that instance, is there not a disconnect here? As you said earlier, in taking advice on setting the targets, primacy lies with the UKCCC, but the finalised draft plan was not run by the UKCCC and its advice sought on that. Do you not see a slight disconnect there? I am not sure that I do entirely. I take your point, but the 2009 act requires that the Scottish Ministers seek advice from the UKCCC on target levels and the appropriate target levels, and that the Ministers then make proposals on the target levels and those are agreed by Parliament. However, the way in which those targets are met, the policies and proposals that are put in place are done under a sort of section of the framework, which is slightly distinct in strategic climate change plans produced by the Government, scrutinised by the committee, revised accordingly. It is a slightly different process. The principle is the same. If the UKCCC is the adviser in one element of this, surely it would have been reasonable to run the final proposals. I realise that we have come past that point. On the one hand, I am saying that the UKCCC is terribly important, and on the other, a few months ago, it was not important enough to go back and run the final plan past. I do not think that I would agree that it was not important enough to run the plan past. It is more that we see their role slightly differently in having that overarching say on target levels and the appropriateness of target levels, but how those target levels are delivered and met is a matter for the Scottish Ministers. Mr Scott, I apologise. It will be important the practical aspect of that, because the goals achieved us far while good, some might argue, are the low-hanging fruit. Therefore, it is easy to declare ambitions, and we all have ambitions, of course, but the strategic delivery of those ambitions will be much welcomed if the Government gives advice on how that is best to be achieved, particularly to sectors that are most needed to, as it were, to get their house in order. Has there been any review and evaluation of how other parts of the 2009 act are working? Our focus has been on bringing forward a bill that raises the ambition of the targets to meet the Paris agreement and improving elements of the act that are evidently demonstrably not functioning. We have not looked to the full scope of the act because we consider that it is working well enough. In that case, you have obviously been reviewing the 2009 act and looking at the bits that do not work adequately. Thank you very much for that. If it is the Government's view that the best place to update policies and proposals is in the climate change plans, why did the most recent climate change plan not address issues such as specific policy proposals based on the first year of mandatory public sector reporting and the interaction with the land use strategy, as suggested in the committee's report on the draft plan? Public sector reporting and the land use strategy. With apologies, none of us were involved in depth in the development of the plan. It is my understanding that the land use strategy is incorporated into the plan, that the two are intertwined and that that is set out in the plan. I am not sure about the public sector reporting element or what the committee's recommendation was on that, I am afraid. We did lay in Parliament the report that is required under the act that sets out how all the recommendations from the committee were considered and responded to. That information is available and we will be able to find it and return to you with a fuller answer. Angus MacDonald Good morning, everyone. As we know, sections 1 to 4 allow for the creation of a net zero emissions target at a future date. We look forward to seeing the responses to the consultation over the summer on that. Also, sections 1 to 4 updates the 2009 act, 2050 target, from 80 per cent to 90 per cent. With regard to that, can you give the committee any international actions or examples of how the Paris agreement has been translated into domestic law? Can you also tell us how the Scottish Government has taken account of international best practice? Yes, I can endeavour to do that. We have looked at a fair amount of international examples of good practice. We have focused on countries, states and regions that we know to be leading and that we know to have particularly good practice. We have found the work to be horrendously complicated and difficult to draw comparisons between different countries, actions, commitments and legislations. Countries, states and regions differ in terms of starting points. Assets available to them as well as legislation and trying to understand our own legislation is testing. Trying to understand other countries' legislation is exceptionally testing. However, we have put a lot of time and effort into it and we have discussed that with officials in several other countries. We have also commissioned work through climate exchange at the Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Innovation to look at examples of best practice and to make those reports available to you. They are in the public domain but we can draw your attention to them specifically. What we concluded from that work is that the existing act, even more so with the provisions in the bill, is that Scotland, as far as we have been able to tell, will have the most stringent and tightly bound climate change emissions reduction legislation anywhere so far as we can tell. We are also ranking very highly in terms of progress. While other leading countries have slightly different approaches, ministers have taken the view that the approach that we have in Scotland is working for Scotland. There is some reluctance to make the changes in the legislation that would make our legislation more similar to other countries. For the simple reason that our legislation appears to be working for Scotland and is right for Scotland and is a result of the 2009 act that was agreed by the Parliament unanimously. On behaviour change, what is the difference in the actions and behaviour changes that are required to attain net zero emissions, a 90 per cent reduction and the current 80 per cent commitment? And what scale of behaviour change and technical advancement does each require and in which sectors? Crikey, that is really quite complicated. The work that we have done to explore the difference between an 80 per cent target and a 90 per cent target, I am very happy to set that out. I am not quite sure that it would answer your question at the level of detail that you are looking for. What we have not done and that we could not sensibly do out to 2050 is a detailed plan for exactly how we would manage the emissions reductions within and across sectors and the precise contents of policies and actions that the Government and other actors would need to put in place. What we do know about 90 per cent target is that there is no scope for underachievement anywhere. I think that that is the term that the Committee on Climate Change used. I would phrase that slightly differently and say that we need the maximum level of decarbonisation possible in every sector to achieve a 90 per cent target. The work to consider exactly what that means in terms of policies and actions and when something that we would need to consider in the production of climate change plans for the reasons previously covered. On that basis, I am not sure if me telling you about what we think the difference between 80 and 90 would be particularly helpful, but I can go on to that if you would like me to. I think that we would also be interested to understand if the decision that was reached in relation to the bill was in any way influenced by what we thought people would accept by way of behavioural change, what was achievable in reality with the public, which also feeds into the consideration of the legislation elsewhere, where perhaps the cultures of those countries make that legislation suitable for them, but perhaps not or deemed not to be suitable for here. Can you give us a wider view on how you arrived at this? I can try to. I think that that is a really interesting question. I will start by saying what the Committee on Climate Change set out in their advice, because in their central ambition scenario, which would meet an 80 per cent target, and the 90 per cent scenario, which is their high-ambition scenario, the main difference between those two scenarios are in the level of the carbon sink from Llu Llu CF, Land Use Change and Forestry, in making sure that I am reading this correctly in buildings and industry, and aviation and shipping, crucial as well. Under an 80 per cent scenario, there is a little bit of wriggle room around the other sectors. Under a 90 per cent scenario, there is basically no wriggle room anywhere, but there are some remaining emissions from aviation and shipping, including international, which is something that is included in our targets that are not included in other countries' targets. Also industry beyond emission reductions that can be achieved through efficiency. What was the other one? I said buildings, yes. We would need to completely decarbonise buildings rather than almost completely decarbonise all buildings. Those are really the differences. We considered that the way we could go further than that. There are three options for going further than that. One option is to purchase international credits to make up the difference of what could be achieved domestically and what cannot be done responsibly in the view of ministers. At this stage, hoping that technology will develop, particularly negative emissions technology will develop, at a pace and a rate and to a scale that experts tell us is not likely in the near future. The third way is to introduce policies and proposals to remove emissions from aviation, shipping and agriculture. I did not mention agriculture. Agriculture is crucial. Aviation, shipping, agriculture and industry completely. When you talk about behaviour change, I am not sure of the distinction between choices that individuals can make to change their own behaviour. Wholesale changes to the economy would require and impose changes on behaviour. However, I am answering your question if I say that there remains a view that it would not be acceptable to the majority to impose policies that restrict aviation, shipping and agriculture food production and industry at the levels that would be required for a net zero target at this time. I am going to allow some colleagues back in on this in a minute, but Angus Macdonald, do you have any further questions? No. Cori Abimus, followed by Mark Roskell. Thank you, Gavina. Good morning to you all. Could I ask you, whoever feels it's appropriate to answer a little bit more detail about the advances in technology? Sarah, you said that the second way in which it could be considered that we could go further with the targets would be to hope that technology will deliver further. I wonder if you could tell us something about who the experts were that have been consulted on this. Obviously, beyond 2040, it is very difficult to know what will be there. On the other hand, many stakeholders have said to me that it is important to be aspirational and determined to send a clear message to researchers and to investors and to the markets about where we are going. That, in my understanding of it, although I was not in the Parliament, unlike my colleague Stuart Stevenson at the time, that bill was quite aspirational about where we were going. Yes. So experts. Sorry, it's rather long-winded, but I'm trying to set a bit of a scene for things that people have been coming to me with concerns about why we're not going further. Okay. The reason why we're not going further, even though ministers and Scottish Governments are absolutely clear that we do wish to achieve net zero as soon as possible, is that to put a target into legislation just now requiring us to achieve net zero by a specific date could create difficulties if technology doesn't arrive at the pace or at the scale that's necessary to achieve that. It may do, and some people are very optimistic that that technology will come on stream very soon and be able to be rolled out on an industrial scale. However, others are substantially less optimistic, and it would be a bet, essentially, on whether the technology would be available at the scale needed. By setting out a clear ambition to achieve net zero in a similar manner to many other countries have done, i.e., with a political commitment rather than a legislative commitment, I think it could be argued that ministers are making that aspiration clear and sending that message to investors, to researchers, to those people who need to be encouraged or benefit from being encouraged to develop technology and the business case for the technology even further, but putting a target date in legislation that we absolutely have to meet regardless of whether that technology becomes available is a different kettle of fish altogether. In terms of the experts, that again was primarily the committee on climate change who do have the technology expertise, as well as all the other expertise, but also discussions with colleagues and stakeholders in other parts of the organisation who are involved in those kind of technological developments. I am not sure that I can answer the question right now, not least because I remember that we have some consultation responses about it, but what I cannot remember is whether those consultatees agreed to having their names made public in relation to what they said. I am being a little bit cagey about that just now, but I am really happy to come back to it later. Here is the thing, some people would see a contradiction around technology. I appreciate what you said about what you guys want to involve in the climate plan, but the original climate plan relied to a fair extent on a technology like carbon capture and storage, and we were told that it was a credible plan with that in it. Here we are in a situation where we are told that we cannot be more ambitious because we do not have the technologies. Do you see the contradiction that some people see there, an approach? Well, when you put it like that, yes. I think that if the cabinet secretary was here, she would comment that she was criticised quite a lot for making those comments and relying on so that you could turn the argument around the other way as well, which I won't do because I am not the cabinet secretary. I would say that it is about the scale and pace of technology, and it is one thing to expect and to rely on and to plan for a level of technological development. It is quite another to think that the scale of that could be vast enough, quick enough, to achieve a substantially more ambitious target. Okay, thank you. It is useful to get that on the record. You want to come back very briefly and in Mark Ruskell right after us? I will come out if Mark does not ask what I want to ask. I have no idea what he is going to ask, but just... Okay, we are all keen to get in on this. I just wanted to pick up on something that you said. You said that it was a bat on technology, but there are bats on the other side as well. If we do not meet climate change targets, if the science around climate change changes and it becomes a more worsening situation, we are taking a bet on the future there as well. I am just wondering how do we refocus on technological change? If you think back say 32 years ago, 1986, roughly the same kind of timescale that we are now asked to look forward to with 2050, we had no idea in 1986 that the internet was going to be a thing, and yet here we are today rolling out broadband strategies that the internet has completely transformed our world. So how do you learn from previous technological changes and the conditions and the kind of market conditions and the conditions around innovation and university innovation investment research? How do you create the conditions to give us the certainty going forward that we can make those technological changes? What does government need to do now, even though it does not have all the answers, to create the conditions where the answers can be brought forward? To be honest, back in 1986 we did not have a clue that we were going to be here. There were certainly technologists that were saying that we might be here, but the exact pathway to delivering the transformative change that the internet has given us today was not clear. Indeed, you are putting me in mind of Tomorrow's World, which I used to watch when you kind of see repeats of that. It is really quite remarkable what people thought might become standard technology hovercrafts, spring to mind. I really do not think that I can answer your question about the changing landscape. I agree with you completely that technology will develop and the world will change. Of course it will. The point is that we really do not know how and we really do not know when and we really do not know what the implications and the impact of that will be. Putting targets into legislation with all that unknow ability is very complex. Tom, do you want to come in on the border issue? Yes, I would be happy to. I cannot remember which of you it was to mention, but I think carbon capture and storage is a good example to think about in this space. Indeed, one thing that is clear from the CCC's advice on the bill targets is that it won't just be a question of carbon capture and storage. We have to even go beyond that and end up with this thing called bioenergy carbon capture and storage, where you use carbon capture and storage coupled with production of biomass to actually reach negative emissions. Regular carbon capture and storage gets you to reduce emissions, but to actually get to negative emissions you need to go even beyond that. There are two steps of technological uncertainty there that is getting to functional deployment of CCS and then there's getting to functional deployment of bioenergy CCS. The observation I was going to make on this is that, whilst Scotland can and does have research excellence in many of these areas, these are really big technologies that will only be effectively developed and deployed at multinational scale. On some level, they're simply beyond the scope of what a small country can unilaterally do. The costs involved in these technologies are very large. The research consortium are very large. It's an area where international partnership working for Scotland is really important, but where we are also to a certain extent simply limited by the pace of development internationally. The second thing I was just going to offer as an observation is, as I'm sure everybody here is well aware, one of the key features of the 2009 act that's being carried forward into the bill is the principle that we keep on getting updated advice on all of these matters and technology will be one of the key things where that updated advice will be most important along with the climate science that Mark Ruskell has spoken about earlier. The bill will require that the UK Committee on Climate Change provides updated advice on all of these matters at least every five years. Including on the target levels that then follow from these considerations. I think we're quite frank in acknowledging the validity of the point that technology is extremely uncertain. The examples that we've talked through illustrate that, but advice every five years seems about the right timescale to keep checking back in on those developments. If things happen even more rapidly than that five-year timescale, the act and the bill allow for the possibility that ministers can go back to the UK Committee on Climate Change even sooner and say, well, yes, we seem to have crossed some tipping point here around CCS or what have you, and can we have updated advice right now? I think Cole is going to come in with some supplementary here, slightly going off from Stuart Stevenson, called by Claudia Beamish. I think that this is almost certainly for Callum Webster, perhaps for Mark Egley, and it's in relation to an answer that Sarah Granger gave to my colleague John Scott. She said that the bill is about numbers and reporting and that it's working satisfactorily as the minister who took the previous bill now act through. I'm not so sure about that. I've just given an example, and that is Alex Johnson's amendment to allow discounts on business rates for premises that were upgraded and Sarah Boyack's amendment on domestic in the same way. I don't think that that worked terribly well. The question is, given that the act is labelled emissions reduction targets and sets, an act for setting targets and made provision about advice plans and reports in relation to those targets, is it amendable to allow it to amend those previous very worthy attempts that haven't delivered on what we hoped and other bits of it that would help us to put into primary legislation things that would be part of plans in relation to those targets? Is it amendable? That's came to my question. Those are matters ultimately for the Parliament to make a decision on, including the committee at stage 2 in terms of amendments. There has been exchanges in terms of consideration as to what the scope of the bill is, but, as I say, that's for Parliament. Ultimately, what the bill is doing is amending principally part 1 of the 2009 act, which is focused on targets. It is also amending some of the provisions relating to reporting, including the reporting in relation to the climate change plan. That's the focus. The focus is all around the targets. Those targets are obviously targets imposed on the Scottish ministers, so it's very much focused on that as well. What it's not doing at all is looking at any delivery measures or parts of the 2009 act that deal with how you implement and give effect to those targets. There are obviously a suite of existing powers in the 2009 act, and there are lots of other powers in other acts to enable provision to be made to deliver various targets. However, the principle here is that the climate change plans will set out what measures need to be taken and what proposals are being put forward for any additional measures that need to be taken forward. That can be looked at at that time to see whether the powers are already in place to do that or whether anything more is required. To close off very briefly, the Parliament would have the capability of allowing amendments, which would be debated, passed off, or failed, that changed some of the legislative… Some of the… The 2009 act creates certain powers, and we could amend that by this mechanism, subject to the convener and the Presiding Officer, allowing that to happen. It's a pure legal question, not one for a long answer. Yeah, it's not. We've expressed our view on the scope of the bill, and I understand that there are precedents for how that's handled within parliaments. It's not for me. We'll let the convener worry about that another date. Thank you, Mr Stevenson. Claudia Beamish. Right, thank you convener. I've got a question about something that isn't in the bill, which our committee has received submission on from the Just Transition Partnership, and which I've been in discussion with, with the STUC and others, and no doubt others around this table and beyond have as well. That is about the Just Transition Commission, and while I take the point that Mark Eggling… Sorry, I can't read the… Yeah, I've got it right. …has said about the targets. My clear understanding of this bill is that it's a governance bill as well, and I would like to know if there are reasons that can be explained today as to why that's not there, in that giving a legislative status to the Just Transition Commission in the view of many would, going right forward towards 2050 and beyond, would give a clear indication and reassurance to people in affected communities and in affected industries as to how the shift will be done, and that that will be done fairly and that it could be accountable to Parliament. So, the thinking about the scope, the remit and the form and function of the Just Transition Commission is very live conversation that's happening just now within Scottish Government, and that discussion will be opened up very, very shortly. The current thinking is that it may not be necessary for the Just Transition Commission to be established in statute for it to be able to provide the valuable advice to Scottish ministers about how to ensure a Just Transition to a low-carbon economy. However, the thinking hasn't stopped, it remains live and there will be more information in the near future. So, what's the reasoning? If you could tell us please as to why it is being considered as not necessary at the moment because it would seem clearly to a lot of organisations, trade unions and indeed companies that it would give clarity about arrangements for the future on a legislative basis. So, is there a reason why that would not be the case? So, the purpose of the Just Transition Commission, as was set out in the programme for government, is to provide advice to ministers to help them to devise policies and processes to ensure a Just Transition. It's not evident that a statutory basis is required for a commission to be established to provide valuable advice. Not required now, but possibly valuable. Amongst the main themes of the Scottish Government consultation were whether the bills should contain provisions to allow for a net zero emission target to be set a later date, to update the interim target for 2020 contained in the 2009 act from 42 per cent to 56 per cent lower than baseline levels, to add further interim targets 66 per cent from 2030 and 78 per cent by 2040, and to update the 2050 target from 80 per cent to 90 per cent lower than baseline levels. In your opinion, in light of that, in your opinion, what scenarios might change, require changes to the suggested interim targets and what are the practical implications? Tom? Yes, thank you for the question. If it's all right, I'll start off with a slightly process-based answer and then go on to some hypothetical scenarios. So, as you say, the bill allows for the interim and indeed for the 2050 target level to be modified through affirmative procedure, secondary legislation. Now, the process element of my answer is before that might happen, a couple of things have to happen first. So, first of all, the UK Committee on Climate Change has to provide advice on those target levels, and in providing that advice, I think this has been touched on previously, it provides that advice with reference to a defined set of what-a-term target setting criteria. It's quite a long list, so I'm not going to try and recount it from memory, but that includes factors such as the concept of a fair and safe total emissions budget over the period 2050, the best available climate science that we've spoken about previously, technological circumstances, economic and fiscal circumstances here in Scotland, impacts on rural and island communities, to name but a few of the listers, as I say, quite lengthy. So, the UK Committee on Climate Change provides regular advice on target levels with reference to those criteria. The Scottish ministers are then required to have due regard both to the committee's advice, but also to their own assessment against that same list of criteria. And if ministers view upon reflecting on both those things is that they think that interim or 2050 targets should be modified, either upwards or downwards, they can propose to the parliament that that should occur, and then the final decision will be a matter for the parliament to take. So, apologies for the slightly long preamble, but I hope this is helpful in kind of then getting into what circumstances, what scenarios might lead to modification actually happening, and I think in a sense, I hope that that groundwork kind of points us back to the set of target setting criteria, in that if circumstances either internationally or here in Scotland change with respect to those criteria, then that would be the likely basis upon which a change to the targets could be made. These are necessarily entirely hypothetical examples in that I'm foreguessing the future and the advice of the Committee on Climate Change and the Will of Ministers, all of which I shouldn't be foreguessing. But to give two kind of potential scenarios, one of which is Mark Ruskell has spoken about the forthcoming scientific report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that will inevitably update the best understanding of the available climate science. That's one of the target setting criteria. If that substantially changes the UK Committee on Climate Change's view as to what Scotland's goal should be, they would presumably provide advice to that effect. A second example, which I perhaps will try and explore in a little bit more detail, is the question of how we measure the greenhouse gas emissions that Scotland is actually producing at any given point in time. This is what's often referred to as the greenhouse gas inventory. It's referred to in the bill as international carbon reporting practice, and it's also one of the target setting criteria. As members will recall, this is something that's changing all the time. When that changes, that can change the effective level of ambition needed to deliver a given target level. One can imagine future scenarios whereby if that measurement science changes very radically and we suddenly find out that Scotland's always been emitting either much greater or much lower levels of emissions than we previously understood, this might form the basis for the UK Committee on Climate Change providing advice that the target level should be modified to keep them in line with the decarbonisation pathway. Sounds to me as we're going to be changing our target levels of our targets every so often. It's a question that I've got to ask. Why is the ability to lower as well as raise targets critical to the operation of the target framework proposed by the community on climate change? Are we not just playing with figures to satisfy political parties and outside organisations? I hope you'll appreciate it. I'm going to struggle to answer the second part of that question. I genuinely don't think it's the case that we are playing with figures for the sake of playing with figures, much as we as officials might enjoy doing that. That's not what's at stake here. They are figures, but they're figures with very real practical implications on the ground in that the targets are the basis upon which the climate change plans are produced. Climate change plans must set out to meet those targets, and the plans contain a whole range of very practical, underground measures that affect everybody's day-to-day lives. Going back to the first part of your question, why is the ability to modify targets downwards as well as upwards essential to the CCC's advice? This relates directly to the second of the two examples I tried to give previously, which relates to this question of the measurement science about how we measure emissions is changing all the time, and the experience we've had with the 2009 act is that that can change in either direction. We can either find out that we've always had a lot more emissions than we thought, or that we have a lot less emissions than we previously thought. It's broadly speaking unpredictable on a year-to-year basis which way those changes will go. Those changes are almost entirely outside the hands of the Scottish Government. The decisions are made at a UK level in line with UN guidelines. These are things that in crude terms happen to us and we have to respond to. Modifying target levels in response to this is very much a last resort. We definitely wouldn't want to be modifying target levels too often. Clearly, an important part of the function of targets is to find a long-term signalling function, and if you keep on adjusting them, it undermines that function. But if really big changes to our best understanding of the current emissions levels keep on occurring, then it may be necessary at some future point to adjust. Because those measurement changes can go in either direction, it's a totally policy kind of neutral thing at this level. It's purely kind of technocratic if you will. That is why the CCC advises that it's important to have the flexibility to go in both ways with the targets. To what extent regulatory alignment with the European Union is important here? As you know, there are growing calls for a net zero carbon target in the EU. In fact, the European Parliament's lead negotiator on energy recently said that countries that resist the EU-wide proposal on net zero carbon by 2050 will be in the same camp as Mr Trump. It's clearly a political drive from the Parliament and the Commission's looking at net zero carbon. That's where we may end up. Where does that place, Scotland, with our policy of regulatory alignment? Partly because of the reasons that Tom was explaining earlier about the need for multi-national action and development of technologies. It's incredibly important what's happening in other countries about how achievable and how sensible it is for Scotland to have one target or another. The other reason that it's particularly important is around the risk of carbon leakage. I'm sure that you're all aware, but just to save anyone the embarrassment of having to ask, because I didn't know for quite a long time, carbon leakage is when businesses relocate to other countries with lesser, more lax regulations or lower targets. If one country has a substantially higher target, tougher regulations than surrounding countries, that can have quite a negative economic impact and affect the availability of jobs and so on and so forth. It can also result in products being imported rather than manufactured within the country. For all of those reasons, what's happening in the rest of Europe, the rest of the UK and the rest of the world is extremely important and is an important consideration to what target levels in Scotland should be. Just to confirm again that the plans that we have encompassed in the bill represent a net zero carbon target for 2050, and that the 10 per cent difference between 90 per cent and 100 per cent relate entirely to the five gases other than carbon, of which the predominant one would be methane. It's quite important to get that on the record, because there is a misunderstanding about that out there. There is a misunderstanding about that out there. I really appreciate you raising it. My understanding of the conversation in Europe is that there is not yet an agreed definition of what's being talked about when net zero is being talked about. When carbon neutrality is talked about across different countries, it seems to mean very different things. With some people meaning it means net zero CO2 and others thinking it means net zero greenhouse gases. You're absolutely right. It's very important. Thank you. Credibility and trust in what's out there is really important. To which end, how will changing to percentage targets deliver better scrutiny and improve performance? It's another one of Tom's favourite subjects. This is one of the key technical improvements going on in the bill. Again, if I can beg at the committee's patience or by the tiny bit of background on how we've got to this point, do you think it helps? I hope I hope so. Under the 2009 Act, emissions reduction targets are set in two different forms. There's the 2020 target and the 2050 target, which is set as percentage reductions from baselines, 42 per cent and 80 per cent respectively. There's then the annual targets that basically fill in all the gaps between those years, and those are set as fixed amounts of emissions, so megatons of carbon dioxide equivalent to the third decimal place. Now, there are definitely pros and cons that come with both percentage-based targets and fixed amount of emissions-based targets. I think it's fair to say that one difficulty that wasn't foreseen at the time of the 2009 Act is the potential that if you have the targets in the two different forms that they can end up getting out of skew with each other. The thing which drives them in becoming out of skew with each other are these changes to the measurement science, changes to the greenhouse gas inventory. Those changes affect the achievability of both types of targets, but it affects them in a different way. In general, the fixed amount targets are much more sensitive to those changes than the percentage-based targets. One consequence of having two different types of targets is that they've got misaligned with one another, and this leads to some really, both for us and I suspect for stakeholders, some real difficulties. At the moment, the clearest example of this is actually two different targets for 2020 at different levels. It's quite conceivable that Scotland could end up meeting one and missing one, and that would clearly be very, very hard to explain and quite counterproductive to credibility, which we would very much agree is absolutely central here. That's quite a long-winded way of saying that one of the key reasons for shifting to percentage-based targets is to get all the targets in the same form. We think that's really important. The question could be asked why percentages, why not put everything into fixed amounts? That would equally well address the point that I've just talked through. Why percentages? I think there's three main reasons why percentages are in fixed amounts. As I said, there are some pros and cons the other way as well. If you're interested, we can go into those in more detail. The three main arguments in favour of percentages is, in general, these are more stable to the changes in the measurement science because most of those changes affect not just current emissions but emissions all the way back to the baseline. If what you're doing is taking a relative difference from the baseline to the present day, some of those changes cancel out within the targets, so they tend to be more stable to the changing measurement science. The second reason is I think for most of us we find them to be more transparent. I think this is ultimately a subjective judgment. Some people prefer to think in terms of fixed amounts of emissions. They find that more intuitive. Other people find percentages more intuitive. The vast majority of the respondents to the consultation on this favoured the percentage target option. Certainly I find 80% or 90% easier to relate to than 52.392 megatons of carbon dioxide equivalent, but that is ultimately a subjective judgment. The third reason is that this is the approach that the UK Committee on Climate Change advised that government take. Their view is that the percentage-based targets are more transparent and more stable. It was terribly useful to get that on the record and thank you for that. Another layman's question, if you like, is, as I understand it, that using percentages we would have had to have removed an additional four megatons of greenhouse gases by 2020. So are we going to do that? Not entirely, but apologies, not entirely sure I followed the question. So is this the difference between the annual and interim targets for 2020? As I understand it, on the original baseline we would have had to remove 40.717 megatons, that would have been 42%. Now we know we would have had to remove 44.713 megatons, so daffladi question, are we going to do that? Yes, we absolutely are, is the daffladi answer. So the climate change plans are required to meet both the annual targets and the interim and 2050 targets. The effect of the misalignment between the two sets of targets that we have to date is that the annual targets are the harder of the two. So the extra four megatons, as you nicely put it, falls between the annual target for 2020, which is harder, and the interim target for 2020, which is now relatively speaking a bit easier. So the current climate change plan, and indeed the previous ones, have always set out to meet the tougher of the sets of targets available to them, and by necessity, by doing that, you will also meet and exceed the 42% targets. That's a large demanded improvement in performance, it's about 10%. Absolutely right, yes. What does that look like? Give me an example of a sector, for example, that the challenge could be illustrated by. So if memory serves correctly, four megatons is kind of of the order of emissions from the building sector per annum, of course, so that four is kind of the additional four megatons, that's kind of over a period of time, and I guess the way that I'm thinking in my head now is the per annum emissions, but you're absolutely right, it's a large amount of emissions, and that's reflected within the package of policies and proposals in the current and previous climate change plans. One thing which the plans don't do is they don't attempt to kind of separate out those policies and proposals to say, well, these policies are for this target and these policies are for this target, so I'm afraid that means I'm a bit limited in being able to give you a nice package answer. Is the building sector or other sectors aware of this 10% increase in target, just like that, simply by changing the unit of recognition? As I've said, this is something that we've really struggled with. It's been one of the hardest features of the 2009 act to live with in some ways. I'm sure you can well imagine the challenges it gives us in speaking both to our colleagues within government and to stakeholders outside of government trying to explain why. It's not quite as bad as they suddenly have to do it because the inventory revisions have been building up over a period of time, but it comes back to why we think it's so important to try and effectively fix this element of the act going forward so that there's a really clear basis all the targets in the same form, so the level of effort that's required from both other parts of government and outside of government is well understood and is stable through time. That's got to be the right way to approach policy planning. As Sarah says, I'm perhaps being a bit too bullish in my assessment of how effective this change will be in that what the CCC have proposed and what the bill enacts is that the inventory is basically fixed for a five-year period of up to five years, so these challenges will still arise and our successors will be back speaking to your successors about this in the future, I'm afraid, but that will happen not every year, but every five years, and that gives us a bit of chance, especially for the external actors who do find this very opaque, I think it's fair to say, to have a bit of stability before it comes round again. Forgive me, but just to be absolutely clear, so industry and the business sector is absolutely aware of this as it were creeping increase in target. For me it was news when I read these papers, but I presume others are much better informed than me, so that certainly wouldn't be hard, but it just seems to me like this is a, by changing a unit you've increased the target by 10 per cent and that seems an odd way of doing business. I obviously can't speak to what, you know, a whole bunch of external organisations do and don't. So you're not aware that they understand this or not? Well, so a whole, a very wide range of stakeholders are involved in the kind of the production and consultation around climate change plans and the climate change plan documents do to my mind set out clearly these kind of these technical changes that have happened and as I said a few moments ago the plans ultimately have to set out to meet the more ambitious sort of two sets of targets, so that carries with it that, is it well understood? I don't know, I guess, is the answer. I suppose my answer is I'm not reassured that people are aware of this change. I presume that the way you would accept that this is a perfect example of why all sectors need to carry the load, so that when significant changes like these occur it isn't just one or two sectors that are left to deal with that. So we know that this committee has highlighted one or two sectors across society that aren't being asked to do a great deal. When you see changes like these it does really bring home the need for everyone to be playing their part. I would certainly agree that a cross-sectoral approach is necessary to tackle the ambitious targets that we have and the even more ambitious targets that we're going to have. If what you're implying and I may be understanding you wrong is that all sectors should have the same percentage target, if you like, I'm not sure that we would agree with that. At that level of detail it makes quite a lot of sense from my perspective and from minister's perspective to be able to look across sectors and to see at different points in time what's reasonable to expect different sectors to do, given changes in technology and emerging technology and what have you. I wasn't referring to exactly the same percentage from all sectors, but perhaps some sectors are doing more than they currently are. Let's move this on. We've heard about how the Scottish Government have taken advice particularly when it comes to percentages in terms of future targets. The advice must take into account target setting criteria. How the target setting criteria were chosen and why they don't align more closely with the climate change plan sexual approach? The target setting criteria are given in the existing act. I wasn't around in 2008 so I wasn't personally involved, but it's my understanding that a set of criteria were consulted on in 2008. I can't tell you how they were arrived at in the first place in order to consult on them, but I know that a set of criteria were consulted on, that they were reconsidered in light of that consultation exercise, and then they were set out in the bill in 2008 and amended by Parliament and ended up as they are in the 2009 act. We're carrying it forward in the bill. The only thing that we really looked at in the consultation that we ran last year for the current bill was the objective of not exceeding the fair and safe Scottish emissions budgets. Our thinking internally was that that criterion was no longer particularly necessary in the form that it was in because of the move to percentage-based targets. To be very clear on that point, there was never any suggestion that we should move away of the importance of a concept of a fair and safe Scottish emissions budget that remained absolutely central. However, we didn't think that the criteria in that form were necessary anymore. However, consultation responses were quite clear. Environmental stakeholder groups were really clear that they did not want to lose that criterion in that form. They consider it very important. The bill that we have introduced now makes no change to that. It moves a couple of things around. I can go into some detail into the minor changes that we have made to the wording of some of the criterion, but the answer to your question is that they come from the 2009 act. I will follow on from that. Throughout the bill, there is a term or a phrase as soon as it is reasonably practical. The Scottish Government's proposal to find achievable in relation to net target. Can you give us some idea of what reasonably practical means in practice? I can answer the question about achievable. I will pass over to my colleague to talk about as soon as it is reasonably practical. In terms of achievable, that is something that we would look to the UK Committee on climate change to advisers on. The current advice that we are basing the bill on has been clear and explicit that going beyond 90 per cent is not feasible. It stretches the bounds of credibility, so we interpret that as it is not achievable. That is what we mean by achievable in terms of as soon as it is reasonably practical. Calum, can you? Yes, I do not think that it has a formal definition of what it must be done by this time. That part of the function of it is that it needs to relate to the context that it is being applied in. It is a term that is used quite extensively in the act and I think across the range of Scottish Government legislation. I am looking at Mark to confirm that. What do you take into consideration? When you consider what is reasonable, what do you consider? It depends on the issues that are being applied. If there is a requirement in the act and it is being taken forward into the bill that we have to publish advice from the CCC as soon as it is reasonably practical, it would be reasonable to think that we could do on the day that we receive it. That is what has happened in the past. If you consider some of the other requirements such as the need to respond to the CCC's annual progress report, that requires some judgment to be applied, some information to be gathered and it would be reasonable to expect that that would be done over a longer time period. I think that that has been something that maybe has been weeks rather than days that has been taken to respond to things like that. My answer is that it depends on the nature of the task in hand. Can I just issue a plea to members and the witnesses to consider short, sharp questions and answers wherever possible so that we can cover as much ground as we can today? Claudia Beamisham. Can I follow up on my colleague Finlay Carson's question about as soon as it is reasonably practicable and ask, does the information and advice that you have referred to from the UK CCC have to be made through a statement to Parliament as the act stands at the moment or can it simply be put on the internet or published in some way? As we move forward with the five-year commitment. The first minute in the bill is to publish the advice. There are no other requirements attached to that. I believe that that is the same requirement as under the act. I am just briefly going back to the target setting criteria and again building on the question by my colleague. It is interesting that I see in the act itself that the target setting criteria under section 5 is that there are 11 of those. One of them refers specifically to energy and while I ignore that some I and E refers to economic circumstances. Within the economic circumstances it refers to more broadly to business but why is energy particularly picked rather than agriculture or transport or whatever? It seems a bit of a sort of, not arbitrary, because energy is very important, not that word, but it seems strange. How are these criteria decided? You said that they were based on the 2009 act, but my understanding is that there are less of them in the 2009 act. The criteria about energy policy is unchanged from the 2009 act, so that is where it came from. Whether it was something that the Government conceived of and consulted on or whether it was added by amendment during the parliamentary process, I cannot tell you. We can endeavour to find out. The thing that has been added to the criteria in the bill is a criteria to consider current international carbon reporting practice. That is in relation to changing to the accounting methodology that Thomas explained. That is the only substantive change that is the addition. Were other heavy emitters such as agriculture and transport considered in view of the fact that following on from the 2009 act that energy was considered? If not, what reason? Why have they been ruled out? We did not look to change the criteria substantially. We accepted the criteria from the 2009 act and Millie made some very minor changes in light of changes to the accounting framework. Also, in response to stakeholders' concerns that the Paris agreement has a more explicit recognition, however we did not conduct a full review of the rest of the criteria. We accepted that as read from the 2009 act. That does not send a message in your view if you are able to give a view that some sectors are more important than others in terms of heavy emitters. That is certainly not the intended message. I completely appreciate that. That is not what I am implying at all. Mark Eaglin, I just wondered whether, in relation to energy, we virtually know legislative competence and we have administrative devolution of sections 36 and 37 of the 1989 act. Therefore, we need to be quite cautious about how we legislate in relation to energy. Is that a fair characterisation of the situation? Yes, there are a number of reservations in relation to energy matters, but there are areas of devolve competence in this area, including promotion of energy efficiency and the like. There are things that can be done within devolve competence in this area, and those are the sort of things that, when necessary, they will be picked up in a climate change plan. John Scott, thank you so much. Can I take you now to emissions accounting, please, and ask you for a clear explanation of how emissions accounting is being amended and how the proposed 20 per cent limit is calculated briefly? Yes, I may struggle against the brief steer here. So, very briefly, by way of background, under the 2009 act, emissions accounting establishes primarily two mechanisms by which what are termed carbon units. Begging your patience, carbon units are internationally recognised carbon credits, which can be bought or sold effectively, and what they represent is a degree of recognised confidence that some action will be undertaken somewhere to reduce emissions by a specified amount. So, the 2009 act provides for two mechanisms by which carbon units can be used to contribute towards meeting the targets for Scotland. The two ways are an adjustment to reflect the operation of the EU emissions trading scheme in Scotland. That's something that happens automatically every year within the current carbon accounting, so the EU ETS operates within Scotland. Companies are the actors within that. They report their emissions and, if necessary, buy permits within the EU emissions trading scheme. Then, at the end of each year, an adjustment is applied to Scottish emissions to reflect the operation of that scheme. The second mechanism is actually more intuitively clear, and that's the possibility that Scottish ministers may purchase international carbon units as a way of offsetting Scotland's total emissions. That mechanism is subject to two limits under the 2009 act. Firstly, the domestic effort target, which in effect means that no more than 20 per cent of the year-on-year reduction in emissions can be met through the purchase of credits by ministers. Secondly, ministers must recurrently set absolute limits on the maximum amount that they could use purchase units for a period in advance that rolls forward by five years each time. It's one of the many five-yearly things in the tells now. The bill changes carbon accounting in two main ways. Both of these changes are intended to improve transparency and simplicity, and it affects both of the existing mechanisms. Firstly, the adjustment that reflects the operation of the EU ETS is removed. That means that going forwards, that adjustment won't be applied emissions will be reported on the basis of actual Scottish emissions from all sectors of the economy. The second change is that whilst the option for ministers to use credits that they've purchased is retained, a new default limit of zero use of such credits is established. This effectively provides a stricter limit than the existing ones. What this reflects is the clear commitment of this Government to not use purchased credits as a way of meeting targets. That commitment was set out in the recent climate change plan out to at least 2032. The bill establishes a statutory limit of zero by default. A power does exist that limit can be raised from the zero limit. If future ministers were to wish to do that and Parliament were to wish to agree through secondary procedure legislation, this takes us on to the final part of your question, which is the 20 per cent limit. If the limit on the purchase of carbon units were to be raised from zero, it can only be raised up to this figure of 20 per cent of the year-on-year reduction. The way that that will be calculated is that under the bill arrangements, all of the annual targets for all future years are known, so that allows you to work out the year-on-year reduction in emissions that will be required for every single future year, and then you simply take that difference and multiply it by 20 per cent to say what is the absolute maximum amount of credits that could be used in that given future year. Why 20 per cent? Rather than say 30 per cent or 10 per cent, 20 per cent is the level of the current domestic effort target under the 2009 act. This new limit provision of a default of zero but up to 20 per cent. If that is desired in the future, this effectively replaces the domestic effort target from the 2009 act. It means that the domestic effort target as now stands could not be missed in the future because the absolute most that could ever be done would be the 20 per cent. That is why, by way of rationalisation, the domestic effort target itself has been removed through the bill. Just briefly, what circumstances might this power be used when you move when you do not revert to default position? That is a very interesting question. As I have said, this Government's view is that it does not intend to use credits. In its advice on the bill, the UK Committee on Climate Change clearly advised that some limited flexibility to use credits be retained and that the specific scenario that they explored is the possibility of unforeseen changes in economic output year to year and then a need to counterbalance the industries coming from especially the industrial sectors as that economic output changes. More widely, as with a lot of things in the act and the bill, we are looking a very long way into the future and there is a huge amount of very broad uncertainty around international carbon trading, what will happen around international coordination of these efforts and it seemed prudent to retain some capability to come back to this without needing further primary legislation to do so, but the balance that has been struck is setting out very clearly a very simple principle for the foreseeable future, which is no use of carbon units in any form. In your view, will those inventory revisions make targets easier or harder to meet and will the proposed changes help to ensure greater objectivity, consistency and transparency? Sorry, can I take that, Tom? Not using international carbon credits makes the targets harder to use and we haven't used international credits within Scotland previously so that's not a comparison to the past within Scotland, it's a comparison to a hypothetical possibility, potentially a comparison to other countries that do use credits. All the effort having to be domestic is substantially tougher than it not having to be domestic. I'm just saying, will it help objectivity and transparency? Will it become more clear to us all that this is a better way of doing things? Yes, by having a default scenario that zero credits are used, that's much easier to explain than every few years we'll consider whether we use credits or not. Thank you, convener. By virtue of sections 16, 17 and 18, the bill rationalises annual report produced by under section 33 and 34 of the 2009 act. Can you tell the committee in what ways section 33 and 34 of the 2009 act have been rationalised? What has been removed? What has been changed? And for what reason has this been done? That's a very big question to be brief on. Can you be brief, Callum? I can try to be brief, yes. If you just bear with me, I'll find the relevant sections of the act. The rationale for making changes here has come around through stakeholder requests to alter the way that we've reported on the emissions in the past. At the moment, there's been a convention that the cabinet secretary has made a statement in June following the publication of the greenhouse gas emissions statistics. That's not a statutory requirement, but there is a requirement in the act that a statement is made by the end of October. There's a lot of crossover between the content of the June statement that follows the statistics and the statutory statement that's required in October under the act. That was raised at conveners group in October last year, a proposal from WWF, that the contents and the requirements for the October statement were moved wholesale to be applied following the publication of the statistics in June, and it would be a statutory reporting statement. Following that, later in the year, there would be reports more detail on progress that would be made in sectors later on. The changes to section 33 and 34 have been done to allow that to happen. They're broadly similar in terms of what they do, but there are a couple of removals of elements that were contained in the reports in the act. The first one that I'll go into is the requirement to report against electricity-related measures in section 34. By removing that, we're able to make the statement and produce the report earlier than we would have been otherwise. We discussed that approach with our technical discussion group that we set up to look at some of the technical elements of the bill. They were content with that proposal because those issues were reported on under the energy statistics, and they'll be reported under the energy strategy as well on an annual basis. It's not that they're being lost, they'll still be reported, they'll just be reported in another form. Tom's just talked about the removal of the domestic effort target and the reasoning behind that. That's also come out of the requirements to be reported on under section 33, although we've retained a requirement in the bill to report on the percentage of year-on-year reductions that are related to domestic effort should a future Government choose to move away from the default position that's being established under the act. There have been some other minor changes to the criteria to reflect the fact that we've moved from fixed amounts to percentage reductions under the new proposals in the bill. I have a personal interest in having raised the issue at the convener's group. I think that it's a terribly important matter. To be clear, is where we're going to end up courtesy of this bill in a situation where potentially different ministers will give statements indicating performance in their portfolios? One of the WWF proposed that, in the space created in October by the June statement being made statutory, it suggested that in that space each relevant minister or cabinet secretary make a statement to the full Parliament about progress in their area. We discussed that and considered that and thought that it would be quite unwieldy. I had several discussions with WWF myself about a potential different form whereby reports are required to be laid in Parliament on progress in each sector. However, not necessarily a statement by Scottish ministers. Of course, in legislation, you cannot put any requirement on any particular cabinet secretary or minister. The requirement has to be on Scottish ministers and then it's up to the First Minister how that gets divvied up, if you like. We weren't able to specify that the reports have to come from different cabinet secretaries or have to be spoken to by different cabinet secretaries, but they have to reflect different chapters in the climate change plan. There will be a suite of reports that are laid in Parliament and then it will be for Parliament and parliamentary committees to consider how you want to make use of that and whether you want to call different people to discuss that with. However, there is no requirement for actual statements to be made. There is no requirement for actual statements to be made. That is correct. That's interesting. Thank you for that. Can we just move on? In terms of recommendations that came from Parliament about process, there was considerable discussion around the period in which parliamentary committees have to consider draft plans. The unanimity around the fact that 60 days was completely inadequate. If I recall correctly, there was some degree of discussion around what a better arrangement might look like. I think that it was a talk of 120 days, no limit, et cetera. We appear to have reached a point where what's in the bill is that the period would be extended to 90 days of which 60 days would cover the period when Parliament was sitting. Can you explain to me the rationale behind that position that's been arrived at? Calum Campbell. Under the act, the trigger for climate change plans is the making of an order to set an annual target. That must be done at least every five years. At the moment, the bill proposals do not require the setting of annual targets in the same way because Tom has spoken about their calculated mechanistically in relation to the interim of the 2050 target. That trigger will be lost, but it will be replaced with the requirement to lay a climate change plan at least every five years. On that basis, we looked at the responses to the consultation that we'd specifically asked questions on what the consideration period would look like. We took into account the views of the committees when we were discussing this with the technical discussion group again. The position that we'd came to for the bill is that to ensure that the Scottish ministers could meet that requirement in the bill to lay a plan within five years, there should be a defined period for the committee and the Parliament to look against the plan. If that wasn't there, it might not be possible for Scottish ministers to meet the requirement in the bill to lay the plan within the five-year period. We got to the minister's view that the extension of the current time period that Parliament's got to consider plans from the 60 days to the 90 days, including the 60 sitting days is a good balance between the current arrangements and the calls for the consideration period to be open-ended. I suppose that the only thing to say there is that if we have recessed periods in there, we could actually lose quite a lot of time and momentum around the scrutiny process. The other side is that, as I read this, there is no time limit for the Government to produce its plan or to lay its draft plan or, indeed, to finalise its draft plan. I recognise in the last instance that we did ask the Government to take its time to finalise its draft plan, so I am not being hypocritical there. I just want to be clear on the position. There is a time limit on when the final draft plan has to be laid. It has to be within five years of the previous draft plan, so there is a defined period in which it has to be done. There is no requirement on when we get started. It strikes me that 90 days is an improvement. I am not convinced that where we have got to within that is exactly the best place. Just confirmation and section 35b on page 17 at 3, in relation to the report on the plan, it has to be laid by 31 October, so presumably that interacts with laying the plan itself. I am on page 17, if that is helpful. Section 35b 3, line 18. I am just making the point. Scottish ministers must need to relevantly lay before Parliament a report on each substantive of the most recent climate change plan. The plan that has been consulted by two varying lengths of time when the Parliament is sitting. Nonetheless, to some extent, that need to report on 3 October. How does that interact with the 60 a bleak 90 days? I think that I understand your question. I may not understand your question. I am merely asking how they interact. The 35b refers to what we just spoke about, the progress reports against the plan. By 31 October, relevant Scottish ministers will be required to report on progress to Parliament against the plan that is the plan at that time. If there is a plan in prep, that would not be the one that would be reported against. I do forgive me. There is no legislative interaction between the two. That is correct. The 35b refers to what deals with the plan, whatever one has to be prevailing, but in practical terms, is it in the minds of ministers that the 31 October and the laying of a draft plan do interact in some way? If that is in the ministers' minds, would it be appropriate for us to consider whether the bill as drafted should be tidied up to make it clearer what that interaction is? I cannot comment on what is in the ministers' minds. I can confirm that that has not been in our minds as officials. It is not a conversation that we have had. That is fine. We will move on. Let us wrap this up by looking at the finances in relation to that. The financial memorandum states that moving from an 80 per cent to 90 per cent greenhouse gas reduction target would have an estimated result on an annual system cost of approximately £13 billion over the period from 2030 to 2050. There are other accompanying figures. What I would like to understand from your day is how robust the methodology is for calculating indirect costs, and what is the margin for error within that, sorry? It is not an exact science. You cannot tell that. There is a great deal of uncertainty around the cost estimates given. They are really given as a best indication, rather than anything more. I think that the only thing that can be absolutely certain of is that they will be wrong, but it really could not tell you in which direction or to... How good a guess is it? How good a guess is it is not something that I can answer. We have not calculated. The costs given under the time modelling section are evidently from times. To the best of my knowledge, analysts have not attempted to calculate confidence intervals around that. I do not know if it would be possible or a sensible thing to do, but I am happy to take that away and look into it. In the absence of such detail, it looks like a figure plucked out of a thin air. I know that it is not. Is some of that detail available publicly? Can we see it? I am not sure that I understand. We have a figure of £13 billion, which is an estimated system cost over a 20-year period. What we are looking for is an understanding of how accurate that may be, how it was arrived at and what confidence we can have in it. Can we say that the workings, as Mr Scott has whispered in my ear? Potentially, we could show you the workings of times, but you might really be very sorry that you asked. Let us break this down in another way. Presumably, we have an understanding of what were the things that were added together to get to £13 billion. What does that look like on a sectoral basis? We definitely cannot answer the question about what it looks like on a sectoral basis. My understanding of times is limited, but what I do know is that it does not allocate costs. It only gives the overall system cost. Any ideas about where those costs will likely fall depend on decisions taken by ministers in climate change plans. I am getting inundated with colleagues to ask a question, and a little wonder. I take away from this that you need to come back to the committee with as much detail as can be provided on this, because at the moment it looks pretty ropey, to be honest. Mark Ruskell first, then John Scott. I find that answer quite staggering. Why produce a figure at all if you cannot justify it? I am interested in knowing what all the assumptions are behind that figure. For example, in terms of technology, does times assume that £13 billion requires a degree of technology reinvestment as technology comes to an end and new technology is then invested in new capital plant or whatever? We need to understand whether those are additional costs to tackling climate change or whether those are actually costs that are inherent in moving an energy system towards 2050. The energy plant that we would have had in 1986 at Longannet, for example, gets shut. That is a system cost. Would times see that as a massive cost to the economy? I have clearly done an exceptionally bad job in explaining whether numbers come from. It is true that they are indications. We need to understand exactly what the basis is before a figure like that is thrown up as being the cost. I can do a little bit better here verbally just now. The way in which we came up with that £13 billion cost was to run times under the assumptions of the climate change plan to run that to 2050 for the 80 per cent target for 2050. We then ran it again, the same but for a 90 per cent target, and took the system costs from both, subtracted one from the other. The difference there is £13 billion. That is above and beyond the costs that would happen anyway through society continuing to function. Is the additional cost of moving from an 80 per cent to a 90 per cent target? Does it rely on purchasing credits? No. Can I ask you as well, did M.D look at the figures about what it would cost if we did not do it? Yes, that is the cost of the climate change plan. We gave you that in the letter. So, if we did not increase the target, we kept the target to 80 per cent. It is in the letter that we sent you all to try and find it. The £13 billion is an additional and the 80 per cent... Thank you very much. Callum is 2.2 per cent of GDP. We need to come back to you on that. To have the overall picture here, yes, there may be an additional cost of some amount, but there is going to be an additional cost to the economy if we do not do this. Oh, I understand what you mean. The additional cost to the economy of not tackling climate change. We attempted to set that out in the financial memorandum based on the work that was done for us by climate exchange. They looked at the global literature at the cost of mitigating climate change beyond two degrees to nearer 1.5 degrees, the cost of damages if we do not mitigate the cost of mitigation and the cost of adaptation. It is not possible that they were not able to come up with costs for Scotland. They were able to review average costs for countries and jurisdictions. I am just looking for it now. It is a nicely titled landscaping review and analysis of the key international assessments of the economic impacts of climate change mitigation policies. I am surprised that you have not come across it. They set out the costs in terms of percentage GDP and the upshot was that the cost of not mitigating climate change is probably more than the cost of mitigating climate change, but it is on the basis of probability because the estimates of cost depend so much on the likelihood of extreme events that become an issue of probability. It sounds a pretty scary figure if it is accurate, but in reality it is not, because we have to do it. It is a big scary number, and not tackling climate change would be big and scary, too. That was a summary. Section 19 replaces section 35 in the 2009 act with the new section 35. Subsection 4 is a word-for-word replication of section 9 in the 2009 act and subsection 5 of section 10 in the 2009 act. What do they say in relation to breakdown of costs? Subsection 4 says that, regarding the respective contributions towards emissions reduction that should be made by A energy efficiency, B energy generation, C landruse, C D transport—and that is word-for-word for us in 2009—and subsection 5. The plan must also explain how the proposals and policies that are set out in the plan are expected to affect different sectors of the Scottish economy. You appear to have told us that we cannot do that. In other words, we cannot break down the costs by, as it says in subsection 5, previously subsection 10, affecting different sectors of the Scottish economy, or have I misunderstood what I have been hearing? Yes and no. What we cannot do is separate out the costs up to 2050. Is there a difference in terms of what we can say about the plan and what we can say about targets up to 2050? Do you forgive me just to intervene and bring it to a conclusion? Therefore, this really relates only to the plan. It is essentially retrospective rather than prospective. Well, the plans look forward. Yes, but it is reporting. Therefore, as far as the plan goes forward, in the first instance where we are looking at a plan that goes to 2032 at the moment, we should have the numbers under the separate headings rather than it being one aggregate number. I do not have the plan to hand, so I cannot answer it for myself. I am going to say that you must be mistaken because we have not done that and we surely would have if we were required. I think that I really need to take that one away. There is going to be a lot of interest in that aspect. I would like to see what you come back with, because I have quite serious concerns about this, especially going between 2040 and 2050. If we do not know what the technology is going to be, I just do not understand how we can be putting figures into the air. John Scott. I am in the clear and interest that is coming from a sector in the business area where it is all very well to say that it is just £13 billion, perhaps. Different sectors would actually quite like to know what the real costs that they are likely to bear will be. Our economy is reducing, as we speak here in Scotland, and you are just saying gaily, well, it might be £13 billion, perhaps, that that is going to cost businesses to carry on doing what they are doing and deliver better climate change. I think that a breakdown sector by sector would be enormously helpful to give each sector, as is mentioned by Stuart Steven, some indication of the burden that is likely to be placed on them by this climate change proposal. You cannot do that, you are not prepared to. We are simply not able to provide that. Would that not be helpful? Would you not agree, or is it just tough? I am certainly not disagreeing that it would be helpful to you if you are telling me that it would be helpful, but it is not possible for us to provide that. We do need to see those figures to determine whether the £13 billion figure is believable, it is credible. There must be something that comes together that adds up to £13 billion. There has to be by definition. We will take that back to the analysts who run times to see what we can do. I am really sorry if I have given the impression that I am banning the number around gaily. It is certainly not my intention. No, not gaily, but without explanation. Well, with clearly a very poor explanation, which I will endeavour to correct. I am going to let Richard Llyon, because he has been waiting patiently. Is that £13 billion based on today's prices or £13 billion based on 2050? Today's prices. So, £13 billion in 2050 will be what? I cannot tell you that, I do not know. At least £200 billion or more, based on inflation, et cetera, for the next 30-odd years. Right. Thank you for that, Mr Llyon. It would be fair to say that this is a blank check that businesses across Scotland are being asked through the enactment of this bill to sign up to an unquantifiable cost and burden likely to be placed on them. Is that a fair assessment of it? No, I do not think that it is. No. How would you define it then? Where the costs fall will depend on the decisions that future ministers make in the production of climate change plans, because it is in the climate change plans that we will establish how we will meet these targets. That is where the impact on where the costs will fall can be considered, and we cannot do that for the targets after 2050. To be accurate, it would have fallen the public sector as well. It would have fallen individuals, these costs. It would not just be business. So, in theory, at least the costs could fall to the public sector, to individuals, households and businesses, to one of those entirely and not the others, or any kind of mix. It is a mix of the three. We are going to draw that to a conclusion. I think that we have covered a lot of ground, in particular interest in this last section. I understand that. There are a number of things that you have agreed to come back to, so on and we look forward to that. As much detail as possible in this particular element, the financial element, would be not only helpful but necessary, frankly. Can I thank you for your time? I am going to suspend for five minutes. Thank you. Welcome back to this meeting of the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee. The third item on the agenda is to hear evidence on Scotland's biodiversity targets. We are joined by Bridget Campbell, director of environment and forestry, and Sally Thomas from SNH. Welcome both. In case you weren't here at the start, just to make you aware, there's a minute silence at 12 noon. We'll suspend to respect the minute silence. I want to ask a question about the international context to progress on achieving biodiversity targets. I don't ask that question to perhaps provide any wriggle room for Scotland, but just to get a context here. How are we performing set against the rest of the globe? I could start on that, convener. The big thing that's happening internationally at the moment is actually looking forward. That's thinking about the next biodiversity convention conference of the parties happening in Beijing in 2020 and setting even stronger targets, probably. At the international level, the most recent overview report that was published in 2014 gave a global progress report against the targets. To be honest, that showed a very mit picture across the whole world. If I was going to summarise, I would say that Scotland is further ahead on a few more targets than the global overview, so the global average. For example, Scotland is really ahead in terms of reporting, where the only country that has produced a full report on HE. However, that doesn't make us at all complacent, so I very much take what you said at the beginning. Everyone is struggling with this. Just to give a little bit more context, I recently attended a meeting of officials that deal with nature and biodiversity across the EU, and I specifically went there to get the answer to the question that you were asking, because I just didn't have a good sense of it. It was clear that the challenges that we're working on in Scotland are similar to those that are being faced in every other EU country at any rate. The main theme underlying that meeting was the challenge that all countries are facing in raising public awareness of the issue. No country seemed to have completely succeeded in convincing the public in general of the importance of biodiversity and the impact of its loss. I mean, we've just been listening to the climate change session, and it's quite a different state of consciousness on that, I would say. For me, that's the central theme that all countries are struggling with. The two things are awaited. Climate change feeds into also biodiversity. I guess the question that flows from that is, do Governments take this seriously enough? Well, yes, but I think that the big thing that comes out of the report that we published earlier this year of progress against the ancient targets, which shows quite mixed progress even for Scotland, I think that the answer is that we need to take it more seriously. I think that the reaction that we had within the Scottish Government and with all the public bodies that we deal with, who have responsibilities in this area, was actually to try and do a bit more about it. Shall I maybe, Sally, could say a bit more about that? In terms of what we're going to be doing next? Yes, because we actually did look, and we had a meeting at the end of last year with all the public bodies, relevant public bodies and immediately relevant, because, of course, I know that there is a biodiversity duty reporting for everyone, but lots of public bodies, but the most local ones, the most relevant ones, CEPA, SNH, bodies like that, and what we looked at was each of the areas where we're not doing as well as we are meant to be doing against the HE projections, and we came up with some specific things we need to do. So I think that we are really seized as a fact that this needs more effort. I know that Finlay Carson wants to go on that point on this. Do you want to ask a question here about who takes the lead? Absolutely. What's not clear is that the Scottish Government or SNH is actually taking lead responsibility for implementing the biodiversity? It's ultimately, of course, the responsibility of Scottish ministers and therefore the Scottish Government to deliver the biodiversity strategy and to account for it to the Scottish Parliament here. SNH is accountable to Scottish ministers and NDPB. Obviously, the Government's statutory nature conservation adviser and biodiversity is at the core of much of what it does. So what the Government has asked it to do is a piece of work, really, which is to lead and coordinate across all the partners in the public, private and third sector on the delivery of the 2020 strategy and the route map. They were really closely involved in the preparation of the strategy and the route map. They are now leading groups, which are co-ordinating delivery, and they do the progress reports on the route map, the statutory three-year report and the report on meeting HE. However, that is at the request of ministers. I mean, I have no doubt that ministers understand that this is the Scottish Government's responsibility. So, just on the back of that, it could be argued that the strategy is, and you commented on the additional indicators and reporting and the improvements on that, but would that not suggest that the strategies might be too focused on process and not actually focused on where the action needs to be taken to deliver better outcomes? I think that it does need to have both elements in it. I mean, of course it would be better if we were doing brilliantly across all the different components, and it's true that we're doing better on the more mechanical things, or in some cases anyway, not completely, but I think that the strategy does have in it lots and lots of ambition, high-level commitments about real progress on biodiversity, and the route map is essentially a programme of practical projects that deliver real improvement in biodiversity. I mean, they're really good examples, for example, in Peatland, but others, too. Sally Johnson is saying that about that. I mean, I would agree, it's very important that we do have process and governance underpinning what we do, and SNH has a comprehensive series of monitoring and indicators, and we have a range of governance groups, which are working with a number of partners across the public sector and the NGO community. That's all good and proper, and we need to be able to do that, and we have reporting requirements, and we have to feed in at the UK level and so forth, but it's really important, and I think that none of us would underestimate that actually what we're really trying to do is make progress on the ground, and that's really where our ultimate goal is. Some of the excellent examples of work on the ground, for example, I mean, just yesterday we launched the Scottish Invasive Species Initiative. That's a community-based project, around about 29,000 square kilometres, looking at engaging communities in terms of riparian invasives. Really high priority, an area where we recognise there's more work to be done, so there is a lot of practical work going on on the ground. That's a joint HLF-SNH-funded project. We also have peatland action, where we SNH receive money from government, we have over 10,000 hectares of peatland restored, further commitment to further 8,000 hectares. These are all really important work on the ground, which we need to report on, obviously, and we need to be able to show what we've done and how we've spent the money, but there is a lot of good work going on across Scotland. Isn't one of the criticisms that's made, and a legitimate criticism, that we pat ourselves in the back for getting more people out enjoying nature, when, in actual fact, what matters is ensuring that we have the species for future generations to enjoy? Aren't we doing the easy stuff, but the really difficult stuff we're struggling with? It's a balance. The more that people appreciate and enjoy nature, the more that societal change, which we've seen across the climate change agenda, is likely to come into play. There is a lot of time and effort going into individual species projects, for example, the Scottish Wildcat project. I'm sure that most of you saw the wonderful photographs that I released yesterday from Edinburgh Zoo of the Wildcat kittens, which are taking their first steps into the outside world. Those sorts of projects are resource-intensive, but absolutely important to help us to bolster populations of rare or endangered species across Scotland. I wanted to focus in on some of the particular problems that we have around a number of the targets. You'll be aware of the headline here. There are only seven targets that are on track out of 20. Perhaps we could just drill down a bit into those. B5 is about habitat loss, so perhaps we could start there. What needs to happen, particularly in terms of land use management, to turn that particular target around? Habitat loss is a particularly complex issue, because I'm sure that you all appreciate it. The target is not related just to counting up the number of hectares of habitat that has been lost. Obviously, there is the relative proportion of habitat that has been restored, or, indeed, created as well. We have a range of restoration works under way that contribute to this target. We have a lot of work under way to try and more accurately map and assess different habitats and the extent to which they are declining or increasing, but it's fair to say that it's not without challenges. We recognise those and, through the route map, we certainly recognise woodland restoration and expansion as being an area where there are challenges for us. Certainly in terms of the native woodland target, that's why increased planting grants for planting rates have been put in place through FCS to increase the amount of incentive for landowners to help them with woodland planting, which will help us with those targets. There are a number of habitats that are showing a decrease in terms of their condition, not the extent but the incondition. Woodland, again, is another one where, while the extent of some woodland areas might be maintained, it's actually the condition of that habitat, which is at issue. Again, it's a slightly different range of issues that we need to tackle. There have been some real successes in the freshwater environment, the pearls and pearl project. We've restored freshwater function across 19 rivers in Scotland, and it's those sorts of specific projects that can do a lot to help us with that habitat restoration target. We're not meeting it, so clearly we need a step change. You didn't mention agriculture. What work is being done to consider using a future agricultural subsidy system to reverse some of the catastrophic habitat loss that we've seen since the Second World War? We are starting to think about that. The agriculture champions working for Mr Ewing put out their final report recently, and one of the things that they acknowledge in that is that there is a real need to think about how any future funding can contribute to the outcomes that we want, but we're just at the footholes of doing that. It's just thinking that it's beginning to start now. When do you think there will be an outcome to that thinking process? Mr Ewing has said that he will respond with the Government's position later in the year to the agriculture champions. They've set quite a good framework of issues that need to be addressed, and later in the year the Government should come up with some response to that. If I could turn to target B9, which is the control of invasive species, I think that you've already touched on that, Sally Thomas. Is there a disconnect here with the scale of the problem? My understanding is that we've got challenge funding now, one-year funding going into supporting the work, but there's about £2 million being put into control, for example, of Rhododendron, and yet the potential demand to tackle this problem would be near £400 million. Are we running to stand still here? What sense is there that we can get a grip of some of the long-standing invasive species problems over the next five to ten years before they become very costly problems? I think that you make a very good point there, is getting a grip on these problems before they become a huge financial burden, and certainly we recognise that early identification and rapid response is perhaps one of the most important things that we need to do. We're developing new information systems, which will help us to underpin and to inform that rapid response so that we can identify and deal with invasive species before they become that larger and more resource-intensive problem. For example, there's a new plant tracker app that provides for rapid notification across Great Britain, which means that those high alert species, ones that we know are on the boundaries trying to come in, I suppose, or particularly invasive, can have that very rapid identification and alert and work across the country to take action before they take hold. Are those action plans actually happening at a catchment level? I know, for example, on the Alanwater catchment, the local fisheries trust there has been doing a lot of work, but there hasn't been money for co-ordination, and they've been getting a little bit of cash from the local Tesco supermarket to do this work. That doesn't seem to really be addressing the need for catchment-wide action. I understand what you're saying about apps and reporting and all that. What happens then? What are the targets, if you like, the interim targets to tackle these problems of invasive species? I haven't got the detail of where we're taking catchment-scale approaches, so I'd be very happy to provide some more information on that. I think that CEPR will be very much to the four in that work, so we can get some further information from them, if that would be helpful. Okay. The last point that I've got is around the target C12. This is preventing species extinction, and we've seen some horrific figures coming forward, particularly in relation to seabirds, particularly in relation to climate change over fishing, a whole range of different pressures, and indeed other species as well, waders, upland birds, special spotterflies. Is it—what should government be doing to make a step change in these areas? Is it—can we bring some of these species back from the brink? There have been no recorded extinctions in Scotland, but we do recognise that some of our species are under threat, and there is targeted action for specific species. I've already mentioned wild cat, red squirrel is another, and a range of birds species. We're also developing a priority species indicator, so that we can get a better handle on all of this. I think that we need to work with different species in different ways. That's really what the bottom line is, because what's needed for one species will not necessarily work for another. I think that we also need to understand that, for some species, the action that we put in place now can take some time to work through at a population level. We shouldn't always be expecting to see very swift results, and I think that the wild cat example is a good one of that. We have action under way, very focused, very targeted. A lot of interest and a lot of volunteers involved in that, but it is a long-term project, and it will take a number of years to come to fruition. Some of those actions are in relation to the management of the land, and that take—again—we have to work with individual land managers very often to look at how we can work through different types of land management that might favour particular species, whether it might be butterflies or other invertebrates, for example. It's a mixed picture, but we are developing a priority species indicator, and we will use that to be able to prioritise which species need targeted action. The species that are absolutely dependent on land management in order to bring them back from the brink of extinction is the voluntary approach to that working. We have a lot of good work under way through the EEC scheme, through the incentive scheme already. We have advisers who work directly with land managers out on their holdings to identify where specific bits of habitat or connectivity or ecological coherence can benefit the specific species that they have on their land. I'm not sure how we would take—how do you mean a voluntary approach? Presumably your reliant on land managers coming forward to self-identify that they're interested in protecting a certain species or whatever. For those who aren't interested, well, what's the compulsion for them to do anything? I don't know what percentage of land managers are actually coming forward. I see where you're going. Yes, absolutely. I suppose the flip side to that is in relation to targeted and focused projects that SNH or the NGOs might develop in partnership, either for a particular species or within a particular locality, and that's targeted action for a species. If some of the land managers in that locality choose not to come on board, there is still a project running that will work and help to persuade the majority in a locality to do that. How can I get on top of best practice and share it? I've seen terrific examples of the Forestry Commission on Wildcats in Gwneilaw, the game and wildlife conservation farm that they are operating in the side and protecting waders. Both of those are very good projects. How can I pull that noise together and encourage others to roll out that kind of practice? SNH runs a series of sharing good practice events, and they are aimed very much at sharing the good practice and experience of practitioners throughout Scotland. We use those extensively for a whole range of different topics. We also work and encourage others such as the Royal Highland Education Trust or the Soil Association who do a lot of on-farm work with land managers, where they will use peer-to-peer work so that farmers are talking to other farmers or land managers or foresters about the work that they are doing on their farms within local areas. There is a lot of work going on out there that we as SNH are either directly involved in or help to support. Mark Ruskell's point about seabirds, particularly the horrifying numbers that are coming forward about the birds in the Orkneys. There are significant problems there. There are global factors that play here. Climate change is growing on impact. What dialogue is SNH, the Scottish Government, having with international partners to see what research they have done and what thoughts they have on how we address that? We would work across the global community in terms of the academic community, so we can better understand what is happening to these species when they are out with Scottish waters. It is difficult for many seabirds particularly to come to Scotland for only part of the year, and their wintering grounds or primary feeding grounds are out with Scottish waters. It is very important that we have that dialogue, and we seek to understand. There is still a lot of learning and understanding that is required for some of these species in terms of their life cycles and where they go to either feed or to overwinter. We certainly have those dialogues on-going. It also plays into what Bridget was saying earlier about the global targets that we are talking about. There is a need for us to be at the global table and participate in those discussions either as part of the UK administrative body that undertakes that or in a Scottish context. Those conversations are really important. Thank you. Claudia Beamish. Good morning to you both. Our convener has touched on seabirds and the importance of those concerns. I could ask you specifically about the marine environment in our coastal areas. Of course, some MPAs have been announced and are active and being monitored. If there is an assessment of the impact of MPAs firstly, I will have another brief follow-up question. Impact on our target on B6 for sustainable management of the marine environment? You are right that there has been considerable progress made in terms of the NPA network. That is coupled with progress on harvesting at sustainable levels. For a number of key fish species, for example, there is implementation of an end discards and a whole range of activity leading to healthier fish stocks. I am not quite clear why the target is showing insufficient progress given the progress that we have made with the NPA network. It may be that it is a timing issue and the report was timed for the situation at the end of 2017 and we have made further progress. On that one, if you are content, we need to seek some further advice from Marine Scotland on that. That would be helpful. What would be helpful is that you have highlighted the ways in which the approach has changed because of the NPAs. What would be useful is to know if there have been any assessment of the specific impacts within those areas, whether things are improving or not, if it is possible. The wider issue around the second part of my exploration with you of the marine environment, the wider issue around further action that is being taken up with the NPAs at present and whether those are focusing on ecological coherence and networks? There is a lot of work across the whole of Scotland's marine environment, certainly the development of the national marine plan, agriculture, seaweed harvesting, fisheries strategies. All of those are helping to focus efforts on sustainable marine management. On the more specific action on the ground in the water on the NPAs, again, we can seek some further advice from Marine Scotland on that. On the broader issues, please. Just back to invasive species. Clearly, with invasive species such as rabbits and hares that the Romans brought, now regarded as native species, American crayfish are a huge problem. Most recently, beavers, who were almost certainly released illegally and deliberately in taste site, which are now making the transition to being regarded as a native species, what is the overall policy in determining how we make that transition from something being an invasive species to being regarded as a protected or quasi-native species? That is an incredibly good philosophical question. If I may just intervene, I recognise that there is a philosophical element to it, but there is a genuine and real impact on that probably illegal action in taste site that we cannot afford to disregard because of what that message in relation to that policy issue might send to people who might start releasing wolves or lynxes or a whole variety of other things that should cause me, and I suspect others, considerable concern. We have been working with the Scottish Beaver Forum, certainly in terms of the licensing arrangements to provide guidance and advice to land managers on those who experience problems with beavers. Sorry, can I intervene? I am not trying to explore the detail of the beaver issue. There is another time and place, but the overall approach, is there a consistent approach to how we regard that transition from—we would eliminate every American crayfish in our rivers and lochs, if we could. I am going to suspend right now and we will come back to answer that with a moment of silence. Moving the discussion up a level to the more general. To clarify, we have the Scottish Code on reintroductions and translocations of species, and certainly any legitimate proposals that come forward, as opposed to illegal releases, would be evaluated in terms of the process and the considerations under that code. We have a process in place for any proposals that come forward. Illegal releases are, by definition, illegal. That is a very different matter, and I think that we would need to consider all of those on a case-by-case basis. To go back to your very deep philosophical point, I think that what we regard as illegal and not illegal is reflecting cultural views in this country. Going back to the meeting that I mentioned earlier, it was very interesting. It was very interesting to hear from other countries such as Croatia and Bulgaria, in which they have the bear and the wolf, and in Croatia they have the bear, the wolf and the lynx. They are at a point in their culture where the main issue is not about species, it is just about how to pay people for the damage that those animals do. It is a very different place. Was it off because we have other things to cover? We are quite clear that, while evidentially I know that the fiscal could not get the necessary corroboration to prosecute those responsible for the beaver release, nonetheless it was prima facie not permitted under the law, almost certainly prohibited under the law. There were beavers who were originally held under licence in a constrained area from which they were released. I think that that is my understanding. Bridget Campbell made reference to the previous discussion about climate change and the fact is that the public get climate change, they buy in to tackle climate change and we achieve our targets. What do we need to do to mainstream biodiversity values in the same way and get that public buy in? Sitting alongside that, what specific action does the Scottish Government and SNH have in mind to address failing to hit the targets? On the second part of that, Sally in answer to some questions earlier from Mr Ruskell about specific areas where we are failing, she gave some examples of where action has been upped because it has been clear that if we carry on the way we are we would not meet the target. I think that another example of that, I think that you did refer to this, but a really good one that I am aware of recently is that it was noticed that in particular part of Scotland in the Highlands the native woodland was not flourishing. The Forestry Commission adjusted their grant rate and that led to more native woodland trees being planted, so I think that there are some quite specific things that we can do. One of the things that we are doing through the Environment and Economy Leaders Group, which is the group that brings together all the chief executives of the main bodies that are relevant to this, we have been looking together at where the targets are failing to think of specific things. That is just one example, but I think that we need quite a kind of programme approach to this to actually pin down, in a specific case, what could we do differently and what could one of these partners do differently? There is in fact coincidentally a meeting going on in Avimor today of this group and one of the things that they are looking at on the agenda is how we can do more to get back on track with the HE targets that we are not on track for. I think that SNH has been asked by the Cabinet Secretary to really look at this and how they can co-ordinate all of these actions. That is work in progress, but in due course, once that has come to the minister, I am sure that she will be letting you know about it, because we are very conscious that we have got to do something to change all of this. I think that it may be something like Blue Planet. I hear that actually Sir David Attenborough is apparently planning to make a film or a series of films to go on Netflix that are being pushed by WWF, and it is on biodiversity specifically. Of course, the stuff Blue Planet is about diversity too, but I think that there is a whole issue about just gaining understanding and sharing understanding about the value of biodiversity and the impact of its loss, which just hasn't reached that tipping point. We can all play a part in a smaller way. I am sure that some of the things that the chief executives are discussing are how we can do more on public information and campaign and so on, but I think that it may be one of those things where a tipping point suddenly happens. I really hope that it does, but I think that that is what needs to happen. It has to be a point where people, not just specialists and experts, appreciate why insects matter. To go back to the nature director's meeting again, there was a really interesting presentation from Germany, but the Germans seemed to assume that everyone thought that insects were good, whereas most people do not know much about most insects. We really mentioned perhaps bumblebees or lady birds, but not all the insects that are relevant. It is just dawn to me that I should have declared their interest at the start of this. In fact, I think that every member of the committee might have declared their interest, because I think that we are all species champions, with the exception of Mr Stevens and all the others. There is a relevance to that, because there is a role for parliamentarians to champion the cause and raise public awareness of these important issues. I do declare an interest there. I mean that I am the species champion for the narrow-headed ant, and I was up and looking at some at the weekend. What is the education programme and where are the links? We have schools around biodiversity, because that would be key with it or not to engage in, because I find that, even if you look at things like recycling, I know in Fife that I always put a lot of credit on the fact that we started to have all these equal schools and suddenly children were talking to their parents about the important series I One. Yes, and it is one of the issues that is being discussed today by the chief executives is what initiative could be taken on education. I am just trying to quickly find the exact description of what they are doing. Do you know? It is certainly the case from the work that we do with SNH that, if you can influence young people, they will go home and seek to influence their parents and their siblings. We do a lot of work with learning and outdoor learning in nature. We are working with schools across Scotland to both identify how learning can use, the curriculum can use nature as a means to deliver those aspects of the curriculum, whether it be maths or science or whatever, but also to ensure that schools have access to good quality green space that they can use as part of the school day. We have a commitment to 100 schools in Scotland's most disadvantaged communities having easy access to green space. We are working through that commitment at the moment with local authorities and other partners to ensure that that interaction with nature is something that our young people don't just read about or learn about, but they actually get out and experience it. If their families are not perhaps able to help them to have that experience, they are able to do that as part of their formal education. I think that all the bodies that I mentioned, such as SNH and SIPA, but also the national parks, have a part to play in this. For example, I know that the Cairngorms national park, just to take them as an example, has been holding something called the big weekend, which is all about getting lots and lots of local people and beyond Cairngorms out into nature. There is a whole load of different things that need to happen. I am sort of violently agreeing with what you were suggesting. A number of members want to come in here. I do hope that it is not to plug their own species. Mark Ruskell followed by Finlay Carson. You may be disappointed, convener, but there is an issue here about public confidence, though, particularly in the agencies. I hope that that is something that is being discussed today, because I am a species champion for the seagull. There has been a number of illegal disappearances in Scotland. I think that we all know that this is probably linked to wildlife crime, and the evidence points in that direction. When SNH then takes a decision to issue a licence for a raven cull in an area where there have been a number of disappearances of raptors over the years, that has generated an enormous amount of public concern. The public wants to know the basis for that, the rationale for that decision. There are concerns that those who may or may not have been involved in the disappearance of the raptors are involved in the licence regime and the trial project. My inbox has been overflowing with concern around that, and it has really touched a nerve with many people. I do not know how agencies can maintain that public confidence when they have big issues, and wildlife crime is one of them, which really resonates in people's minds and becomes a central issue for how people define whether Scotland is actually protecting its biodiversity or not. Certainly on wildlife crime, I do not think that anyone in this room would do anything other than absolutely uphold wildlife crime that unfortunately still exists in some parts of the country. SNH works very closely with Police Scotland with a partnership for action on wildlife crime to do everything that we can, both in terms of bringing any of those perpetrators to justice and also to seek to educate those who might have different views about that. I do not want to go into the detail of specific cases. I think that there has been a lot said, and I think that there is a lot on the public record about that. I suppose that SNH feels that there is a conversation that we need to have about wildlife management in Scotland and that there are some big questions that we need to unpack collectively about our environment, our species and how we can coexist within the land mass of Scotland. OK, and definitely, Carson. Do you think that we are getting the balance right? I am concerned that we spend all our time getting the public on board, and actually, while that is happening, we are losing species that might not be the sexy species of the month. We are missing, but there is no progress in 11 targets in five that are getting worse. We are maybe public awareness of the seagull might be improving or the Leisler bat, as I am the champion of. However, is the balance shifted from protecting biodiversity to almost justifying that there is expenditure on it? I am concerned that, while we get the public on board and we open up green spaces around cities and things, some dung beetle in Sutherland will become extinct because the Government is finding it difficult to justify the expenditure that is required to protect that. Are we getting the balance right? We think that it is the right balance. We are trying to strike a balance between all the awareness-raising things that we have been talking about and education and cultural change, and actually doing real things with species that are at risk. Sally described earlier some quite sophisticated ways of making sure that we are alerted to those things that are able to take action. We also work very closely with some of the very specialist interests groups and NGOs that will alert us and do alert us when there are issues with some of those perhaps lesser-known species, the small ones and the ones that we do not necessarily see day-by-day. They are involved through our contact through the Scottish Environment Link. Many of them are involved through the working groups for the biodiversity strategy and many of the specialist societies, such as butterflies or other particular groups of species, work with us on a routine basis. We have our antennae out to work with them. We think that we have the balance right. I hope that you do as well. We still have a lot of ground to cover. Richard Lyle. The real world is dimension funds for tackling biodiversity, loss and conservation. I know that the Scottish Environment Funders Network report says that Scotland is at a considerable disadvantage compared to the rest of the UK in terms of attracting funding for conservation projects. From 2012 to 2015, private foundation funding for environmental causes in England and Wales amounted to 20 dyns, as much as is available in Scotland. That is equivalent to £768 per square kilometre in England and Wales versus 70 per square kilometre in Scotland. On the previous answers, to what extent are targets reliant on increasing financial resources? Has there been an impact of decline in public funding and current staff capacity within the Scottish Government and SNH for biodiversity? You covered a great deal of ground in that. I think that it is quite difficult to be clear about exactly how much public funding is spent on biodiversity. We have not really disaggregated that. SNH is doing some work at the moment to try and get a better indicator because that was the HE target that we were going away from. So, money being spent on it, we are not clear enough even about how much public money within the public sector that we ought to be able to account. I am going to say, come on, and then you have just revealed, as you said, in that, I think that it was called, where did the green grants grow, that report. That is telling us something that we probably need to do something about. I think that in terms of the money that goes to SNH, which is one of the main champions of all of this, the main bodies working in it in Scotland, SNH had a good grant. I think that what they would regard as a positive settlement in the current year. In the Scottish Government, there have been a number of changes, but we are actively recruiting new people to increase the resource on this. Coming back to the private sector money, there are a couple of things. It is a challenge to have that pointed out. Is there anything that we and the Government could actually do about it? At the moment, I would say that the two main areas where there is action already going on is that SNH is working with the Heritage Lottery Fund to try and get a more strategic approach to getting priority for environmental projects through the funding that they give. That is quite a good source. The other thing that I mentioned is that both SNH and the Scottish Government have some pretty good links with businesses through the Scottish Forum on Natural Capital, so that might be a place where we could take those questions. The work with HLF has been extremely positive. It is partly about prioritising what bids might be coming forward through HLF year on year so that we are not wasting what resources we have in bidding against each other, but also trying to increase the environmental awareness within HLF for the importance. That is certainly the approach that we can then stick to work with other major funders, some of the ones that are identified in that report that you mentioned. It is important that we recognise that success is not always just a reflection of the amount of money that is spent. Certainly, some of the work that we have done is clear that it is quite possible to do more for biodiversity, certainly in a local context, even with a reduced resource. The sorts of examples might be changing of mowing regimes in local authorities, changing the composition of the planting that is used, whether that be through the public sector or local authorities. For example, rather than planting bedding plants, you could plant pollinator attractive species or different types of species-rich planting. Those seem quite small-scale, but they add up, and they do not necessarily cost additional resource. For many, it is a different way of thinking about the same problem. I am interested in what the Scottish Government can do to improve links with private funders of environmental work in Scotland. If there is Scottish Government funding provided, should it be given on a three- to five-year budget process, rather than yearly, in order to ensure that there is long-term stability for staff and agencies that are working on projects that we feel are worthwhile? Do you think that there is a role for environmental NGOs in attracting non-governmental funding? What would you imagine that they have a message to send out to possible funders? I wonder if you see a job for them here in trying to attract that type of finance. Oh, I think absolutely. A number of the major conservation-based projects that we have in Scotland are that the lead partner will be one of the NGOs, and they are often best placed to play that role. We certainly would not think that the public sector or SNH needs to be in the lead. We will be very happy to be a partner, but it certainly often makes sense, and often makes sense for financial tax reasons, as I understand, that the NGO, if they are a charity, is the body that leads financially, and we will be extremely happy for that to be the case. Have extended budget periods, rather than a one-a-year-to-year budget, based on a three-to-five-year budget, to give people a long-term stability? I am not sure how far that goes at the moment, Sally. Do you know? No. We try to give that stability, but because we are a SNH or a one-year settlement, that makes it more difficult for us to make that commitment, because we obviously cannot commit funds that we are not confident that we have to commit, if you see what I mean. Certainly, project funding is a different matter, because that is often over three to five years, and it is given for the lifetime of the project, so that is a different matter. We should be looking at that then. I will leave it at that. I am not going to get you to commit to it, but I am sure that you will go back and tell somebody. Has any assessment been made on the potential loss of EU funding for biodiversity projects after the dreaded Brexit? Yes, at a very high level, but it is not specific to biodiversity, so it is obviously clear that the loss of EU funding for all sorts of land uses has a potential impact on biodiversity. I think that the level that we are at is trying to assess what the scale of that is, rather than pinning it down to impacts on biodiversity per se. I think that we move on now to John Scott. Thank you, convener. I would like to ask you a little bit about biodiversity duty reporting, and it does appear that that is not in the best place that it might be. I am just wondering what action the Scottish Government and SNH has taken since the last round of duty reporting to engage public bodies of all sizes and functions in reporting duty and specific actions towards improving biodiversity targets. I think that the cabinet secretary gave evidence on the issue to the Papples Committee very recently. Sally, can you maybe say what has been done since the last round? Since the 2015 round, the Scottish Government commissioned an evaluation of the process for reporting and the activities and content of the reports and what public bodies were doing. That revealed quite a wealth of useful information. As a result of that, some further work was undertaken partly by the contractor, which was to produce a reporting template to make that reporting process easier for public bodies. SNH has produced a series of detailed guidance using the template and a range of case studies. Those are aimed to help public bodies to assess what level of reporting they need to engage in. It is aimed at small, medium and large public bodies. It gives advice and guidance on the sorts of activities that they might consider reporting on or indeed undertaking. It is aimed at putting in place a proportionate approach so that we are not expecting a small public body to have no land holding and on the face that it would have very little to do with biodiversity, we are not expected to produce a large report. The other finding that is interesting from the 2015 reporting is that the evaluation showed that the work that was being undertaken and reported on by public bodies was actually meeting, I think, with the exception of the financial target, all of the other targets that we are discussing here today. That work being undertaken by public bodies in which they are reporting on is contributing right across the board. What beading, may I ask, do that the reduced financial targets have on that reporting capability at the E20 financial resources? I think that Ms Cunningham was clear, when she was at committee last week, that the Government does not view the reporting itself to be an onerous task. It is certainly the case that there is an option for public bodies to include that reporting in their existing corporate reporting, if they wish to do so. They are not required to produce a separate report if they do not think that that is beneficial. They can include it in one of their annual reports, for example. Is it the biggest issue here, not reporting its action and mainstreaming across the activities of public bodies? I want to give a brief example of a local authority, Angus Council, that had drawn to its attention concerns about activities in an amenity woodland, the cutting down of trees. Its own rangers were concerned about whether that was headed. Planning officers come out and determine that, because there is no planning application in place, the council has no locus, walks away and that woodland was decimated. That is not an exaggeration, it was destroyed. It is now the subject of action on the part of the forestry commission. There is an example of where a local authority that has a reporting duty here seems not across its various departments to understand its responsibilities around biodiversity. I guarantee that that is replicated across Scotland. We have a very long way to go to get to the point where local authorities, as an example, but all public bodies understand the role in that. One of the things SNH is doing at the moment is to work with public bodies to develop delivery statements. Those are a set of detailed commitments by that organisation, setting out what they plan to do in protecting, maintaining and enhancing biodiversity. The statements flow from the biodiversity strategy. The process itself helps to embed that type of thinking into the organisation and in the way that it conducts its business. It results in a range of hard commitments that the organisation will sign up to in terms of the work that they undertake day by day and how they take that forward for biodiversity. They are quite resource intensive. We have a number of statements to complete and a larger number that are under way at the moment with different public bodies. As yet, I think that we have one local authority who are interested in completing a delivery statement, but we would hope that time and resource permits to roll those out much further across Scotland. I backed up the point that I was making. We have a very long way to go to get to where we need to on issues as important as those. Claudia Beamish, Mark Ruskell. It is a follow-up to our convener's question in relation to public bodies. I am wondering having been somewhat involved in the development of the climate change reporting duties for the public sector, whether there has been discussion about the need or the value, or indeed not, of a similar mechanism for biodiversity, bearing in mind the delivery issue as well, between Scottish Government, SNH and the appropriate bodies? I do not think that we have actually done that yet, but it seems to be a very good idea to try and see what there is to derive from where we have made progress with climate change and what ways in which that could be pursued for biodiversity. The answer to the specific question is no, we have not discussed that yet, but it is a good idea. I think that there are wider ways of thinking about where there are lessons from climate change. One of them is being on the receiving end of the climate change plan. The fact that there was that plan and how it was run made me, as the director responsible, make sure that we were spending money on peatland, on planting trees, on reducing waste. There is something in that that is about being absolutely clear about what each player is required to do, which I think is another lesson from climate change, a broader one. I had a similar question about how you bring the two together, because it seems that, particularly with councils, councils are engaged in placemaking, so looking at climate and biodiversity together, particularly around our adaptation agenda, there might be some benefit in reporting the two together? I think that that is a very fair question that we should look at. I think that Ms Cunningham touched on this last week, because the climate change duty is an annual reporting cycle. If we are identifying resource as being an issue for reporting on a three-year cycle for biodiversity, we just need to weigh out the pros and cons of increasing that requirement. John Scott, you have got a fuller question. I think that we touched on this earlier, where we are at in terms of considering a biodiversity strategy post 2020. I think that we are just starting to think about that. It is starting to be thought at about internationally. We have got the 15th meeting of the conference of the parties in Beijing in 2020. We have asked SNH to begin to think strategically about this, and how we should approach it. That is really part of what they are going to be talking about today with the other public bodies, because the action to meet HE is also relevant to the action to meet any more stringent targets. How do you increase the effort to a suitable point? I think that we are starting. Is that the answer to your question? Thank you. Just to wrap this up then, Mark Ruskell. Last year, in the chamber on a cross-party basis, I voted for a motion to support the establishment of a national ecological network in Scotland. I wanted to ask what progress is being made on that. So, as you are probably aware, there was a stakeholder event held last September to consider what a national ecological network for Scotland might entail, what it might look like. SNH has been asked by the Scottish Government to lead on that. Since then, we have been working with Government and a number of the NGOs to look at how that might be played out in Scotland. We are looking at an approach that is seeking to enable opportunities to improve biodiversity and improve connectivity, which looks at the role of existing network of protected areas, for example, anachuricites across Scotland. At present, we are seeking to develop a range of principles, and we are testing those against a number of established projects that already deal with connectivity such as the ECOCO life project and work that is under way in the CSGN. We plan to have further work and testing and to come back to Scottish Government very soon with some further proposals. Will there be action in the national planning framework in the way that CSGN is embedded? Those are some of the issues that we are working through at the moment. I thank you for your time this morning. I think that that has been useful to inform our thinking. We also have the Public Oric Committee doing a review of local government and public bodies in relation to biodiversity. We will move on. The fourth item on our agenda today is to consider the following negative instrument, namely environmental protection, microbead Scotland regulations 2018, SSI 2018162. Mark Ruskell, Richard Lyle and the Institute of Stevenson. I welcome the action that is being taken on a UK-wide basis to tackle microplastics, perhaps one of the most easiest forms of microplastics, to remove from the production cycle and to prevent this from getting into the oceans. Clearly, microplastics have a major set of problems, both physical problems, they pass through the supply chain, through the food chain rather, but they also carry chemicals into that food chain as well, which may impact on human health as well as the health of the environment. I think that it would be useful to get some clarity from the Government about how they are approaching other forms of microplastics, in particular microfibers from clothing, which perhaps represent a much more harder form of plastic to remove from the oceans. Nonetheless, it would be good to hear the Scottish Government's view on how it is addressing the wider issue about microplastics and what action is needed at either international level in the UK or what we can do in Scotland ourselves. Richard Lyle That was a point that I was going to make also and I support Mark Ruskell in his comments. We have taken action on cotton buds, plastic straws, now microbeads, plastic waste. It would be interesting to know if any department or if the Government is looking at the effect of any other consumer goods or consumer ingredients in goods that may affect the environment. I think that we should write to the cabinet secretary and ask that question. Stuart Stevenson is involved by Angus MacDonald. Just a tiny observation, I have three products for exfoliation and I found as a result of reading this, one of them has microbeads in it. I dumped it in the bin this morning, so that is real action in the Stevenson household. I very strongly support this. I do hope that the container was not recyclable, Mr Stevenson. Angus MacDonald I am certainly pleased that the regulations have been introduced, especially when you consider that up to 51 trillion microplastic particles have accumulated in our oceans and can be highly damaging when eaten or inhaled by marine life. That is a welcome SSI that will come into force imminently and, hopefully, similar action will be taken to tackle nerddles, which is also an issue, particularly around the 4th estuary. Claudia Beamish I am not going to reiterate the arguments made by other members of which I am very supportive and supportive of this SSI. I would just like to highlight, and perhaps if we are agreeing with Richard Lyle's request to write to the Scottish Government about the wider issues that one of these has been drawn to my attention by the brownies in the borders, is the issue of glitter, which is another aspect of this that has not come to my mind until ever written to me. John Scott I am delighted to associate myself with this piece of board in the legislation as well. I think that it is very welcome and I will identify myself with the remarks that were made by other members. Richard Lyle I take it as a reddit that we do not wish to make any recommendations in relation to this instrument, but we will write to the Government along the lines that have been raised by members. John Scott We are agreed. Thank you for that. At its next meeting on 26 June, the committee will hear oral evidence from Scottish Government officials on the register of control interests in land. The committee will also consider its work programme and its approach to work on the marine environment, financial scrutiny and the climate change emissions reductions target Scotland Bill at stage 1. The committee will hold a second meeting next week when it will hear from the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Michael Gove MP, by video link. As agreed earlier, the committee will now move into private session and I ask that the public gallery be vacated as the public part of the meeting is now closed.