THE Scottish and UK Governments are ‘crap’ at collaborating on tackling climate change, MSPs have been told.
Chris Stark, the chief executive of the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), told Holyrood’s environment committee that both Edinburgh and London had to “be better all round”.
He said there should be a mechanism allowing Westminster and Holyrood to discuss policies that will affect the ability of each to hit net-zero targets.
The separation of powers in the devolution settlement means each Government is reliant on the other to enact policies that will help bring greenhouse gases down to net-zero.
The target is by 2045 in Scotland and 2050 in the rest of the UK.
Asked by the committee convener Gillian Martin about the crossover between two administrations, Mr Stark was frank.
He said: "Both Governments are crap at this. I think this is something that we have to be better at all round.
"It should not be the case that only the CCC takes an integrated view of the challenges across the UK, and yet it is.
"There is no basis for the Scottish Government to raise legitimate concerns with the UK Government on what's happening at Westminster level and some of the matters that will help to achieve the Scottish targets, and vice versa."
The CCC is an independent body set up as a result of the 2008 Climate Change Act to advise the Governments of the UK on the best way to fight global warming.
Referring to the UN COP26 conference in Glasgow in November, he added: "We're hosting the world's climate summit this year and I can tell you know that the climate doesn't give a monkey's about these constitutional and institutional boundaries.
"We have to be better at discussing this and we have to have a place to do that - whether its a clearing house or a discussion point where there is a real discussion about the strategy overall. That doesn't happen."
While he accepted there were some mechanisms for dialogue between the Governments, Mr Stark said these were not the places for the discussion of long-term climate targets.
He said: "There aren't the strong links between departments in Whitehall and the Scottish Government that used to be there ten years ago. That needs to be reconstituted."
The former director of Energy and Climate Change in the Scottish Government, Mr Stark said when he took up his current post he enjoyed a much better relationship with Whitehall than he had previously, something he insists "shouldn't be like that".
He added: "That needs fundamental attention and we have to get past it because it's going to become a real barrier.
"We need to very, very rapidly have a proper place where we can set aside these political disagreements, which are all valid of course, and get into the nitty-gritty about how you're going to deliver a strategy over the next three decades which gets the UK as a whole to net zero and gets Scotland there by 2045. Time is running out for that."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here