Transport and Climate Change

Cabinet Secretary provided an overview of progress on transport-related climate ambitions, including on EV uptake for cars, buses and HGVs. The UK Government budget was noted, particularly the new per mile charge for EVs, with the SG position being that this could negatively impact Scotland due to those in rural areas relying on long car journeys more than more densely populated areas in the rest of the UK. SG will advocate for a 4-nation approach and re-investment of funds raised into sustainable transport.

The Board received an update following the recent publication of the draft Climate Change Plan and its implications for the transport sector. SCIS representatives then introduced their work including the ClimateView tool. The major benefit of the platform, apart from having consistency/standardisation and identifying both funding gaps in the set of interventions and delivery gaps, is to provide early warning of diverting from the decarbonisation pathway at local level (compared to CCP Top-Down development). The platform could also serve to benchmark the 32 local authorities. SCIS will present again at the Climate Delivery Oversight Group on 17 December. This work was widely praised for its innovation, standardisation and cost saving potential. SCIS sought national level input to combine and compliment the ongoing work at a local level, reiterating that standardisation is a key outcome. Cabinet Secretary noted that SCIS work can help national government with reporting while supporting local delivery.

The next step is to improve national insight either through mapping of the national interventions (and how they interact with each local authority) such as rail fleet, ScotZEB, EVIF projects etc. or through a national dashboard mapping out transitions and interventions.

DB12-03

TS climate change officials to work with SCIS on a national ‘sprint’ plan in the new year to improve national insights, including ensuring use of all available data and statistics has been explored.