Scotland's climate change plan 2026-2040: children's rights consideration

Initial children’s rights considerations - 1. Brief Summary

Under the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009, 2045 is the target date for reaching net zero emissions of all greenhouse gases in Scotland. Within this, a carbon budget approach sets a limit on the amount of greenhouse gases emitted in Scotland every five years over that period.

The Climate Change Plan (Climate Change Plan) is the key strategic document which sets out the Scottish Government’s approach to delivering this target. There is a requirement to publish an updated Climate Change Plan every five years.

The forthcoming Climate Change Plan will cover the period from 2026-2040. This will cover our carbon budgets for the periods 2026-2030, 2031-2035 and 2036-2040.

A draft Climate Change Plan will be published and, following a period of consultation, a final Climate Change Plan will be published. This resource will support the draft Climate Change Plan and give further information to those responding to the Consultation by outlining our initial children’s rights considerations. The Children’s Rights and Wellbeing Impact Assessment (CRWIA) will be published to accompany the final Climate Change Plan using evidence gathered during the Consultation alongside wider evidence to inform potential impact assumptions.

The draft Climate Change Plan outlines the outcomes and associated policies and proposals for meeting the emissions reduction targets during the Climate Change Plan’s period. It will set out in detail how we intend to deliver action to tackle climate change. The draft Climate Change Plan reflects the policies and proposals grouped into seven ‘sectors’, being:

• Business and Industrial Processes,
• Energy Supply,
• Residential and Public (Referred to as ‘Heat in Buildings’ in this document, however buildings emissions are not exclusive to this sector)
• Agriculture,
• Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (separated within this impact assessment as ‘Peatland’ and ‘Forestry’),
• Transport (including international aviation and shipping), and
• Waste Management.

The full list of outcomes, policies and proposals for the draft Climate Change Plan can be found in Annex 1.

This Initial Children’s Rights Consideration Document will assess the collective impact of the outcomes, policies and proposals within the draft Climate Change Plan in a cross-cutting way, with similar impacts grouped and assessed together. The development of individual policies and proposals may already have been, or will be if required, subject to individual Children’s Rights and Wellbeing Impact Assessments.