Scotland has exceeded the level of our 2020 target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 42% six years early, Climate Change Secretary Roseanna Cunningham confirmed today.

The latest climate change statistics show Scotland’s emissions, for reporting against targets, have fallen by 12.5% year on year to 41.9 million tonnes carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e) in 2014. This is a reduction of 45.8% from the 1990 baseline.

The figures published today also show that Scotland continues to outperform the rest of the UK as a whole, with a 39.5% drop in Scottish source emissions between 1990 and 2014 compared to the UK’s 33% reduction over the same period. Scotland is also one of the leading countries in Western Europe for reducing emissions.

Read the full Scottish Government press release here.

Commenting on the news, Jim Densham said on behalf of Stop Climate Chaos Scotland:

“It’s great news that Scotland has hit our internationally symbolic 42 per cent emissions reduction target six years early. This shows it’s possible to cut emissions while building a progressive and productive society.

“However apart from the electricity and waste sectors, it’s hard to see a bold fingerprint of Scottish Government policy driving the transition to a zero carbon economy.  This target has been met because of the loss of heavy industry,  warmer winter weather, our changing share of European emissions credits and some government policies.”

There will no doubt be further reaction to this news. The BBC have already reported it here.

We are all playing our part to get Scotland’s carbon emissions down. There has been a reduction in emissions relating to household energy use. One of the most interesting quotes from Roseanna Cunningham was:

“The reduction in residential emissions in 2014 may have been due to people turning down their heating. This underlines that small individual actions, if repeated on a large scale, can have a big impact in tackling climate change”