Scotland's Climate Change Plan – 2026-2040

Working Internationally

The Scottish Government is committed to working with and supporting our international partners to help secure a global transition to a net zero and resilient future in a way that is fair and just for all. Scotland is committed to being a bridge builder on climate justice internationally: including by utilising our convening and influencing position to amplify voices of the Global South, and addressing the unequal impacts of climate change on marginalised people, especially young people and women.

The Scottish Government was among the first to put climate justice at the heart of its international climate action. Our work on climate justice aims to tackle existing inequalities such as wealth disparity and discrimination based upon gender, age, disability or indigenous status, as the impacts of climate change can be made worse by these factors.

We launched the Climate Justice Fund (CJF) in 2012. It focuses on communities most affected by climate change: in particular, ensuring the views and needs of those typically marginalised in such communities are at the centre of interventions in Malawi, Rwanda, and Zambia.

Renewable energy is a priority area for our African partner countries. In 2022, we partnered with the University of Strathclyde to launch a new Scottish Global Renewables Centre (GRC) to facilitate knowledge exchange between our international development partner countries (Malawi, Zambia and Rwanda) and the Scottish renewables sector.

The Scottish Government believes that the best way to successfully tackle the global climate emergency is for all nations to work together to exchange ideas and agree shared actions. Scotland is using its leadership of the Under2 Coalition and Regions4 to strengthen international cooperation and capacity building; strengthen subnational governments’ influence within international climate discussions and drive global climate ambition.

Scotland is committed to realising the UN Sustainable Development Goals, both within our own communities and in the wider world. The National Performance Framework (NPF) is designed to localise the SDGs in Scotland’s specific political environment. Each NPF outcome has been mapped to an SDG goal where possible – further detail on the specific goals is contained in Annex 1C.