The First South of Business is a debate on motion 4.5.34, in the name of Graham Day on behalf of the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee, on reports on draft climate change plan. The draft third report on policies and proposals can ask those members who wish to speak in debate to press the request to speak buttons now. Timing is tight—I say this at the start—so I call on Graham Day to speak to and move the motion on yn Maeech L Rollhood i'w Llanéta Mell Cymru i ddystiwni Gweithgol, Leanne Mackaywch yn fayr o'r sgwrs yn gleirio fanr laisseron!  Ieithi'n ddiwedd o'r ddwelltyn nhu'n ddweud, o'r ddweud i gweithreu eu ddweud yn y credible ni gael yr amgylchedd grynsgolol fwyaf arall yn ddod. Diolch i'r ddweud ar y cyflogion gyda chi oedd teidlo yn cael symud i'ch gyflogion i greu hwy gyda'i ddweud o ddweud, oedden nhw'n iddyn nhw i gael yr yma, oedden nhw'n I look forward to hearing committee members' expanded upon this in the course of the afternoon and hearing the thoughts of other committees. The process undertaken by the environment committee has produced a number of clear recommendations for improving the draft plan. Given that the Government aided the scrutiny process by delaying publication of the draft to maximise the time available to committees and the Cabinet Secretary for the Environment is on record saying that she will not only engage further and deeper with stakeholders but carefully consider the best time to finalise the plan to ensure the views of the whole of the parliamentary scrutiny process can be taken on board, then we look forward to our views being given appropriate consideration. We are also looking for the Government to seek advice from the UKCCC in moving to the final iteration of the plan. Let me reflect further the overall thinking of the committee and identify some of the specific areas where we believe changes are required. The committee are concerned that the method of development of the carbon on-votes is inconsistent and a number of sectors, transport, agriculture, waste and land used, were modelled out with the times framework. The times model also does not consider wider benefits and the draft plan is unclear on the extent to which abatement potential has influenced the inclusion of policies. While broadly welcoming the principle of a whole system approach, the committee do not consider the times model and the development of the carbon on-votes to have been sufficiently structured, formalised or consistent to deliver us. There is a lack of clarity and transparency in the draft plan around the information that was fed into and produced by the times model, which meant that the members were constrained in their ability to fully scrutinise and express confidence in the policies and proposals that have been advocated. It is the view of the committee that agriculture and transport, the sectors that have made least progress in cutting emissions, are not being asked to make the significant leaps anticipated by the UKCCC and stakeholders. We believe that the emission reductions required of each sector should be equally challenging. It is our view that this is not the case with two. Therefore, the committee recommends that the Scottish Government revise the carbon on-votes for transport and agriculture to show greater ambition. Although a monitoring and evaluation framework that is described in the draft plan, the committee do not consider the suite of policies and proposals that are currently presented are given the lack of a company in detail and data capable of smart analysis and propose that the Scottish Government should include further specific and consistent information across all policies and proposals in the final plan to ensure that there is clarity in the pathways to delivery. That would increase confidence in the robustness and achievability of the plan and lay a clear way forward for committees to scrutinise progress made through the intended annual updates on progress, an approach to the committee very much welcomes. It would be our hope that all relevant successor committees would see it as part of their work programme to look at those update reports on an annual basis. In terms of the future of the committee, while recognising the impact of the electoral cycle believes that the Scottish Government should be mindful not to be running in tandem, consultations on strategy which impact on RPPs because of the difficulty created in determining how those ultimately might impact the plan. In this instance, it was unavoidable that the consultation of the draft energy strategy was taking place in parallel, but it is not ideal. We would look for the final RPP 3 to say explicitly how the results of the draft energy strategy consultation have contributed to the plan and clarified the relationship between the plan and all other relevant national strategies. The committee further considered that it is unclear in the plan whether assumptions such as the development and implementation of CCSs are supported by alternatives should the assumptions that have been made proved to have been overly optimistic is our view. The final plan should, through remodelling, set out an alternative plan B. The committee also believed that the final climate change plan should be accompanied by information on the output of an additional times model run, which emphasises alternative car traffic growth assumptions and with a greater emphasis on moral shift, although behaviour change has been considered and included in the draft plan. Its application in policies and proposals is omitted or inconsistent. That should be addressed in the final plan. Unfortunately, it was only after the committee had agreed its report that it finally secured clarity of the position that is being taken around the soil testing and how the Government intended to take this strand of the plan forward. The committee's view is that soil testing of improved land only must be compulsory and the plan should be amended to reflect that. However, compulsory testing should be introduced in a phased way and supported by the availability of guidance and advice, not only in relation to testing but how the information going should then be deployed. Soil testing in itself will not deliver a contribution to tackle climate change, it is how the results are then deployed, which has that potential. On dealt with the land that we turn to the sea briefly, and I highlight a further call from the committee asking that the final climate change plan contains policies and proposals on blue carbon. The committee notes that it has been the practice to present the final plan prior to the summer recess of the parliamentary year. However, given the issues that are identified by the stakeholders in the various committees, we concur with the Cabinet Secretary for the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform that the priority should be consideration of matters raised by the scrutiny process rather than any immediate deadline. We commit to working with the Government to ensure that the plan realises its potential. I apologise that I moved the motion in my name. The whole world is waking up to climate change and the impact on the way we live our lives in the future. It is not only the environment that is at risk if we do not face up to it, but the world economy as we know it. Some of the most promising growth markets across the globe are grappling with the fact that they are some of the most at risk when it comes to the consequences of global warming. They could literally see profits washed away by the forces of nature if action is not taken not at the moment, sorry. Climate change increasingly poses one of the biggest long-term threats to investments in the wealth of the global economy. That was the view of Christiana Fugueres at the time executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, instrumental in forming the Paris Climate Agreement. It is so that the Economy, Jobs and Fair Work Committee is taking part in this debate today. In fact, many aspects of the draft climate change plan are within that committee's remit, which, given that the remit also includes energy, covers quite a lot of ground, which I cannot hope to address in a few minutes here today. I want to touch on a few issues that the committee considered, including transparency, timescale and behaviour change. We welcome the whole system approach of the times model. However, that cannot be at the expense of the level of detail that was included in previous climate plans. Do not just take our word for it, Deputy Presiding Officer. We defer to the authority of the stern review of the economics of climate change, which encouraged caution and humility in all modelling, reminding us that results are always specific to the model and its assumptions. The evidence that we heard was that even a whole system offers only a partial insight, so ambitions should not be confused with wishful thinking. A snazzier title is one thing, but the information that is fed into the model has not been proffered, nor the waiting afforded to delivery costs and disruption. The plan should detail budgets, targets and timelines, as well as policies, not only for our benefit but for those tasked with delivery of the plan. What would be helpful to know is the inputs for certain sectors and how they were formulated. Lesser targets for some put pressure on others such as electricity, services and housing. They are told to cut emissions by 120 per cent, 96 per cent and 76 per cent respectively, while transport and agriculture are asked for 31 per cent and 12 per cent, yet together the two produce 28 per cent fall greenhouse gas emissions. Suffice to say that the Scottish Government has not shown its workings, and neither has it given much of a clue as to the content of Scotland's energy efficiency programme, which is called SEAP, by its friends. It is said to be key to ministerial thinking on climate change, but much of the plan's success to stop climate chaos Scotland relies on a programme that does not yet exist. One wonders, Deputy Presiding Officer, do androids dream of an energy efficiency future? This is something that the committee will return to in our scrutiny of the draft energy strategy, SEAP that is not the androids, at least not yet. The time scale is my next theme. The Stern review said that climate change was the greatest and widest-ranging market failure ever seen, that delay would be costly and dangerous. The committee in this regard supports the move towards low-carbon heat. Pace of change is however what concerns us, with so little apparently happening before 2025. We do appreciate that technologies are evolving, but transforming our housing stock and the public and commercial sectors all in seven years surely more can be done to frontload some of that work. My final theme is behaviour change, not altering, not attuning, not adjusting, but major non-marginal change in how we consume energy. Again, I am afraid that we found detail in short supply. Scottish Renewables underscored the need for buy-in of support from individuals and institutions alike. It is unclear, they said, how we achieve that without clear and concise messages. The final plan must deliver those messages. Governments can be a catalyst for dialogue through evidence, education, persuasion and discussion. Again, that is what the Stern review said, this time more than a decade ago. I want to end where I began. Our economies and the necessities of life are under threat. Access to water, production of food, the very air that we breathe. The next chapter of the story is for us to write, but we must write it. I call Bob Doris to speak on behalf of the Local Government and Communities Committee. I welcome the opportunity to talk on behalf of the Local Government and Communities Committee on the draft climate change plan. The focus of our scrutiny was on the local government and communities, of course, as you would expect, planning and the residential sector. I also want to pay tribute to the work of fellow committees to scrutinise the plan also. Together, we have ensured proper scrutiny of this important plan to help Scotland which is world-leading climate change targets despite a very challenging 60-day timetable. In relation to that, I also thank the clerking team from my committee, Presiding Officer, as well as all those who gave written and oral evidence to our committee. It is a challenging time for local government, given competing priorities. We highlight that the Scottish Government must work with councils to ensure that they are properly resourced to develop climate change leadership. It should also support local government to embed climate change considerations into procurement procedures and practices. There is clearly significant opportunity there. From the community sector, we heard concerns that there was a lack of focus on how communities and community empowerment agenda could contribute to climate change abatement. We also felt that there should be more of an emphasis on how the Scottish Government will drive behaviour change in those communities where climate change is a lower priority yet another opportunity. Both issues should be addressed in the final version of the plan. The plan recognises the vital contribution that the spatial planning process can play in climate change abatement. However, there was a lack of information on specific policies in relation to how the planning sector would contribute to targets. That made it slightly difficult to scrutinise the Government's plans in relation to planning. However, we note that further detail will be brought forward following the Scottish Government's consultation on the planning process. We highlight that the Scottish Government should consider strengthening the final version of the plan to show how it will use the planning system to encourage more active and sustainable modes of travel, protect green space land, direct development instead on to brownfield sites. On a more general point, we were concerned to hear of resourcing issues in the planning system. We have asked for further information on how the Scottish Government will work with local authorities to ensure that planners and key decision makers have the right skillsets to ensure that climate change impact is properly considered in all decisions relating to planning. In terms of the residential sector, we welcome the ambitious targets for the sector, although many of the policies and proposals in relation to the residential sector are still out for consultation, making it difficult for us to scrutinise plans for the sector in any great detail. That includes the Scottish energy efficiency plan, which will underpin most of the measures within the housing sector. Its consultation is due to close in spring alongside consultations on the draft energy strategy and regulation of district heating. Given its importance to Scotland meeting its targets, it was disappointing that those were not consulted on and finalised for the publication of the plan itself. However, we have requested that those strategic documents are linked strategically across future iterations of the said plan. We also heard evidence on the accuracy and consistency of the EPC rating system. However, we are aware that the Scottish Government, alongside the UK Government, are reviewing the process and would expect to receive regular updates in that area. One of the major issues raised was the slow progress and transferring regulation in the private residential sector from a proposal to a policy since the last climate change plan. The minister has confirmed to us that it will begin a consultation on the regulation in the private rented sector this month and will bring forward a timescale for consulting in the other occupier sector when it launches. We welcome that commitment, but we would like an explanation as to why progress has been slow. That leads to concerns around how the ambitious targets for decarbonisation of the household heating networks will be met. We heard how that will be largely reliant on changing technologies, decisions of the UK Government and policies and procedures that will drive behaviour change and potentially regulatory measures. Finally, we heard about the successful Scottish area-based approach to the home energy efficiency programme. It has been a success story. The programme has allowed local authorities to maximise its share of UK funding to install home external and internal wall insulation on a large-scale basis. Such measures are known to benefit health and assist in alleviating fuel poverty. It was concerning to hear that some felt that there was a lack of emphasis in the programme in the plan, particularly given the ambitious figures that are presented for installations going forward. We have asked the minister for comments on how the programme would be funded and delivered post 2021. The ambitious targets highlight the Scottish Government's intention to be a world leader in reducing climate change, and that is to be welcomed. Our committee intends to play a substantial role in holding the Government to account for its performance and, of course, working in partnership with it, and we will continue to closely follow the Scottish Government's progress towards meeting targets in areas that are in its remit. Thank you very much. I call Edward Mountain to speak on behalf of the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Before I go any further, I would like to refer members to my register of interest. I would like to start off by thanking everyone who gave evidence to the committee and also to the committee and our clerks for all the hard work that they did in the scrutiny of the plan. The Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee struggled to scrutinise the draft climate change plan within the 60 days that are allowed. We concluded that the time allowed was too short and a minimum of 120 days would allow better and proper scrutiny. Given the tight timescales, we looked at three specific areas—agriculture, transport and forestry. It is worth noting, as Mr Day has already said, that those areas do not fall within the times energy model. The emissions envelopes for agriculture, forestry and transport were developed separately and added to the model, which is far from ideal. That raises additional issues, such as no baseline data or the details of specific emissions attributable to each policy. Secondly, there is a significant lack of financial information provided in the draft plan. Thirdly, there is a lack of monitoring and evaluation framework and smart targets. Given the very shortness of the time that we have to debate this this afternoon, I would like to look at some of the key findings in each area. First of all, agriculture contributes 23 per cent of the total emissions and is the third largest contributor in Scotland. The committee heard that the agriculture is a difficult sector to decarbonise, which is why it has the lowest reduction target. Some said that it was not ambitious enough and lacked detail. We accepted as a committee in order to achieve climate change targets that the goodwill of farmers and land managers was and is important. We accepted also that much of the historical good works undertaken by farmers has not been acknowledged or quantified. I would like to pick up on one particular issue, which is soil fertility. Much is often made of nitrogen, phosphorus and potash use. We heard also in the committee about the importance of soil structure and that that needs long-term management in investment. The committee accepted the need to encourage all farmers to test the soils on improved land in rotation. We also heard that to ensure investment by tenant farmers that they need to be compensated at Wago for the extra work that they put in to keeping the soils in good condition. The committee believes that to ensure a positive contribution to climate change and also to increasing production, we need to take farmers with us. During this scrutiny, there was discussion whether soil testing should be voluntary or mandatory. The committee agreed that voluntary measures were appropriate at this stage. Turning, if I may, to transport, is the second-largest contributor and accounts to 28 per cent of Scotland's total admissions. The committee welcomed the Scottish Government's goal to be free from harmful tail-fight emissions by 2050. However, the committee recognised that, since 1990, progress in admission reductions from the transport sector had been largely offset by increases in demand. It therefore gives recommendation that further consideration is given to policies that will control demand and try to encourage a modal shift away from the use of private cars. The draft climate change plan focuses on ways in which technological developments will reduce transport emissions. That includes incentivising more rapid uptake of electric and ultra-low-emission cars, enhancing the electric vehicle charging networks and the electrification of rail networks. Witnesses raised concern that the plan is overly reliant on the uptake of lower-emission vehicles, and there are a number of assumptions about technological improvements. For example, it is assumed that battery costs will reduce and that there will only be 27 per cent traffic growth by 2030. The committee were not convinced that those were right, and if they are not right, the transport targets are unlikely to be achieved. We also heard that there had been little progress made in relation to active travel. With Scottish Transport statistics showing that, in 2015, only 1 per cent of journeys were by bike, which is well below the 2020 ambition of the Government of 10 per cent. The figure has remained stubbornly at the 1 per cent figure since 2003. The committee believes that walking and cycling has an important contribution to make in reducing carbon emissions, and the Government needs now to set out clearly how it intends to meet the target by 2020 that it has set itself. Turning, if I may, briefly to forestry. Approximately 1.4 million hectares of woodland in Scotland is in woodland, that is 18 per cent of the total land area. That is less than the EU average of 40 per cent. While 70 per cent of this woodland is populated with conifers, which can be used for production, the remainder is being broadleaved. Progress since the last climate change plan in 2013 has been painfully slow, and the Scottish Government has failed to meet its forestry targets every year. Last year, for example, 4,500 hectares were planted against a target of 10,000 hectares. We heard that some of those failures are attributable to the grant structure and the application process, and the committee heard that the McKinnon report may well streamline the forestry industry to help to achieve those planting targets, and it hopes that that is the case. It will, after all, be up to the Government to ensure that the targets are met. There were other issues turning to timber and the right tree in the right place, but I will leave that for people to read in the report. In conclusion, the committee looks forward to the Government's response to our report and the points raised by us, and to see how it will feature in the final climate change plan. The conveners and members of the four committees for all the work done in their scrutiny of the draft climate change plan. I would like to thank all those who provided evidence to the committees and help them in their work. A draft plan is to be turned into a final plan, and I will give an update on that progress before the summer recess, even albeit that the final plan itself will not come until later. The draft plan is building on strong foundations. The 2009 act set a target of 42 per cent emissions reductions by 2020. Instead, by 2014, emissions had already been reduced by 45.8 per cent, meaning that we have exceeded the original target six years early. That is second only to Sweden's record of success, and we should be immensely proud of that achievement. Neither should we forget it. However, we are not resting on our laurels. The draft plan sets out how we will continue to drive down emissions by the equivalent of 66 per cent by 2032. We will, of course, be introducing a new climate change bill to raise that ambition even further in the light of the Paris agreement. As well as maintaining our high ambition and preparing for increased ambition in the future, the draft plan builds on our success so far. I went through the contents of the plan in the chamber eight weeks ago, so I am not going to attempt to do so again today. It is action on the ground that matters. Were that in mind? I wonder if the minister can tell us whether the Government's proposed air passenger duty reduction will help when it is estimated that 60,000 tonnes of carbon extra will be pumped into the atmosphere? It is built into the overall targets of the plan and the question has been asked and answered so many times. I am beginning to wonder if Mike Rumbles needs to see somebody about his hearing. I want to go back to action on the ground. Yesterday, I visited the Red Moss in Belernau to see an example of peatland restoration not far from Edinburgh. I also opened applications for the Government's £8 million action fund that will help us to deliver on the climate change plan's commitment to restore 250,000 hectares of peatlands by 2032. I am glad to see that commitment being welcomed in the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee report. Turning to the committee reports in more detail, there was broad support expressed for the whole system approach that we took to developing the draft climate change plan. That is important because the draft plan was developed using an approach that does differ from the previous two plans or reports on policies and proposals. I know that this model and our use of it has been a theme in at least one committee's scrutiny of the plan. In my view, using the times model represents a significant step forward in the Government's carbon planning. It has allowed us to get a real handle on the costs of emission reduction and, for the first time, allowed us to make consistent judgments about where best to focus our efforts. I think that we may be the first Government to use this internationally recognised modelling framework to develop a carbon plan in a live political setting. It has been a steep learning curve as we have worked through the plan's development, and the committees, of course, have been on the same learning curve. This new approach does differ from that used in the previous two reports. That might be frustrating, particularly when the information produced by the modelling is different to it before. That does not mean that the approach is wrong and that we should not persevere with it. Some committees have expressed concern—I am sorry, I have a minute less than I was originally told I had, so I must press on. Some committees have expressed concern about a lack of information on alternative scenarios in the draft plan. Looking even 15 years into the future is not easy, given the political and technological uncertainties that we face. The reports contain a number of recommendations on including different scenarios in the final plan, and certainly some additional scenarios may be helpful. However, we would need to choose carefully to avoid turning the plan into a think-tank report. Throughout the development of the plan, I have been clear that I envisaged that all sectors would play their part. That does not mean equal reductions across the board, but that we balance the relative costs of reduction in each sector against other benefits of the policies, such as improvements in health, as well as the need to take full advantage of the business opportunities offered by the plan and the economic importance of each sector. The carbon envelope for transport is a good case in point. Our judgment did differ from the Committee on Climate Change. Our approach has been developed using robust external research that has been published in full by Transport Scotland. The message of that research was that reducing emissions from transport is a long-term project. That is something that we have said since the publication of the original delivery plan in 2009. It is important to recognise that the demand for transport is shaped by the operation of the economy by commerce rather than commuting. Accomodating that demand is an important plank in strengthening our economy, and that has been an important consideration in setting the transport envelope. Important behaviour change is that it cannot offer anywhere near the same level of abatement as it can advance in vehicle technology. It is our view that the emphasis on technology is correct. That said, this Government is committed to delivering our manifesto commitment on low-emission zones for both its impact on emissions and its health benefits from improved air quality. We will also continue to explore other approaches to behaviour change. The draft plan sets out our plans to encourage a switch to active travel and public transport. Agriculture is another area where we have been encouraged to look again at our ambition. We will consider that recommendation alongside all those made by the committees. However, the rural economy committee's recognition that in order to achieve climate change targets, the goodwill of farmers and land managers must be ensured is something that we cannot simply ignore. We know that emissions from agriculture are more difficult to reduce than those in other sectors. That is because the vast bulk of those emissions are from biological sources, fundamental to food production, and only a small proportion is a result of energy use. We have touched upon technology already, and I would like to return to the wider issue of the reliance of the draft plan on what some people have called technical fixes. It is pretty obvious that a plan stretching 15 years forward and involving a number of decisions that will have infrastructure implications far longer lasting than a decade and a half cannot avoid considering new technologies. I have already committed the Government to seriously consider the recommendations on alternative technological scenarios as we develop the final plan. I will also consider how we can add more transparency to our plan by being explicit about when key decisions on infrastructure, such as the future of the gas network in Scotland, are anticipated. A similar approach can be taken to key milestones in the development of technologies such as carbon capture and storage and at what stage we would need to activate fallback plans if milestones are missed. It is obvious that we need a clear monitoring framework and that I have committed to developing it and reporting it every year on progress. I have already told my officials to seek to agree a common approach with the Committee on Climate Change and to ensure that engagement continues. Our draft plan has given us a clear vision of the nature of the changes that will need to happen across Scotland to deliver our ambitious targets. We now need to consider Parliament's recommendations, produce the final version of the plan and, most important, we all need to work together to reduce emissions. Well done, cabinet secretary. You have been misinformed by timing not by our office, I do not think, so I now move on to call Alexander Burnett, please, to open on behalf of the Conservatives. Seven minutes, please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I agree that maybe the timing communications have not been correctly sent out to us. Indeed, I will endeavour to be on time. Before I start, I would like to inform a chamber of my register of interests, especially those in relation to renewable energy. With that being my first time through the process of a committee response to a Government paper, I must say that I have found the process most encouraging. The unanimity of the committees in their criticism of the Scottish Government's climate change plan has made for a refreshing change. However, according to the Economy, Jobs and Fair Work Committee, the plan lacks transparency. I will not be taking any interventions since the time has been reduced. According to our Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee, it lacks credibility. According to the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee, it lacks accountability. According to the Local Government Committee, it places an over-reliance on technology. We have seen whether the Scottish Government wants to go on climate change and we support that ambition. However, the lack of a credible plan on how we achieve that ambition is more than concerning. We are also supportive of a times model that is used to inform that strategy and we would agree that it is an excellent model. It is just unfortunate that the Scottish Government has chosen not to use it properly. With 50 per cent of carbon coming from transport and agriculture, those two sectors were decided outside of the model, skewing the assessment on those sectors and as a result denigrating the model as a whole. We can only hope that in future uses of the model, these emissions will be corrected. Similarly, we look forward to the release of the model to universities, which will allow open-source examination of the data inputs and outputs, something that the committee repeatedly requested and deemed necessary to allow proper transparency of a strategy, a point also noted by friends of the earth. However, the transparency of a strategy is not the only problem that suffers from. It is also clear and supported by Transform Scotland that the climate change strategy is too dependent on technology and factors beyond the Scottish Government's control. When I put this to the cabinet secretary at committee a few weeks ago, she was dismissive and spoke of great advances in technology to save the plan. Now, this may be applicable when talking about mobile phones, but I would contend that such changes are not as easily made in large infrastructure projects such as installing distant heating, repurposing the gas grid or insulating Scotland's hard-to-treat homes. This requirement for technological improvements does not inspire confidence and makes the strategy unreliable. Take, for example, the Scottish Government's emissions reduction pathway for residential property. The residential sector is estimated to account for 15 per cent of Scotland's total emissions this year and its share is growing. It is therefore vital that we get this right. The target, according to the strategy, aims to decrease emissions by 84 per cent by 2032. However, that is back-loaded with only 16 per cent of that target being sought in the first eight years, leaving the remaining 84 per cent to be achieved in the second half. A trajectory so tainted by its formation that we can only assume that its architects are not playing on being around for its inevitable failure. It should come as no surprise then that Scottish renewables have questioned the strategy regarding the target to supply 80 per cent of domestic properties with low-carbon heat technologies in 2025. That is a leap going from 18 per cent to 80 per cent in just eight years. Given that almost 80 per cent of homes are currently supplied by mains gas, that will require a huge step change in delivery. I initially thought that this ambition would be achieved through district heating, but the cabinet secretary of the other week was more focused on repurposing the existing gas grid. For those who are not familiar with what that will entail, it will mean substituting the current methane gas with hydrogen, technically both feasible and desirable. However, it will require huge volumes of hydrogen to be produced. If that is to come from electrolysis and electricity from renewables, then that is neither clear nor currently economically efficient. If, however, it is to come from conventional gas from the North Sea, with the resulting carbon return using carbon capture and storage, then it places a heavy reliance on what is currently a developing technology. Far be it from me to be cynical about this approach, but I might hazard a guess that, with the Scottish Government placing all its target eggs in one basket, it will be no surprise to guess who will be blamed for their failure. Furthermore, the Scottish Government has not matched the Scottish Conservatives' call for a transformational change in energy efficiency, failing to set a target of all homes reaching EPC band C by the end of the next decade. I feel that it is only right to remind the chamber of our own manifesto commitment to spend 10 per cent of the capital budget on making homes energy efficient. That would have been a cumulative £1 billion over the course of the Parliament, whereas the Scottish Government's latest programme for government only commits half a billion over the next four years to its C programme. However, the EPC system is also in need of reform. It is clearly evident that the market has no confidence in the EPC system since its inception in 2009. We see the same house receiving three different EPC ratings depending on who comes out to do it, and a tick sheet is not enough to establish whether or not a house has proper insulation or not. We should be using these EPC ratings as a springboard for green mortgages and encouraging investors to buy energy-efficient homes. I have already said that I am not going to take any inferences with the time allowed. We have also promised to support district heating schemes. Government has a responsibility to lead and not be led. That strategy has no such plans. How can we expect companies to invest in such schemes when the Scottish Government cannot be bothered to deploy its system in its Victoria key buildings—a location prime for district heating? From stakeholders across party committees, it is clear that the Scottish Government has made massive assumptions on technological externalities over which it has no control. We simply cannot rely on someone to reinvent the wheel to hit our climate change targets. The majority of goals and the strategy are infested with back-daked targets and biblical-like reductions coming decades away. We need a clearer plan. I do not want to get any more signals from members. Can I say that the open debate is five minutes? The revised timings were agreed at the bureau on Tuesday and conveyed to business managers, including the business manager for Parliament. There you go. Don't anybody else ask me how long they've got? Open five minutes. Claudia Beamish knows that you've got six minutes. Would you open please for Labour? I want to start by recognising the significance of this climate change plan, which builds on the work of all parties from the Climate Change Act leading through the first two reports and beyond this one to our new climate change bill. This debate is an essential contribution to the focusing of the collective mind of the Scottish Government on changes that are recommended in the four committee reports. Reporting directly to our Parliament is testament to the mainstreaming of climate change. Scottish Labour also recognises the robust advice and support that is given to our committee by the UK Committee on Climate Change. Our own committee's responsibility for scrutinising the governance and the future monitoring and evaluation of the plan is a weighty one. I want to thank our clerks and SPICE for fulfilling the challenging role of supporting us so effectively. I also want to thank all those who gave written submissions and contributed evidence sessions, which has helped the committee to hone our thoughts. However, if the final CCP is to be truly at the core of all policies and proposals across Government, our committee recommendation that it states explicitly how the results of the draft energy strategy will contribute to the final plan must be acted on. There are synergies between the plan and the energy strategy, including my private member's bill to ban onshore fracking for climate change reasons. The jobs opportunities for renewables and energy efficiency and related manufacturing and the circular economy must be underpinned by a just transition for workers and communities. Also, the committee recommends that the Scottish Government make the relationship between the CCP and other strategies such as the national planning framework, the infrastructure investment plan and the land use strategy more explicit. The committee does have some serious concerns and some unanswered questions about the times model. Only a persistent questioning of the Scottish Government did it emerge that as much as 40, if not more per cent of the sectoral assessment, it was not done through the whole system model. We also stated, as our convener Graham Day highlighted, that there is a lack of clarity and transparency in the draft plan surrounding the information that was fed in and produced by the times model. That has meant, indeed, that scrutiny has been challenging. The committee recommends that the Scottish Government revise the carbon envelopes for transport and agriculture to show greater ambition. Those being two of our heaviest emitters. Whatever policy is put in, the times model, as I understand it, pushes out the costings for. I asked the cabinet secretary to carefully consider whether social inclusion and the pathway in her own words to the most beneficial pathway for the people of Scotland has been adequately accounted for in the assessment of every sector. Transport is a stark example of this, where a techie approach has been fed in, the shift to low emissions vehicles and the arguments put forward for that, to tackle projected increases in road traffic of 27 per cent by 2030. Why is there no complementary modelling assessing the costs of planning more infrastructure for walking and cycling with the associated support for behaviour change? That would produce healthy options and cut congestion, multi-benefits. While, of course, we need to shift to low carbon vehicles for commercial reasons and the economy, we also need a modal shift to active travel, and I ask for a rethink on this by the cabinet secretary. Our committee also has a sectoral focus on land use, peatlands, marinas use, the public sector and waste. Graham Day has emphasised the importance of peatlands to the picture, and we now have an understanding of this, which was developed since a marker in RPP 1 through international and domestic approaches of research collaborations leading to specific policies funded by the Scottish Government. That is in stark contrast to the failure to push forward on the contribution of blue carbon, which was in RPP 2 and is quite shockingly emitted from this draft plan. On questioning, Scottish Government officials acknowledge that this will be remedied in the final plan, and this is one of the committee recommendations. We stress also the importance of the circular economy, and in contrast to the REC committee, we also recommend a staged move to compulsory soil testing on improved land. That must be supported with clear criteria and advice to be incremental. It is a means to an end. I also highlight the importance of the REC committee calls for consideration of organic farming and strongly support this as a biological contribution. The contribution of the public sector is also vital. With mandatory reporting duties, leadership and peer support will be key, and the contribution already made by some of the sector is to be lauded. The letter from Stephen Hagan of COSLA to the cabinet secretary is most encouraging. Children now in primary 1 will be in their early 20s when the final policies and proposals for this plan are actioned. In conclusion, the vision that we now create for the way forward will need regular checking against the development of technologies that have not even been invented yet. As those children move towards and settle down in adult life in an utterly changed world of work and leisure, the plan must prove to be just for our society here in Scotland. If they are to live in a Scotland where our communities are protected from flooding with warm housing and good green surroundings and connectivity, there must be robust monitoring and evaluation, and this is a framework eight years in the making. I listen to what the cabinet secretary is saying on this, but it must be the foundation of policy making, and it is vital that there is clarity in the pathways to delivery as we go forward in our climate change plan. Mark Russel will follow by Liam McArthur, Mr Russel, please. Can I start by thanking the clerks, spies, witnesses and members of all the four committees who have contributed to the scrutiny? I am particularly proud to be associated with the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform report, crafted under the strong journalistic guidance of our convener. I am left with a sense of frustration with the climate plan, because in many ways it is a plan that could join things up, break us out of silo thinking and allowed shared action across government and society. The lack of transparency about what individual policies will achieve in carbon reduction and the uncertainty about what steps are needed to deliver those policies means that it feels disconnected from practical action. So, while there is some welcome clarity about the contribution that forestry and peatland restoration will make and what effort will be needed each year to achieve this, in other areas it is far more opaque. We had the comments in the committee from the cabinet secretary for climate that we will only know what carbon reductions, electric vehicles, for example, will deliver when they are actually on the roads, but whether those are the best policy choices at this stage remains a mystery. Agriculture and transport were modelled outside of times, so they were fixed at the outset while other sectors got plugged into the model to work through what was left and ended up in many cases with more challenging targets. I am not saying that carbon targets should necessarily be equal across all sectors, but they must be equally challenging. That is where we have some problems with the plan. Let me turn to agriculture. We were warned by the UK Climate Change Committee that agriculture could overtake energy as a carbon emitter. A compulsory soil testing regime was recommended as a simple but effective action to lower fertiliser wastage. I was promised by a cabinet secretary for climate in this chamber that soil testing would be compulsory when this plan was launched, only then for our rural cabinet secretary to clarify that that was not the case. The fear around that seems to be that that would be burdensome for farmers. In the words of Fergus Ewing, we must not jeopardise the goodwill of the custodians of the countryside, but what exactly is the concern here? The cost of soil testing on a five-year cycle is just 22 pence per hectare per year. What a bargain price for a stable climate. When farmers are spending around £70 per hectare per year, I have not got time and fortune. I have only got five minutes, unless I can get it back at the end. I will take the intervention. I absolutely understand the need for soil testing. Most farmers are doing soil testing, but the fact is that it is about the soil structure and what you do with the soil testing. There is no point in forcing soil testing if you do not do anything with the results. Exactly. It is a starting point. If we understand the structure and the quality of our soils, we can then take some action. Let me tell you about the type of action that we need, because farmers are spending around £70 per hectare per year on arable fertilizer, so delivering efficiency savings—we reckon that by tackling pH, we can get 20 per cent of efficiency savings—will save their money. Applying lime to meet the target pH would involve only the most basic invoice record-keeping that any farmer could manage as part of a regime of cross-compliance. To be honest, it is fruit that is so low-hanging that it is rotting on the ground. We just need to get on and deliver it. I think that any knowledgeable farmer in this chamber will know. Transport is another unequally challenging sector that we have heard from flintmen. I am sorry, why are you on your feet? Oh, it's a point of order. I didn't hear that. Yes, Mr Mountain, let me hear it. Presiding Officer, I don't mind being called a lot of things, but by inferring that I'm not a responsible farmer by what he said, I think that he's actually verging on being rude. Would you care to modify it?  No, you don't get another 20 seconds for modification. The word that she said was any knowledgeable farmer. I would assume that the member is a knowledgeable farmer and therefore needs to engage with the debate. Let me come to transport and see if we can get any more interventions. It's another unequally challenging sector. We've heard conflicting views on the assumption that our vehicle mileage will go up by over a quarter in the 2030s. The Minister for Transport says that this is the worst-case scenario if we sit on our hands while the Cabinet Secretary for Climate believes there will be less growth in passenger traffic, more growth in vans and lorries connected with the economy. What's lacking is the range of more optimistic scenarios from the element energy report that should be plugged into time. We know that those exist, Presiding Officer. What we do know is that the last prediction in the 2006 transport strategy prepared us for increased traffic levels of around a quarter that in reality ended up at only 5 per cent. I'm concerned that, once again, we've got to predict and provide approach to accommodating phantom traffic growth rather than a clear focus on traffic reduction. The technological fix of electric cars has its place, and there's room for more ambition here, but EVs alone will not deliver transport justice nor the safer, less congested streets that communities need. The toolbox of policies needed to get modal shift from workplace parking levees, walking cycling infrastructure, urban speed limit reduction and the roll-out of more local emission zones and focus on increasing bus use are not explicit in the plan. My colleague Andy Wightman will focus more on the energy sectors, but it's clear that there's still much more to do to produce a plan that's fit for a low-carbon future. I urge the Scottish Government to take time to consider recommendations carefully before submitting its final plan. I start by declaring that I'm interested in someone in receipt of micro renewables support. Last week, I got four minutes on biodiversity. This week, it's five minutes on climate change. It feels like environmental speed dating, which may make it difficult to take interventions, but a way of compensation can I pay tribute to the work of all four committees and those who gave evidence to them for the diligence of their work and the seriousness of their recommendations. As all four conveners pointed out, they covered a wide range of policy areas, but it seems to me to be a common theme to all. The draft plan falls short on ambition, on transparency, on credibility and on measurability. That seems to be the clear message from all four committees, as well as many of the stakeholders from whom they heard. I welcome the fact that Roseanna Cunningham has clarified that she will update Parliament ahead of the summer recess, but it is perhaps regrettable that we have very little time to cover collectively what is a fairly substantial piece of ground. It will be a collective effort. I assure the chamber of the Scottish Liberal Democrats will work with MSPs from all parties in keeping ministers' feet, if not to the fire, than at least to the biomass boiler. In the time available, can I briefly touch on a number of issues that my colleague Mike Rumbles will deal with. The transport aspect is safe for mentioning yet again the need for greater ambition to accelerate the take-up of electric vehicles, including continued improvements to the charging network. In relation to heat, which accounts for over 50 per cent of our energy use, I do not think that the Government in any way can be accused of a lack of ambition. Quite the reverse, the targets for domestic and non-domestic properties by 2032 are pretty staggering. I think that the question that has been raised is how credible they are, particularly with so precious little action being estimated pre-2025. I think that it is a point that the economy committee very fairly picked up and asked to be addressed perhaps by more front loading. I think that the committee was right, too, that off-gas-grid properties and district heating schemes should be priority action areas. Turning to electricity, I think that the Government following on from the previous coalition has made good progress to date, but I think that there are legitimate concerns raised about how aspirations for negative emissions are going to be reached. I share the desire of many in this chamber to see CCS fulfil its potential, but is it really sensible for the Scottish Government to appear to bet the house on its deployment in time to meet 2027 targets? Turning to energy efficiency, the draft plan does not put forward credible policies and resources to deliver even the inadequate scale of intervention proposed and is certainly insufficient to support the transformational change that is suggested by its designation as a national infrastructure priority. I think that that found a bit of an echo in what the economy committee had to say as well. We do need detailed timescales for achieving minimum standards, including for the private rented sector and both domestic and non-domestic properties. Finally, I might address some comments to the area of agriculture, which along with transport was the subject of quite a bit of attention and criticism. I think that the lack of ambition there has been noted. I listened to the exchanges between Edward Mountain and Mark Ruskell. I think that there is a difficulty in an environment where the future of support systems is up in the air. There is no great uncertainty. The proposal to come forward with compulsory measures is tricky, but I think that there is evidence that those can secure benefits for farmers as well as for the environment. I think that there is a legitimate debate to be had here, even if it is around suitable times for implementation of something on a compulsory level. The NFU, and I realise that this is from a different perspective, acknowledge that to reduce emissions is to reduce waste and improve efficiencies. I think that we see a willingness there to engage with the issues in the draft plan. I would hope that further improvements can be made. In conclusion, I am conscious that I have done nothing like justice to the work carried out by the Parliament's four committees on such an important issue. However, I thank them again for highlighting where the Government's draft climate change plan comes up short on ambition, credibility and transparency. Ministers need to show more green backbone, Scottish Liberal Democrats, working with others that are committed to ensuring that they do, and that the final plan agreed by the Parliament does indeed do justice to the challenges that we face in relation to climate change. I remind members that I am the parliamentary liaison officer to the CABSEC for rural economy and connectivity. I thank my colleagues on all the committees and the committee clerks who have all worked extremely hard to write the report on the draft climate change plan. Scotland's actions on climate change to date are among the most ambitious in the world, and the committee has welcomed the Government's continued commitment to tackling climate change. The draft climate change plan sets out how the Scottish Government plans to play its part in delivering the historic Paris agreement. My colleagues have already, and will continue to outline that there are many elements to the plan and one of the most significant being agriculture, which I will come back to. Enabling community action on climate change is also a welcome focus. In Dumfries and Galloway, there are already a lot of enthusiasm for finding inventive ways of dealing with climate change at a local level. Last year, Scottish Government money was awarded to the Reuse Smarters 2 project run by Cretan initiative to upcycle textiles that would otherwise have been sent to landfill. The draft plan also acknowledges the important role Scotland's forests have to play in tackling climate change. By 2032, forests and woodland will cover an additional 3 per cent of the Scottish land area, meaning that Scotland's woodlands will be a better place to provide natural flood defences. Currently, in Galloway, the forest cover is almost 30 per cent across the region. I welcome the cabinet secretary's ambition for Scottish food producers to be among the lowest carbon and most efficient in the world. Last week, I met with the new NFU Scotland president and vice presidents here in Parliament, and, collectively, they understand both the necessity of cutting emissions and the advantages to their own businesses of doing so. Since 1990, emissions from the industry have reduced significantly. As reflected in the committee's report, there is a belief that more needs to be committed to for agriculture and indeed transport, as has been mentioned. However, there are challenges facing the sector that we need to be conscious of. Almost half of the global warming agriculture emissions are from methane produced by biological sources. As cabinet secretary, Roseanna Cunningham talked about, those biological sources are our kai and our sheep. Methane, released from the livestock, mostly by the oral route that I would like to add, is not easily controlled. It is important to acknowledge that and to work collaboratively with all farmers and all involved to help to reduce emissions wherever possible. Personally, I was pleased to hear from the cabinet secretary that there will be no immediate requirement for farmers to undertake compulsory soil testing. The intent that all improved land is tested routinely for pH remains the same and compulsory testing will be introduced as a staged process. We already know that the behaviour of conscientious farmers driven by the need to evidence what corrective soil pH improvement action plan is already being implemented widely. Of course, pH testing in itself does not reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It is what is done with the results that matter. I firmly believe that the practice changes can best be achieved by working collaboratively with farmers. I am therefore pleased that the Scottish Government plans to engage with farmers and crofters to increase understanding of environmental and economic benefits of low-carbon farming. Many farmers I have spoken to are, in fact, already taking significant voluntary steps in the right direction. Last week, I visited the Scottish Tenant Farmer Association chairman Chris Nicholson at his farm in the Mackers near Whithorn. Chris has been practising conservation tillage, so I was learning about that. For those unfamiliar with the term, it is a method of soil cultivation that deliberately leaves residue from the previous crop, a cover crop, no plowing. Chris has not plowed his fields for 30 years. That has various environmental advantages like increasing the ability of the soil to sequester carbon and reducing the use of fossil fuels when plowing. However, expert evidence taken at the committee from Peter Smith from Aberdeen stated that conservation tillage can help to sequester some carbon, but the amount of carbon is often overstated. If I had to describe it much longer, it would take me longer than five minutes. When speaking to the NFU leadership in Parliament last week, they stressed that one of the most important things that we can do to help the sector to reduce emissions is to encourage locally produced Scottish food to be purchased by schools, national health service and others. As a member of the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee, I look forward to continuing to work with the committee members and working with the Scottish Government to address climate change. Well done, Ms Harper. On the button, Finlay Carson, we follow by Gail Ross, please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I welcome the opportunity to take part in today's debate on the draft climate change plan. Climate change is one of the greatest challenges we face, and we must have ambitious plans not only to look to repair the damage but also improve our environment in the future. All of us have a duty to the next generation to leave Scotland in a better state than we have found it in. The Scottish Government's climate change plan provides a framework for the transition to a low-carbon Scotland, and that is something that I am sure we can all get on board with. However, we in those benches cannot get on board with as yet more missed targets in slipping deadlines from this Government. It is simply not good enough to paint a strong narrative without the specific policies to ensure that we achieve those climate change targets. That is not just my view. The WWF said of the draft plan, and I quote, although the plan presents an often strong description of a low-carbon economy in 2030, there is a consistent absence of sufficient specific policies in almost every sector to ensure that we achieve our climate targets through to 2032. Stop Climate Chaos Scotland said that the plan lacks transparency and credibility. However, we need to do more than just get reassuring words from this plan. Last week in the biodiversity debate, I touched on the importance of peatland and contributing to a sustainable future for Scotland. The peatland restoration programme is currently under way as part of the 15 per cent degraded ecosystem restoration target set by the EU. Professor Robin Matthews of the James Hutton Institute estimates that restoring 21,000 hectares annually, a figure of which he calls modest, would contribute to an 8 per cent reduction in the total Scottish carbon emissions. However, since 2013, the Scottish Government have only restored 10,000 hectares. The Government has set itself a target of increasing the annual rate of peatland restoration from 10,000 hectares in 2017-18 to 20,000 hectares per year thereafter. The Scottish Conservatives want to ensure that this ambitious commitment to restore degraded peatland is delivered, which will help to protect against flooding as well as a natural carbon sink. That would not only benefit the climate but the economy too. By providing long-term investment to those projects, it has the potential to create much-needed local jobs. However, the issue is not just lack of restoration. Commercial pleat extraction is damaging and destroying some of Scotland's valuable raised bogs. Scotland's deepest peat stores around 6,500 million tonnes of CO2, 10 times as much carbon as stored in the whole of the UK forest biomass. A loss of just 1.6 per cent of that peatland carbon is equivalent to the total annual human carbon emissions in Scotland. Scotland's area of intact raised bog has declined from 28,000 hectares to 2,500 hectares over the last two decades, and commercial pleat extraction is a major contributor to that. I would suggest that the Scottish Government may need to take a look at its policy on peat extraction, because it seems contrary that licences have been granted to extract peat at the same time as the Government is investing in restoration of degraded peatland. RPP2 has had a section on blue carbon, indicating that research in the area was underdeveloped, but the Scottish Government was working to establish further information. However, in this climate change plan, there is absolutely no mention of blue carbon. When that was raised with the cabinet secretary and committee, she said that scientific data is still not mature enough to base firm policies and proposals on them. Given the lack of information on blue carbon and that it was highlighted in RPP2, I find it disheartening that the Scottish Government appears to have taken no steps to populate that information abyss. Removing blue carbon completely from the pan looks like an attempt by the Government to pull wool over our eyes on this one. To conclude, Deputy Presiding Officer, I welcome steps to tackle climate change and reduce Scotland's carbon emission as far as they go. However, we need a plan that has the substance to achieve that rather than simply reassuring words. Climate change is the single biggest threat to life on this planet as we know it, and we all know that the time has passed to stand by and do nothing. In Scotland, we have had world-leading climate change legislation, and as the cabinet secretary said earlier, we exceeded our targets six years early. Thanks to a combined effort of cutting emissions—not just now, come on. Thanks to a combined effort of cutting emissions, culture change and investment in renewable energy—better timing, Neil Findlay, please. Through this new climate change plan, or CCP, we continue to set targets, strive for change in all sectors, as well as societal and cultural change, but our ambitions are ambitious. I am the deputy convener of the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee, and you earlier heard our convener Edward Mountain very ably set out the committee's position and explained our report in some detail. As a committee, we took evidence from many professionals and experts, including knowledgeable farmers, listened to opinions and experience and worked together to produce the report. I must commend my fellow committee members for their hard work and for the spur of consensus in which the conclusion was reached. I also thank the clerks and all involved. As a committee, as you have heard, we have responsibility for two of the biggest polluting sectors, transport and agriculture, and feedback from both sectors on the draft plan was mixed. First, I would like to touch on transport. It has generally been agreed that we should put more emphasis on active travel, and the aim of making 10 per cent of journeys by bike by 2020 is ambitious, given the fact that we are currently only at 1 per cent. Replacing car use wherever possible will have to be a huge cultural shift. Walking or cycling short distances instead of jumping in the car can no longer be seen as the preferred option. No-one is saying that the highland weather is always conducive to active travel, but we need to make more of an effort in that regard, and we need more information from the Government on how that will be achieved. Public transport transforms Scotland, tells us in its briefing that there is no specific policy in the CPP. Yes, with pleasure. Liam Kerr. Just before you move on to that. Can you hear Mr Kerr now? He has managed to get an intervention. Mr Kerr. I met with Transformed Scotland yesterday, and they were saying that the climate change plan places an over reliance on ultra-low emissions vehicles and electric vehicles. Are they wrong? Gail Ross. I would invite Liam Kerr to read the report of the rural economy and connectivity, on which we specifically talk about low emission vehicles. As he will know, there are schemes around the country that can be used as good practice. Hydrogen buses in Aberdeen and we also have electric buses in Edinburgh, so we did look at that. Thanks for that useful intervention there. According to figures from Transport Scotland, there has been a decline of 10 per cent in bus usage in the past five years. Therefore, it is hard to see how a considerable shift away from private cars can be achieved. To address that point in rural areas, people will tell you that they need their cars to get around. That modal shift also needs to be accompanied by changes to timetabling of bus services in rural communities with frequent reliable services on offer. Moving on, we realise that agriculture as a sector faces huge challenges when it comes to decarbonisation. However, there are many who have taken steps to mitigate climate change with schemes such as peatland restoration, renewable energy and forestry, although it is acknowledged that much more it can and should be done to help support farmers and landowners to plant trees. Edward Mountain touched on that as well. We have to plant more trees. We know that. We have missed our targets year on year for various reasons, but we understand those reasons. We have now put plans in place to address that and improve planting rates in future. That is something that, as a committee, we will continue to scrutinise. My constituency is home to the biggest blanket bog in the world, the flow country. It has been referred to as the Amazon of the Northern Hemisphere due to the amount of carbon it sequesters. At this point, I must also pay tribute to my predecessor, Rob Gibson, the Mossboss, for his tireless promotion of peatland areas. I also welcome the additional £8 million in the Scottish Government budget to help to restore peatlands, protect wildlife and sustain tourism and rural jobs. The cabinet secretary has made it clear her commitment to listening to all the feedback, considering each report in detail and bringing it back to Parliament before the final draft. I look forward to engaging her further on this vital issue. It was said before that the climate change plan was half-baked. If we are going to put it in a cooking context, I would say that the ingredients are there. We just have to work to get the amounts correct in order for the recipe to work. Thank you very much. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. As the months and years proceed, it becomes clearer that, whilst the conditions for tackling climate change in a democracy demand that we win over and so change public opinion and so, in turn, transform individual patterns of behaviour, the driving force to that change will be found first and foremost in the means of production, in the means of distribution and in the means of exchange in the economy, which in turn will come down to who owns and who controls those means, those systems of production, distribution and exchange. It becomes clearer, too, that we have to say farewell to the creed that a high rate of consumption equals a high standard of living because it is no longer valid in as much as it ever was. We will have to leave behind the very philosophy that underpins the acquisitive society and we will have to put great science in the service of the people rather than putting people subservient to great science. And in so doing, we have to plan a sustainable alternative to the irresistible march of materialism. Now, the Government has brought forward its latest climate change plan based upon a new model, the times model, and to the cabinet secretary and to her ministerial team. I say that calling it and if I can quote their words, a high level strategic model is no doubt designed to impress us, but it remains no more than a model, nonetheless. It is based upon a set of assumptions that runs according to specially designed weightings, which is constructed with theoretical abstractions and held together with linkages from one to the other. It is a model with many vital parts missing, such as agriculture, transport, waste and so on. We should take heed of the words of the mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, who almost a century ago warned people using those kind of models of the fallacy of misplaced concreteness. The times model should be a guide tool, but it should inform not dictate public policy. When we read warnings that the models outputs are rigged, or in the more diplomatic words of WWF, and I quote, the back-loaded profile of low-carbon heat is a direct result of constraints imposed upon the times model by the Scottish Government, it is right that this afternoon we seriously question the suggestion by the Scottish Government that we can move from 80 per cent of Scotland's domestic heating supplied from mains gas in 2017 to 80 per cent of our domestic heating supplied from low-carbon technology by 2032. It is right that we question it further when the Government does not propose to begin any of this work in earnest until 2025. When the Minister for Business, Innovation and Energy was before the Economy, Jobs and Fair Work Committee, I put to him that he seemed to be jogging between now and 2025 and sprinting flat out between 2025 and 2032. As someone pointed out to me continuing the metaphor, he also seems to be stopping for a lengthy fag break in between his jogging and sprint, because, according to the published plan, low-carbon heat is stuck at 18 per cent between 2020 and 2025, of course. I pointed out to Mr Leonard that I do not smoke and I do not jog, but the point is that in answering his question in the committee, I also made the point that we also have to develop a supply chain and build the skills-based to unroll a massive programme, the single biggest programme of energy efficiency investment in Scotland's history, and that also requires, dare I say, to those who are in favour of Brexit, a supply of skills that may require from the continent as well, whereas the Polish plumber is going to come from another nationality who has been instrumental in helping our construction sector in recent years. Richard Leonard. I thank the minister for that intervention, but the committee concluded that the Scottish Government should not backload the domestic and non-domestic heat conversion plan. It should frontload it. I say in all sincerity to the cabinet secretary and I do not think that she should look so worried. I do not think that she should look so worried about achieving our climate change goals too quickly that people will be taken by surprise by an environmental coup d'état. I do not think that she or the rest of us should live in fear of too much vitality. I think that we should fear too little vitality. Just look at the abject failure to meet our fuel poverty targets, which is why we need rising investment in energy efficiency, not standstill investment in energy efficiency. As I have said to the Government many times, working with the trade unions and industry, they should start preparing now the skillsets of our workers for these new jobs. They should start now equipping our manufacturing industries and supply chain to provide these new jobs. It is not enough to show political leadership and bold ambition. We need economic leadership and a credible plan as well. If we had a clear plan for jobs, it would provide real hope, built on radical but credible plans, driven by uncompromising leadership. With real hope, we would get the change that we need and it would be achieved in the interests of working people for the common good. Can I remind members how short of time we are and any time over will be taken from colleagues, I am afraid? Stuart Stevenson, followed by Jamie Greene. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Picking up on what Richard Leonard has just quoted from Alfred Lord Whitehead, I would give another quotation, which is, all our choices and actions have consequences for the world around us. That is something that I think we can all agree with, because we are talking about the anthropogenic effects on climate change. I am particularly interested in the one-by-one approach. It is all very well all this technology, and it is all very well the Government taking actions, but ultimately it will require each individual in our society one-by-one to identify actions that they can take that will help this particular agenda. I am contributing a little bit to active travel this week. I have walked 17 miles so far. It is not a huge amount. It sounds a lot when you add it up day by day. It is not a huge amount, but it is better than getting the taxi up to the station every day and walking is a little bit fitter and better for the climate. However, there is a significant challenge that comes from individual behaviours. When I first came to the Parliament, I was driving 40,000 miles a year and I drive about 7,000 or 8,000 miles a year. Very rural constituency—I cannot eliminate it all. I now use the train in a way that I certainly didn't use and thanks to the bus pass introduced by the previous Labour Liberal Administration, I use the bus as well. However, we are in a time of unprecedented challenge on the agenda of climate change. That is where Gordon Lindhurst was quite wrong when he said that the whole world recognises the problem. Only yesterday, the President of the United States, Donald Trump, cut the environmental protection agency budget by 31 per cent—the biggest cut that is proposed budget of any part of public administration in the United States. Andy has populated the administration of that agency with a whole raft of people who are climate change deniers. We are days away from the resiling of the signing of the Paris agreement. We are in unprecedented challenge territories that we have little control of. It is important that we do the best and the most that we possibly can. So far, so good. Reaching our 2020 target years ahead of the plan is great. The 66 per cent target that we are setting for 2032 is ambitious, and the next part of our implementation of climate change plans will be more challenging than the part that we have already undertaken. I am of the sort of age that I occasionally give on a day when I am feeling a little bit lower than I might be today—today was the spring of my step—as to what my obituary might say. I may be described as the Minister for Snow, which was given to me because the forecast was 0.4 of a degree Celsius out and therefore etc. I hope that the obituary might say that I was the minister who took the climate change bill through, but it was a very important bill for this Parliament because it achieved absolute unanimity when we passed it. I hope that, as we look at this plan, it is capable of improvement, as it undoubtedly is, that we can achieve the kind of unanimity that will help to take us forward. Some of the things that are discussed in the plan and have come up in the debate so far are about technological solutions. Yes, let's encourage every possible technological opportunity that is going to help this agenda. A, because it is helping the agenda, but B, because, if we are taking the initiative, it creates business opportunities for us and carbon capture and storage is certainly one of them. Particularly where we are talking about gas-powered stations, we have to get off gas, but while we have gas, we can use gas more efficiently than a much lower carbon footprint. However, let's just enter a couple of caveats. The whole idea that we are going for low-emission vehicles, particularly if they are electrically powered, is that, in the middle term, there are significant challenges, because we are actually, as a world, beginning to reach sight of our limitations on the amount of lithium that there is. The technology for batteries is lithium-ion technology. It hasn't really changed much for 30 years. Lots of good things in the laboratory are particularly nano-carbon fibre cathodes that might help, but there are still issues that are burning away with the acid, so I hope that technology does help. Let me just close by quoting John Gummer from the Climate Change Committee yesterday. Over eight years, measures to combat climate warming of cut carbon emissions without raising any electricity bills for UK homelands. There are lots of households, lots of myths around them. We have to demolish them, but with a lot of work to do, I know that the Government will want to do it. I have Jamie Greene, followed by Angus MacDonald. It was a very welcome and pleasant surprise to find that the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee was to review the draft climate change plan. I know that Edward Mountain spoke on behalf of the committee, but I would like to add some further thoughts of my own as a member of that committee. We covered the subjects of agriculture, transport and forestry. It is within those three topics that I would like to share some of the evidence that we took in the hope that it might inform influence but also guide the Government in its plan. I welcome many of the Scottish Government's measures to reduce carbon emissions across agriculture, transport and forestry. I think that we all agree that everyone has a role to play, but it is important to note in this debate that within those sectors are many jobs, livelihoods and micro-economies. The farmers are balancing the needs to make ends meet whilst taking into account the needs of a sustainable economy. I, too, welcome the approach of the cabinet secretary for the rural economy, who prefers to encourage behavioural change rather than through enforcement. The committee noted that the Government ought to reserve the right to take further steps if voluntary measures do not succeed. We also took substantial evidence, in my view, which laid bare a lack of clarity around carbon reductions. On the issue of forestry, but not only are we missing planting targets, but thought must be given to the types of forestry being planted and, more importantly, where those trees are being planted. The James Hutton Institute noted that achieving planting targets does not always equate to meeting CO2 reduction, going further, they felt that the climate change plan presents no real target on a mission reduction achieved via planting. It is no great secret that, by 2050, the UK might be importing up to 80 per cent of its timber requirements. Therefore, planting targets are about much more than just climate change. Moving on to transport, much was said about forecasts and assumptions made by the Government on the take-up of low-emission and electric vehicles. As Professor Rye outlined in his evidence to the committee on February 8, he said that, in effect, policy must support ambition. We took evidence on the example in Norway where the Government converted its ambition on low-emission vehicles take-up through a series of consumer policies. Low-emission vehicle purchases are a pretty common place in Norway, but that did not happen simply by asking or willing people to change. The Government introduced a series of measures to attract ownership of such vehicles such as zero-purchase tax, reduced road tax, free public parking, no VAT, no toll fees, free access to bus lanes and so on. Those might not be universally popular or, indeed, they may not all be right for Scotland. In fact, some of those might have financial implications on the public purse, but, nonetheless, wishing something to happen does not make it happen. We cannot rely on the environmental kindness of consumers to change their car. There must be a win-win if widespread change is a realistic goal. Equally, we cannot rely on the love of the environment to get people out of their cars on to public transport. In many rural areas such as in the west of Scotland, where I live, the car is simply a necessity. I think that innovating for sustainability and consumer innovation are not mutually exclusive. New technologies, such as smart metering, for example, are reshaping consumer behaviour in home energy. In agriculture, GPS technology and improvements in timber-filling technology are vastly improving previously quite onerous processes. Technology is similarly suited to improve public transport. Phil Matthews of Transport Scotland said to the committee that improved information sharing with the public, such as apps that show bus time arrivals, will contribute to getting people on to public transport. Even he admitted that targets in the plan were predicated on a range of unknowns. I quote from him that there are technological unknowns and a lot of the possible actions are predicated on action that are outwith the control of the Scottish Parliament. In summary, I think that the Scottish Government will reflect and duly act on all the suggestions of the various committees who have spoken today, but not just them listening to the experts and the stakeholders who are often those most directly affected by the policy implications of the plan. I do not want to be cut in speaking times off those closing for the committees, so can I ask the remaining speakers to aim for four and a half minutes, please? Angus MacDonald, followed by Neil Findlay. Given the wide remit that the ECRA Committee report covers, it is impossible to speak on all the issues in such a short speech, especially four and a half minutes, so I will never recover what I can. As we have already heard from the convener of the ECRA Committee and other committee members, there is a general chorus of welcome for the ambitious targets for peatland restoration and, of course, the wider benefits for water and air quality by diversity, flood prevention and the jobs that that will bring. Yesterday's announcement that the peatlands action fund is open for funding applications and will deliver an £8 million investment to restore peatlands and help to reduce carbon emissions is heartening and will help to ensure that the Scottish Government delivers on its proposals to restore 250,000 hectares of peatlands by 2032. Around 1.7 million hectares of Scotland is covered in peatlands and keeping them well maintained mitigates against climate change by locking in carbon, so the peatland restoration work that has been funded by the Government since 2013 has already transformed, as we have heard, more than 10,000 hectares, and I was pleased to see at first hand the restoration of peat bog on the Salman and Plateau to the south-west of Falkirk late last year. As we saw at an excellent event hosted by my colleague Graham Day on Tuesday night and presented by Andrew McBride of SNH, if the peatlands are left in a degraded condition, they produce greenhouse gas emissions rather than act as a sink for soaking up carbon, so with this extra funding we're heading in the right direction although there's no doubt there's more to do. Our committee has suggested in its report that the Scottish Government should explore how it can use its powers to prevent peat-based products being sold in Scotland. During our evidence-taking session with the cabinet secretary, I suggested that there should be a levy or tax on the use of peat for horticultural use in line with a campaign started in 2011 by the RSPB, SWT, bug life and plant life, to name just a handful of the NGOs involved. The cabinet secretary will recall that she responded that she didn't think that we have the power in Scotland to introduce such a tax or levy, however I would counter perhaps naively, as I don't know for sure, but if we have the legislation to introduce a carrier bag charge, then we surely have the power to introduce some form of disincentive to using peat for horticultural use. Indeed, there was consensus among witnesses at our evidence-taking sessions that horticultural use of peat should be prohibited. Professor of soils and global change, Pete Smith of the University of Aberdeen, agreed by saying, and I quote, I think that that sort of activity is inconsistent with our climate targets, just as the UK has moved to phase out coal, we ought, in my opinion, to have a plan to phase out the horticultural use of peats. As was discussed at the SNH event on Tuesday night during the Q&A session, there are plenty of alternatives to peat compost and many peat-free compost such as commercial green compost, woodbrush and forestry waste work as effectively as peat ones. In short, we cannot on the one hand claim to be a world-leading country when it comes to climate change, but stand idly by and watch some of our high-carbon specialist habitats, our rainforest equivalent, if you like, being ripped up and squandered. Of course, an added incentive would be for the proceeds from many lewys to be used towards the estimated £16 million a year required to meet the annual peatland restoration target of 20,000 hectares per year. I realise the time is tight, given that there are so many speakers in this debate, so in closing, I would like to touch on the very welcome all-singing all-dancing times model, which was used, as we know, to model future greenhouse gas emissions from each sector of the economy. However, it was not as all-singing and all-dancing as our committee and some NGOs out there would have liked. Although it is fair to say, despite comments in the chamber this afternoon, that everyone is impressed with the times model and recognises the significant improvement on the approach that is used for RPP1 and RPP2. So, without any doubt, the Scottish Government is right to use times for RPP3 and to develop it for RPP4. However, the committee noted that there were issues with the lack of transparency in the times model, which will make it difficult to determine whether emissions reductions in the finalised plan have been sufficient. If our Eichler committee—and indeed the Scottish Parliament as a whole—is to come to a view on how robust and achievable the final climate change plan is, we must have considerably more data around some of the specific measures. So, I look forward to the final RPP3 climate change plan that has been laid in Parliament once these issues have been taken on board, which, along with the energy strategy, will deliver a low-carbon transition for Scotland that promotes social inclusion and sustainable growth. I have Neil Findlay, followed by John Mason. Presiding Officer, I want to focus my comments in two areas where we need real action and that is on energy and transport. Fundamental to the whole issue of energy provision is the ownership and control of energy supply. In recent years, Scotland has been at the forefront of renewables development, but is it in this area that I believe we have seen one of the greatest missed opportunities of our times? The development of wind energy has been dominated by multinationals, venture capital firms and, indeed, Tory MSPs that see wind, Scotland's wind as their latest commodity and will do whatever it takes, including trampling over the concerns of communities, to take advantage of the significant profits that are open to them. Community benefit schemes of course exist, limited share ownership exist, but the sums involved are a drop in the ocean compared to the money that has been made by the big European companies that dominate the scene. We could have had those projects owned and operated collectively by the community, public investment by councils, the forestry commission, NHS, pension funds, credit union reserves, communities and others, returning profits to the public services for investment in jobs and the common good. Instead, we see, with every turn of a turbine, scarce cash fluttering off to the boardrooms of Paris, Frankfurt and Madrid. It could all have been so different, but we still have time to prevent any new renewables developments going the same way. I will not hold my breath on that, but I do live in hope. Turning to transport and the emissions related to air travel, the Scottish Government simply cannot demonstrate how it will tackle the increased emissions that will come from its proposal to slash the end-ditch air passenger duty. Putting to the side tax breaks for business flyers and a loss of tax revenues to the public purse. On environmental grounds alone, it is absurd to remove air passenger duty. The 2014 Transport Scotland study on the impact of a reduction in APD would make notes that business air travel is inelastic to a change in prices. In other words, journeys by air can generally not be replaced by another form of transport. Lizio air travel is income-elastic. In other words, it is a luxury, so price is more sensitive. If price reduces, demand is likely to increase. The policy change will reduce Government revenue, benefit the people who can already afford to travel by air, and they may travel more often by air and will be detrimental to the environment. On which planet is this a sensible policy choice? The negative impact has been acknowledged by committee members, Transport Scotland and environmental groups. When the committee questions the cabinet secretary for environment climate change and land reform on the negative environmental impact of air travel expansion due to the slashing of APD, she repeatedly failed to provide the detail. The cabinet secretary cannot explain how or which other sectors will need to see additional reductions to compensate for increase in emissions from air travel. Currently, Edinburgh airport, in line with Scottish Government policy, is seeking airport expansion, despite the fact that the airport is nowhere near capacity. In West Lothian, we see huge opposition to those plans, and we have the hypocrisy—the dripping hypocrisy—of two cabinet ministers representing that area, sitting around the cabinet table, a green apology of airport expansion, a green apology of air passenger duty cut, then eradication, then going out into the community pretending that they are the champions of that community opposing airport expansion. Hypocrisy is what it is. The Scottish Government's own advisers on climate change advise a 22 per cent greater overall reduction in transport emissions in comparison to the draft plan. The minister, I have watched her during this debate, controlled tantrums, she can wave her hands, she can scowl and try to release a shoal of red herrings to cover the reality. The air passenger duty bill is the enviromental equivalent of pouring gallons of petrol on a burning inferno. It makes no sense, no sense whatsoever, and the quicker you scrap that plan, the better it will be for everyone. I think that Mr Finlay's mistakes are forgetting about the public, forgetting that we live in a democracy. To move the agenda forward, we need to take the public with us. I have the privilege of being a member of two of the four committees who are looking at the draft climate change—certainly not, certainly not—namely, the economy committee and rural connectivity committee. Point of order, Mr Finlay. I make no criticism of you in this. I make a criticism of the way in which this debate has been timetabled. The credibility of this Parliament is at stake when we have debates that are curtailed like this and are not debates all the other series of speeches. Mr Finlay, that is not a point of order. I suggest that you take it up with your business manager. I think that Mr Finlay would gain more respect if he had a little bit more respect for this Parliament as a whole. On two of the committees, it is good that the committees have taken slightly different angles on the report. I think that that is healthy. I think that I am a great believer in the committee system and that it does do well as long as members are not too tribal. In the initial general point, I would just like to say that, clearly, the EU has had a significant role in driving this whole climate change environment agenda. There has to be concern that if this healthy pressure from the EU is removed, we will really continue without that. There were certain points that were of interest to both committees. Three of them, I would mention, won the very tight 60-day timescale, which put pressure certainly on the clerks and spies, certainly on the committees, but also on the Government to respond to points that were raised by the committees. The RET committee asked for 120 days, and the economic committee just asked for more time. Hydrogen was an interesting one that came up at both committees in relation to heating homes and running transport. My gut feeling is that hydrogen is certainly worth exploring quite a lot more, because it seems to offer flexibility, which electricity struggles to do as Stuart Stevenson was describing with the batteries. The third point was a desire for more detail, which has been referred to already. Specifically, in the economy committee, the district heating systems seem very attractive. We had a very useful visit to Dundee with the committee, and it appeared to be working very well in the multi-storey flats at Loch E. It was a fairly straightforward system because the council seemed to own all of the properties, and I think that it was SSC that was their partner. By contrast, I have the Commonwealth games village in my constituency, which also has district heating, and it seems to be very highly complex. The residents are not convinced about it, and there are multiple organisations operating and maintaining it, with three housing associations and the occupiers all being charged by different methods. Given that the UK and Scotland has a fairly well-developed mains gas network and fairly efficient domestic boilers, witnesses suggest that alternative gas—probably hydrogen—might be a good way forward using the existing infrastructure. It is true to say that we need to decide on this before 2025, as people take quite a long timescale to replace and keep their boilers. Energy efficiency of homes is a big challenge, especially existing homes, as the plan itself says that 80 per cent of housing will still be in use in 2050. A constituency like mine has many older tenements, so there is a need to plan both for the private rented and the owner-occupier sectors. Although they are fairly standard in one sense, commercial and public buildings are much more varied, and it is going to be very challenging to make them more energy efficient. On to the rec committee, we looked at transport, as has already been mentioned. There was quite a lot of discussion around should it be purely electric vehicles that we aim for or other low-emission fuels as well. As Jamie Greene has said, there has been a big growth in the electric side in Norway as a result of a lot of subsidies. However, it was encouraging to hear that Aberdeen is experimenting with hydrogen for buses, as the bus companies tell us that they cannot, at the moment, have batteries that will last all day for a particular bus. That is what puts me personally off having an electric car when I cannot go a long distance without having to recharge it. I think that there was a bit of uncertainty around the growth of transport, whether it is 20 per cent, 7 per cent assumption or a target, and that can maybe be clarified, but I think that I have run out of time. John Scott, who is followed by Kate Forbes. Thank you, Presiding Officer. As in any debate regarding land use and climate change, may I begin by declaring an interest as a farmer and owner of peatland? Although today I want to talk specifically about transport and the rather dismaying committee's views that the Scottish Government's lack of consistent methodology, modelling and transparency in the draft climate change plan. It would be bad enough if it was only the four committee's views that the draft plan lacked vision, ambition and policy focus with regard to transport agriculture in the built environment, but the cabinet secretary will be aware that the briefs that we have received from the MGOs as well all appear to share that view, too. All of the four committees after criticising the draft plan have declared their intention to revisit the substantial issues raised and add that to their already substantial workloads is almost unheard of and the Government should be taking very careful note. Turning now to the Scottish Government's specific lack of ambition for transport and the glaring one appears to me at any rate to be car usage, the UK Committee on Climate Change believes that 12 per cent reduction kilometres travelled by car is possible by 2030, yet our Scottish Government expects a 27 per cent growth in distances travelled over the same period. Worse still, the Climate Change Committee envisages 60 per cent of new sales of cars and vans by 2030 will be electric vehicles, yet our Government's plan foresees less than half that percentage figure of sales on electric vehicles at only 27 per cent. So why is the Scottish Government shying away from seeking to achieve the same targets for electric vehicles as the countries of Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands, who usually seek to emulate in terms of best practice? Is it because they are not prepared to make the investment to bring about such change, for example by installing sufficient charging points or creating incentives to encourage the increased usage of ultra-low-emission vehicles? Recently, in discussion on a transport expert, it was suggested to me that one of the ways to increase usage of low-emission vehicles is to have charged battery swapping points strategically placed around Scotland, where instead of stopping for an hour or two or three to charge up your own car's battery, you swap your car's battery for an identical battery that is fully charged, thereby increasing the range, reliability and flexibility of low-emission electric vehicles. Of course, that would require the development of standardised batteries, which could be easily and reliably swapped over at recharging stations, but such a move could overcome the fear of many of being left stranded in an electric vehicle with a flat battery. On the subject of increasing the energy efficiency of future vehicles, lessons should be learned from the aircraft manufacturing industry, where composites are ready the new material of choice in the aircraft of the future. This new lightweight, laminated carbon-based material, while still expensive just now, will be a new material more readily available to car manufacturers in the future, which, as in the aircraft manufacturing industry, will reduce the weight of new cars using this material and also increase the range and efficiencies of such vehicles. Of course, modal shift has to be encouraged, too, to decongest our already overburdened motorway networks, and that is about making our trains and buses yet more attractive to lifelong car users like me. Tipping points in modal shift will come if pursued by Government, but they must be achieved by incentivising the travelling consumer to the point where, logically, modal shift becomes the only sensible option for many. For me and others of my age group, modal shift is about walking or cycling, where, before taking the car, would have been the preferred option. Combined with the health messages about obesity, the risk of type 2 diabetes, exercise as the new wonder drug for the baby boomers will also drive change into physical modal shift, as well as prolong active life. Presiding Officer, this is a time to be bold about Scotland's further carbon reduction potential, and the cabinet secretary's leadership is vital in explaining and encouraging and delivering such a vision for Scotland. More needs to be done, and we look forward to our update before the summer recess. I have Kate Forbes, followed by Mike Rumbles. I would like to congratulate the Government on publishing its draft climate plan and commend the work of our committee and the other committees in shaping the report that was published last week. It was great to start the process of reviewing and reading the draft climate plan, having taken evidence from the chair of the climate change committee, who stated that there is no doubt that Scotland is certainly doing better than any other part of the United Kingdom. Today, I want to draft my argument on human choices and human behaviour. It is good to have four different committees in the chamber today, and we have all looked in different ways at the different policies. However, it is so critical that, in terms of moving the debate on, we need to look at the cultural and societal shifts and how we influence people's behaviours. Because policies will only go so far, they can certainly influence behaviour, but there are other aspects that change habits. If I look back at my own lifetime and look at the habits that have changed across society over the past 26 years, there have been quite a number of changes where people have chosen to change their own individual habits. There has been changed habits among communities and across society as a whole. In the draft climate change plan, there is the ISM approach. ISM stands for individual, social and material, which are the three different contexts that influence people's behaviour. The individual level includes an individual's values, attitudes and skills. The social context includes factors that influence us through networks, relationships and social norms. The material context covers factors such as infrastructure, technologies and regulations. All three complement each other and are necessary to change the culture in recognising climate change and taking positive action individually and as groups to reduce its impact. If I go through those three briefly, taking individual first, this is where education and factual information is so important. It is starting from the very youngest, starting from nurseries and also helping people to see that they have a personal stake in climate change. In other words, if we do not act, that will affect us, it is already affecting us and it will affect the next generation. Now, that can also be done indirectly. If I look at the Highlands and the creation of thousands of jobs in the renewable industry across Scotland, that too helps to ensure that there is greater awareness than ever of climate change. Individuals are taking positive action against climate change. Again, I look at a number of businesses in my constituency. I have mentioned Glenw again in this chamber before where those businesses have chosen to rely entirely on renewable energy. Turning to social, which is the second impact, that is where the importance of charities, non-profit organisations and even religious organisations in taking positive steps to influence and incorporate climate change into their overall message and mission. I have even heard of such a thing as eco-congregations, the eco-congregations scheme, which is a programme to enthuse and equip churches. Lastly, material. That is primarily where the role of government sits, but not just the Scottish Government. It needs to be a co-operative and collaborative approach with local authorities and other public bodies. There has been excellent work in the past with local authorities drafting the Scottish Climate Change Declaration, and since then, emissions have been directly attributable to local authorities have been dropping. We need to work with governments across Europe and across the world to establish best practice and to share ideas. One of the things that I most appreciated in the draft plan is the emphasis on communities. The Scottish Government has funded a £75.7 million of climate challenge fund, which is awarded funds to 588 communities in order to reduce local carbon emissions. Again, that is giving people the opportunity to identify where they can play their part and have a stake in the future. In conclusion, I would like to emphasise that it is important that we focus on changing people's behaviour if we want to have a long-term impact. The Scottish Government's draft climate change plan is simply not good enough. That is not just the view of the Liberal Democrats, but it is highlighted again and again in the committee reports that we are debating today. The draft plan lacks ambition, and the Scottish Government is simply not clear enough even when it does outline what it wants to achieve. I want to concentrate my remarks specifically on the report of the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee of which I am a member, and within that I want to focus on transport issues. For me, the biggest elephant in the room is the colossal amount of carbon emissions that will occur as a result of the Scottish Government's aim of cutting air passenger duty to encourage more flights. Witnesses to the committee were concerned that cutting air passenger duty would have a detrimental effect on carbon emissions and reduce the demand for rail travel. I was particularly concerned when the transport minister himself said in response that increased emissions were a possibility. The committee was polite in its conclusions on this point, and Edward Mountain always is a polite and effective convener in getting everybody to agree the committee 100 per cent. I quote from the conclusions, the committee recommends that the potentially negative impact on carbon levels as a result of the proposed reduction in air passenger duty should be clearly covered in the climate change plan. It is not covered, of course, because it would be embarrassing for the Government if it were. It would be embarrassing for the Government, that is why it is not there. Why is that? Because air travel is the highest emitter of carbon dioxide per passenger kilometre, of course. John Mason I do not understand why he thinks that it would be embarrassing. Clearly, we have got pluses and minuses in this whole scheme, and if you have a plus in one area, you are just of something to counteract it. Mike Rumbles If that was the case, why is the Government not clearly wanting to put this in a draft plan when it knows that it is going to be really important? It is the only sector where emissions have risen significantly in Scotland over the last 20 years. Pumping an estimated 60,000 tonnes of carbon into Scotland's air each year will not exactly help the situation, will it? I obviously, earlier on, hit a nerve with the minister when I intervened on her, because, rather than addressing my question, she accused me of being deaf, and it was obviously meant as an insult, but I thought that ministers were here to answer our questions rather than hurl insults about the chamber. I want to turn to another aspect of transport policy highlighted in our committee's report. The Government's agency Transport Scotland started with an assumption—an assumption—that there will be 27 per cent more car use in 2035 than there is today. Rather than tackling the causes of demand growth in car travel, the draft climate change plan seems to accept this growth in car use as a given, how complacent, totally complacent, turning to bus travel. It is an issue that I particularly want to raise in the committee, because I think that it is really important. The committee noted, and I quote again, that the draft climate change plan does not mention supporting bus companies to a level necessary to reverse the decline in bus patronage. It does not do it. At the very time the Scottish Government needs to be expanding the use of free bus travel, we understand that it is considering raising the eligibility age for this. I know that the Government is not clear about its plans, and it will not be clear about its plans, so I assume until after May 4. Really, it should be expanding this programme and not thinking of curtailing it, or reducing it, or raising the age eligibility. I was surprised that the transport minister said in evidence to the committee that he thought that the free bus pass policy was not working because people had not given up their cars. However, I pointed out to him in committee that that was not the point of the policy. The free bus pass, introduced by the Labour and Liberal Democrat coalition, has been a tremendous success, as it was designed to encourage people to use public transport more. It was never designed to replace the car, but to reduce car use, and I thought that the transport minister might have understood that. The policy is a win-win for everyone. It reduces the environmental impact of car journeys, it reduces congestion in our cities and towns, and it is enormously helpful in getting more people out and about. It is a success story. That success story, far from proposing to raise the age, we should be encouraging its use, and I would urge the Government to think again. Deputy Presiding Officer, there is a huge amount to cover in the draft climate change plan, but, as you have just pointed out, time is too short. Suffice to say that we consider this plan to be far too timid, lacking in vision, completely lacking in ambition. Really, if I were marking the progress card of the Scottish Government, I would say that it could do so much better. The last of the open speeches, please, is Andy Wightman. Thank you, Presiding Officer. That is one of the most important debates that Parliament can engage in. I want to thank all the committees that have produced reports, particularly the two committees that I serve on the economy, jobs and fair work and energy committee, which is the name that I would like to change it to, and the local government and communities committee. The significance of the topic has been made clear in this debate, and it is clear to everyone that the Paris Targets of 2015 commit us to a two-degree reduction in global temperatures and to pursue a one-and-a-half-degree target. Countries, however, having ratified this, are now faced with the prospect of having to deliver. Are they taking all the steps that are necessary to achieve this? The short answer is no, and neither indeed is Scotland, although we have a class-leading climate change act and have and are reducing emissions. The actions that are required to hold to two degrees are outside the bounds of conventional politics in most countries. We say that two degrees are acceptable, but we do not act like it is. As oil change international in the report last year made clear, to meet a two- or one-and-a-half-degree global warming target, global emissions need to peak now and they need to begin declining immediately. Therefore, and as Greens have made clear, we need to leave, for example, two-thirds of hydrocarbons in the ground. That means no more drilling west of Shetland, no more exploration around Rockall, no more development of existing reserves. Indeed, it means ceasing all fossil fuel development and above all it means no fracking. Scottish ambitions, nevertheless, are welcome to the extent that we can take action and the range of committee reports and the range of measures in the draft climate change plan are all extremely welcome. However, as all reports say, we need to be clearer about how we get to the targets for 2032. In particular, we need greater transparency. We have been told and heard this afternoon about the constraints placed on the model that I am particularly interested in and the constraints that were placed on agriculture and land uses that have submitted a freedom of information request. I look forward to hearing further about how that particular constraint was established. I want to highlight a few points in regard to energy. The economy committee looked at the question of carbon capture and storage and made a few points about whether that was in fact practicable, but nevertheless it certainly should be explored. It noted that its role is unproven, but it could have a potential role in future. This morning, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy published new energy projections, and they are not assuming much carbon capture and storage in the timeframe of the plan. It would be helpful if the Government could run the model again with carbon capture and storage stripped out. On electricity, for example, the Scottish Government wants additional thermal capacity. National Grid said that that was not necessary. Therefore, for the purposes of mitigating climate change, it is not clear whether that is necessary. On heat demand, we looked at the targets of 6 per cent reduction in heat demand in 2032, lacking in ambition, I think, because that is a reduction on projected demands by 2032. Skeptical about that, and certainly noting significant changes are required, particularly in terms of low-carbon heat. In terms of homes and housing, we looked at the question in the local government committee, and we are seeking an explanation from the Government about the slow progress. As WWF noted in its evidence to the committee, it said that regulation of the private rented and owner-occupied sectors has been long promised, but remains undelivered, despite the relevant ministerial powers that have been created in 2009. It featured as a potential enabling measure as far back as RPP1, was included as concrete proposal on RPP2 and developed with stakeholders to detailed pre-consultation phase through the REAPs working group in the last Parliament. Indeed, it is urgent that we bring forward such a scheme. It should be fairly straightforward to operate home reports to ensure that fuel energy efficiency targets and carbon budgets are contained with that to include statutory minimum requirements to bring buildings up to a specified standard and to insist that that is done at a point of sale. That pricing would be built into the price that buyers pay, and it underpins the importance of getting private capital into this programme as well as public capital. On planning, we had a brief look at how planning can contribute. There is only one page out of 170 in the climate change report on planning. It is another essential element of the Scottish Government's approach to meeting climate change targets. We would certainly agree, and we would certainly advocate that we, in the forthcoming planning bill, build in the goal of mitigating climate change as a core purpose of the planning framework. I am pleased that the Parliament has undertaken the best scrutiny possible and the time available, but I echo calls on all committee reports that a bit more time is necessary next time. Greens will continue to engage constructively with the Scottish Government on mitigating climate change. We now move to the closing speeches, and I call on David Stewart. No more than six minutes, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. This has been an excellent debate, with thoughtful and insightful contributions from across the chamber. I particularly thank members of the clear committee of which I am a member and the clerks for all the hard work and dedication in preparing the report on the draft climate change plan, but I also recognise the work that I have done about all the other committees who have been scrutinising the CPC. Climate change is here today. The impacts do not exist in some sci-fi future. They are here, they are now. They are observable, they are scientifically verifiable and inevitable unless we take action now. I am deciding whether we are choking in the smog of Los Angeles or watching acid rainfall in the frozen forest of Siberia. Climate change recognises no borders as it loots to no flags and upholds no laws. As I'll go and make clear on an inconvenient truth, meeting the challenge of climate change is technologically feasible and economically rational. A sustainable Scotland needs to banish poor air quality, a relic of the Victorian era, and we all know that toxic diesel fumes harm our children, our elderly and the ill, and disproportionately hits those living in disadvantaged urban areas. However, we already know what works—boosting energy efficiency and tackling fuel poverty, investing in public transport and active travel and changing behaviours. That is the big picture. What about the plan itself? There are a number of assumptions in the modelling of the climate change plan. One is that emissions trading scheme will continue, and the second is that carbon capture and storage will continue to play a key role in the future. The EU emissions trading scheme that members will know is the first and, indeed, the largest gas emissions trading scheme in the world. Membership and the clue is in the name is the 28 EU members and the three EEA efter members of Norway, Lichtenstein and Iceland. ETS membership will clearly be a negotiating point in the Brexit discussions, but there is no guarantee that a post-Brexit agreement will have Scotland in continued membership. Has the cabinet secretary, and maybe in the wind-up the minister, can reply, had any discussions with the UK Government about EU ETS? Would a UK scheme be feasible? We also know, and evidence to our committee, that a larger scheme is better. Currently, ETS carries about 40 per cent of UK emissions from the heavy polluters. What about carbon capture and storage? Is it still feasible to have such a heavy reliance on the climate change plan when the UK Government is pulling the £1 billion funding? I welcome the minister's comments in closing. That has been a really interesting debate, as I said. It was opened by the convener of my own committee, who said that the CCP is the blueprint for a low-carbon Scotland. He also made the point that some of the work was carried out with the town's model, such as transport and agriculture, which other members commented on. He also made the point that our committee unanimously felt that compulsory soil testing on improved land was something that we could pursue. I note that there is a slight different opinion with some other committees. Gordon Lindhurst made the excellent point about how that is vital to any of our planning in the future. We need to look at major, significant and long-lasting change. Bob Doris again made a very useful point about the very important role of local government. Seeing local government as our climate change leaders are champions to develop our targets. He also made the vital point that we need to look very carefully at our energy efficiency plans. Edward Mountain, I thought, made a very fair and very good speech when he again talked about the town's model. He raised some criticisms about the lack of baseline data, the issue of financial information, about monitoring and how it was really important that we had smart targets. He also raised some concerns that other members raised about the extent of active travel at a vital component. The cabinet secretary made a very useful point about the fact that, of course, there will be a new bill in light of the Paris agreement and that the restoration of peatlands was a vital aspect of the point that she raised. Again, that was something that was welcomed by my own committee. She felt that the town's model was to step forward, and it is clearly one of the first Government in Europe to use that for live planning of climate change discussions. She also raised the issue of low-emission zones and understood the Government's planning to pilot them in 2018. In conclusion, I was reading just the other day that the great military strategist Helman von Mocky said that no battle plan survives contact with the enemy. The enemy in that context is, of course, climate change. The climate change plan, I believe, sets out a positive vision for the future. However, we need to be more ambitious, we need to have clear actions and we need to start now. To finish with the words of Barack Obama, he said that there is no such thing as being too late. When it comes to climate change, the hour is almost upon us. However, if we act here, if we act now, if we place our own short-term interests behind the air that our young people will breathe, the food that they will eat, and the water that they will drink, and the hopes and dreams that sustain their lives, then we won't be too late for them. I call Peter Chapman up to six minutes, please. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I refer members to my register of interests, especially in agriculture and renewable energy. I am glad to see that there has been a broad consensus within this debate that, while SNP's targets are laudable, they are also unlikely to be delivered. Unfortunately for the cabinet secretary, the broad consensus was among many speakers that they agreed about the limitations within the plan. Many speakers spoke about the lack of detail in the plans, the lack of information within the plan, making scrutiny difficult, and the lack of baseline data from where to move forward. Many speakers mentioned those issues. Speakers also spoke about the challenging timescale for scrutiny of those plans, and the direct committee, as we heard from Edward Mountain, has called for 120 days to do that work, and the other committees have also said that they would like more time. Transport targets that we have heard are unlikely to be achieved, and we have heard that walking and cycling targets need to be much more ambitious, and we need to be much more ambitious also in driving down the proposed 27 per cent increase in car usage over the next number of years. Many speakers also spoke about the limitations of the times model itself, although the cabinet secretary did defend it. There is also much criticism of the mission of any work about blue carbon, and Finlay Carson certainly highlighted that. To be fair, the cabinet secretary did highlight that much has already been achieved and that we are ahead of our previous targets, and that is to be commended. She also argued that technology must be used to drive emissions down further, and, of course, that must be part of it. However, my colleague, Gaelic Burnett, and others' questions about how much we cannot rely on technology, much of which has never even been invented yet. Richard Leonard was very critical of the aspiration to go from North Sea gas heating to hydrogen heating to heater homes by 2032, saying that it was unachievable in the timescale. I tend to agree. Targets are laudable, but, as I have said, they are unlikely to be delivered. However, that is not to say that it is impossible to deliver them, only that we have seen little evidence that this Government is capable of delivering them. I am fully committed to the need for us to improve on how we protect the environment and deal with climate change. Indeed, within agriculture, which is my main interest, great strides have already been made. I remind everyone that emissions from agriculture are down 25 per cent since 1990. I reckon that that is a good result, given that everyone agrees that it is more difficult to lower emissions in the agricultural sector, and that the cabinet secretary realised that. Much of that change has been down to the successful use of improved technology that has not just been good for the environment, but has also boosted far and profitability. There has been much discussion about the need for soil sampling, and it is a conversation that we in agriculture need to have, not just because there is a mistake and a determination to make it compulsory, which I support, but because in the right circumstances, when done properly and comprehensively, it pays huge dividends for farmers. Of course, sampling is just to start. The results must be acted upon and the lime phosphate porridge under organic matter levels need to be adjusted as necessary for there to be any benefits achieved. On grade 1 land, of course, farmers should be sampling, but that does not apply on poor health ground, which never sees lime or fertilizer at any time. In addition, by maximising the application of manures and slurries by using modern and accurate machinery and then taking full account of the nutrients applied, that can have a dramatic effect on reducing the need for bagged fertilizer. Those are practical differences that we can make on the ground without the need for draconian penalties, because the extra work and attention delivers tangible results for our farmers. Education is the key to deliver a win for the environment and for the farmer's bottom line. There are also improvements that we can make in anima