Scotland has made big commitments on climate. Now I'm “out of reach”.
Climate promises are difficult to keep. Scotland is the most recent, perhaps the most surprising, example.Scotland, an early industrial powerhouse and coal giant, was also an early adopter of an ambitious, legally binding government target to slow climate change. It had promised to reduce emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases by 75% by 2030, compared to 1990 levels.This week, Net Zero minister Mairi McAllan said the target was now “out of reach”. He said Scotland, which operates semi-autonomously from Britain, would scrap its annual emissions reduction targets and instead review them every five years.This is in stark contrast to the Scottish Government's optimism in 2021, when diplomats from around the world gathered in Glasgow for international UN climate talks. At the time...