By Kevin Keane
BBC Scotland’s environment correspondent
The Scottish government is to ditch its flagship target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 75% by 2030.
The final goal of reaching “net-zero” by 2045 will remain, but BBC Scotland News understands government’s annual climate targets could also go.
Ministers have missed eight of the last 12 annual targets and have been told that reaching the 75% milestone by the end of the decade is unachievable.
A statement is expected at Holyrood on Thursday afternoon.
The Climate Change Committee (CCC) – which provides independent advice to ministers – warned back in 2022 that Scotland had lost its lead over the rest of the UK in tackling the issue.
Last year ministers failed to publish a plan – required under the act – detailing how they were going to meet the targets.
Then in March of this year the CCC said for the first time that the 2030 target was unreachable.
Former first minister Nicola Sturgeon saw her SNP administration as world leaders on climate change when the targets were introduced in 2019, often asserting that Scotland had the “most stretching targets in the world.”
Hers was the first government in the world to declare a climate emergency and yet environmentalists believe the emergency response never came.
So scrapping the targets will be seen as an embarrassing retreat for the SNP and the Scottish Greens, their partners in the Scottish government.
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