Exclusive:McAllan admits ‘taking cars off road tomorrow’ would have kept climate target intact

SNP Net Zero Secretary Mairi McAllan said she faced taking cars off the road tomorrow to keep her 2030 climate target on track.

The SNP’s Net Zero Secretary has revealed she faced scenarios including “taking petrol and diesel cars off the road tomorrow” in order to keep Scotland’s 2030 climate target on track.

Mairi McAllan announced on Thursday that the Scottish Government’s flagship target to cut 1990 levels of emissions by 75 per cent by 2030 was to be scrapped.

The move could lead to the end of the SNP’s power-sharing deal with the Scottish Greens, with Greens co-convener Patrick Harvie saying yesterday he does not know whether the coalition can continue.

Net Zero Secretary Mairi McAllan announced last week that the Scottish Government's 2030 emissions target would not be met. Photo: Andrew Milligan/PA Wire

Ms McAllan told The Scotsman that since she become net zero secretary in March 20 23 she had asked her officials to investigate whether the 2030 target could be met.

She admitted some of the modelling presented to her was not “legal” or in line with a just transition to net zero.

Asked by The Scotsman if her government was too slow to act when warnings were made about the 2030 target, Ms McAllan said: “I didn’t want to be in the position that I’m in.

Scottish Green party co leader Patrick Harvie refused to confirm the Bute House Agreement would hold.

“Having come into post, I took time and challenged my team to seek to find ways of retaining the legislative framework as it stood.

“That required me to take advice to run models to find out what I would have to propose to the people of Scotland in order to make that 2030 target.”

She added: “Some of them just were just not legal, feasible, in line with a just transition - there were certain things that the model threw back including taking petrol and diesel cars off the road tomorrow.

“These are just not policies that I would ever consider implementing but I had to go through that process.

“I think now is the time. It comes a number of weeks after the Climate Change Committee (CCC) finally confirmed that 2030 to 75 per cent was not doable.”

Last month, the CCC, the UK and Scottish government’s independent advisers, warned Ms McAllan that the 2030 target was no longer achieveable, but the alarm did not come out of the blue.

When MSPs discussed the targets before being put into law in 2019, the CCC cast doubt on the 2030 goal.

Chris Stark, chief executive of the CCC, said: “The implication of a 'straight line' path to net zero was a 2030 target between 64-68 per cent, but Scottish politics decided they wanted more ambition.”

In 2020, the CCC wrote to then SNP net zero secretary Roseanna Cunningham, stressing the 2030 target “went beyond our advised level of ambition”.

The CCC suggested a range of policies that could help meet the 2030 target earlier including an “earlier start to engineered greenhouse gas removals”, the “early decarbonisation of the Grangemouth cluster”, an “accelerated scrappage of high-carbon assets” such as boilers and cars and “additional retrofit of hybrid heat pumps”.

Mr Stark said: “These options were not pursued by the Scottish Government, not least because of the pandemic and post-pandemic challenges.

“The broader implications of all of this can be easily overstated, but the salutary lesson is that incredible targets are unlikely to be met.”

The Scottish Greens will hold a vote on the future of its Bute House Agreement with the SNP amid anger from party members over the ditching of the 2030 target.

Mr Harvie insisted he wanted the partnership to continue, and described the looming vote as the “most important” decision in their history.

Appearing on The Sunday Show on BBC Scotland, he said: “Over the next few weeks we have probably the most important decision to make that we’ve ever had to make about the future of our party, and I want to make sure we are listening to each other over those few weeks.

“My worry is that if we walked away at this point we would decelerate climate action.”

Asked how he thought the vote would go, he answered: “Honestly, I don’t know.

“I share the anger about the situation that Scotland is in, that we are years behind where we should be.

“And I want to make sure that we’re all listening to each other and making sure that we genuinely understand and share, not just the sense of urgency and the deep disappointment and anger about the fact that Scotland is not on track at the moment, but a focus and determination on action.

“And my worry is that, if we if we walked away at this point, we would decelerate the climate action, we would see the hand strengthened of the likes of Fergus Ewing, backbencher in the SNP now, who’s constantly popping up and having a go at environmental policy and urging the Government to slow down.

“This is a critical moment for the future of climate policy and Scotland, which is the reason Greens are in politics in the first place.

“My instinct is that we will achieve far more by staying in government.”

He cited achievements including rent controls, scrapping peak-time rail fares, and free bus travel for young people,

Discussing Green members, he said: “I want them to feel enthusiastic. I want them to feel reassured that not only the Greens and the Scottish Government, but Scotland is on the right track here. And we clearly have more to do to persuade them of that.”

Mr Harvie also described ministers focusing on targets as not enough.

“It’s been clear for a long time now that Scotland is not on track to reach that target,” he said.

“The truth is that we are not where we should be – we are years behind on actually taking action to reduce emissions. Targets do not reduce emissions.”

Mr Harvie branded some of the rhetoric “self-congratulatory”, and said: “Other parties which voted for targets voted against the actions.”

Mr Harvie also appeared to hint at concerns over his own future, when asked if his leadership was on the line.

He said: “That’s a very obvious question, but it’s probably the least important question.”

The interview also saw the Glasgow MP decline to condemn comments by his colleague Ross Greer labelling the Cass Review a "transphobic Conservative report".He said: “While some people would like to pretend that puberty blockers are being handed out like sweeties, we are talking about a very small number of young people, who at the moment will be feeling devastated that they won't have access to the healthcare they need, so first of all, our thoughts are with them. When it comes to the Cass Report, it's very clearly been politicised by those trying to abolish trans people’s healthcare, trans people's rights, and exclude trans people from a whole host of public spaces.

“Not only the Scottish Greens, but the Scottish Government are not part of that culture war against trans people.

“It is so reminiscent of the homophobia of the 1980s and 1990s".

Asked if he accepted the report as a scientific document, he said: "I've seen far too many criticisms of the report to be able to say that".

The Scottish Conservatives accused Mr Harvie of failing to take responsibility for his party’s “shameful record in government”.

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