Our Scotland, Our Future: Public Engagement Strategy for Climate and Nature

8. Annex D – PES in the climate and nature policy context

The Public Engagement Strategy (PES) sits at the heart of Scotland’s delivery of our ambitions for tackling climate change and supporting nature.

The Climate Change Plan (published March 2026) sets out the pathway to meeting statutory emissions reduction targets, enroute to reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045. The Plan includes a range of policies to meet carbon budgets and drive emissions reductions across all sectors – including sustained changes across energy, transport, buildings and land use. It emphasises that achieving a just transition to net zero requires individuals to be supported to undertake behaviour change, innovation and collaboration across society. Many of the actions that people can take, including how we heat our homes and how we travel, will have a significant impact on the success of this plan.

The Scottish National Adaptation Plan (SNAP) (2024–2029) describes the outcomes and objectives to build a climate-resilient Scotland, with a focus on communities, nature, infrastructure and the economy. The plan emphasises the need for communities, businesses and public services to understand how we build resilience to the impacts of climate change, identify risks and take early action against such issues as flooding, extreme heat/cold, coastal erosion and wildfires. SNAP recognises that adaptation is not solely the responsibility of government. Communities, business and households all have a role to play in building climate resilience. This includes understanding local climate risks, getting better prepared to live and run our businesses as our climate changes. For communities this could be about drainage and natural flood solutions, community food growing, flood planning that supports vulnerable neighbours, and for individuals this includes actions like having wildlife friendly gardens or window boxes, installing water butts and ensuring proper window shading at home. For business this could be about understanding where you may have climate-related risks in your supply chains, or ensuring that you have policies in place to ensure staff and personnel have the support they need during heat stress or extreme-weather related travel disruption.

Delivery of adaptation outcomes is increasingly supported through regional and place-based approaches, including the Climate Ready Regions initiative where stakeholders are collaborating in partnerships anchored around Local Governments to establish a pipeline of priority adaptation projects in their local regions. These initiatives recognise that climate risks are experienced locally and that communities need opportunities to shape resilience solutions that reflect local priorities and circumstances.

Our Biodiversity Strategy provides the overarching framework for tackling the nature emergency, including targets to be nature positive by 2030 and restore biodiversity by 2045. The strategy commits Scotland to halting and reversing nature loss, delivering nature-based solutions and meeting ambitious restoration and protection targets, emphasising the need for collaboration, stewardship and public participation in nature recovery.

The Environment Strategy is an integrated framework for delivering Scotland’s role in tackling the global nature, climate and pollution crises. It supports a whole-of-government approach for tackling these crises – recognising that this will rely on positive changes across Scotland’s economy and society. The Strategy focuses on approaches for supporting these changes in ways that will help to transform Scotland for the better – by improving people’s health and wellbeing, reducing the cost of living, promoting social justice and strengthening our economy. Scotland’s people and communities are at the centre of the Strategy’s vision. The Strategy aims to help people reconnect with nature and harness the benefits this creates for our health and wellbeing. It also outlines how we will seek to support the system changes that will enable everyone to enjoy the benefits from shifting towards healthy, sustainable lifestyles. This must be achieved in a way that helps to tackle existing inequalities and avoids creating new ones – public participation and community-led action are key to this.

The Just Transition National Planning Framework underpins all this work, highlighting the need for fairness to be at the heart of the transition. It emphasises that costs and benefits must be shared equitably, that communities must be involved in decision-making, and that climate action should improve lives, support jobs and reduce inequalities. This is reflected in the Voice objective of the PES, which seeks to ensure that people have opportunities to participate in the design and delivery of climate and nature policies and that their views are heard and responded to by decision-makers.

Together, these policies create a clear expectation that people, communities, businesses and organisations will play an active role in delivering on our climate and nature ambitions.