Scottish Greenhouse Gas Statistics 2023

All of the information contained in Annex A is reported on the basis of the most up to date available greenhouse gas inventory methods, i.e. the 1990 – 2023 inventory.

Section 34A of the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 (“the 2009 Act”) requires that this report contains the information specified in subsection 34(1) of the 2009 Act.

The following paragraphs provide the information specified in section 34(1)(a) in relation to net Scottish emissions of greenhouse gases.

(i) The baseline

The Baseline period uses a 1995 base-year for F-Gas emissions, and 1990 for all other greenhouse gases. In the 1990-2023 inventory the baseline amount of emissions was 81.2 MtCO2e.

(ii) The aggregate amount of net Scottish emissions of greenhouse gases for the year covered by the report.

On the basis of the 1990-2023 inventory, net Scottish emissions in 2023 were 39.6 MtCO2e.

(iii) The percentage by which the aggregate amount of net Scottish emissions of greenhouse gases for the year covered by the report is lower than the baseline.

On the basis of the 1990-2023 inventory, net Scottish emissions in 2023 were 51.3 % lower than the baseline.

(iv) The percentage by which the aggregate amount of net Scottish emissions of greenhouse gases for the year covered by the report is lower or higher than the equivalent amount for the immediately preceding year.

On the basis of the 1990-2023 inventory, net Scottish emissions in 2023 were 1.9% lower than in 2022.

(v) The methods used to determine the aggregate amount of net Scottish emissions of greenhouse gases, together with details of any changes to those methods.

The aggregate amount of net Scottish emissions set out above has been determined from regional disaggregation of the UK Greenhouse Gas Inventory. Full details of the methodology used in the UK Inventory, together with further breakdowns, are provided in the National Inventory Report submitted annually by the UK Government to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).  This latest release includes the following revisions to previous calculations:

• Agriculture
  • Recalculations early in the timeseries to agricultural stationary combustion are driven by an improvement to redistribute burning oil DUKES values to pre-1998 using the 2016-2019 DUKES reported totals for burning oil.
  • There are recalculations to agricultural non-road mobile machinery (NRMM) later in the timeseries due to changes to the gas oil reconciliation including the bottom up NRMM recalculations to incorporate revisions to the Defra agricultural statistics.
  • In both agricultural stationary combustion and NRMM there are revisions to DUKES allocations to end users back to 2009. Changes in the earlier years are due to sector splits in later years now used in earlier years to maintain timeseries consistency.
  • There are also DA level recalculations due to the incorporation of new agricultural offroad fuel use mapping from 2005-2023. Pre-2005 values were also updated to use the 2005 mapping grid resulting in reallocations of data across all the DAs. This results in a decrease for Scotland early in the timeseries and a slight increase throughout the rest of the timeseries.
• Buildings and product uses
  • "There have been Digest of UK Energy Statistics (DUKES) revisions at the UK level back to 2009 as well as an improvement to redistribute burning oil DUKES values to pre-1998 using the 2016-2019 DUKES reported totals for burning oil. This redistribution pre-1998 increases the timeseries consistency and is driving the recalculations to the base year. Following the DUKES revision, the wood data are used fully and plant and animal biomass are now reported separately in the inventory. Furthermore, waste is now split into renewable (biomass) and non-renewable (non-biomass) fractions and into municipal solid waste and non-municipal solid waste.
  • mapping grid updates for the non-domestic sector. There were also minor changes due to the incorporation of modelled estimated subnational gas use data from 2005-2014 using a DA specific heating degree day analysis. This was used to extrapolate the 2015 non-domestic gas use mapping grids before 2015. "
  • Revision to stove data. Furthermore, there was an inclusion of new activity for coffee logs from the 2019 and 2022 domestic burning surveys.
  • At the DA level, there were changes due to heating degree day analysis.
  • The Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR) analysis was used estimate f-gas emissions from commercial refrigeration in supermarkets and other stores. This is an improvement from the previous methodology using GDP.

• Domestic Transport
  • Recalculations to the road transport model within the UK inventory from revisions to the cold start methodology to apply emissions factors related to Euro 2 to 5 petrol vehicles. This impacts non-CO2 emissions. Higher DERV consumption was estimated in cars in the last few years of the timeseries.
• Industry
  • improvement to redistribute burning oil DUKES values to pre-1998 using the 2016-2019 breakdown average.
  • Changes to the residual fuel dataset.
  • The UK sub-national residual fuel dataset revisions are driven by a improvement to the distribution of non-domestic energy use. Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) and Display Energy Certificates (DECs) have been incorporated into the modelling to give a better indication of where oil and solid fuels are used.
  • mapping grid updates for chemical industry oil and solid fuel use. These recalculations affect the entire timeseries and drive the recalculations seen in 2022 in Scotland.
• LULUCF
  • "There were revisions to the Forest Land emissions across the timeseries due to a number of updates to the CARBINE model:
  • Improved early growth estimates.
  • Incorporate carbon from branches on dead trees into the soil.
  • Change the dead branch decay rate from 4% to 14% to match the model description.
  • Fix to the calculation of the anaerobic conditions of soil water availability in Scotland.
  • Update to latest data from 2024 preliminary Forestry Statistics.
  • Interpolation of Scotland data for 2022 where no cropland area data are available.
  • Recalculations to soil emissions for organic soil drainage and mineral soils as cropland management is calculated for mineral soils only and mineral soil area is assumed as total area minus organic area so there are small changes to the mineral soil.
    Small changes for forest land converted to cropland over the timeseries as biomass losses, dead organic matter losses and controlled burning emissions are all dependent on average forest biomass as calculated by the CARBINE model which had updates to activity data and methodology."
  • Peatland restoration areas for 2013-2023 updated from Peatland Action including changes in which year hectarage is reported due to overlapping projects.
  • For wetlands there are recalculations to the areas of Forest land converted to Wetland to include new Forest to Wetland areas for Scotland (from 2013).

• Waste
  • "Recalculations are driven by changes to landfill emissions at the UK level. There was an emission factor revision to the delay time for the decay reaction in MELmod. This results in decreases in emissions earlier in the timeseries and an increase in later years.

Section 34(1)(b) of the 2009 Act requires that this report contain the the following information  In relation to the net Scottish emissions account.

(i) Its amount for the year covered by the report.

In 2023, the net Scottish emissions account was  39.6 MtCO2e.

(ii) The percentage by which the account for the year covered by the report is lower than the baseline.

On the basis of the 1990-2023 inventory, the net Scottish emissions account in 2023 was 51.3 % lower than the baseline.

 (iii) The percentage by which the account for the year covered by the report is lower or higher than the equivalent account for the immediately preceding year.

On the basis of the 1990-2023 inventory, the net Scottish emissions account in 2023 was 1.9 % lower than in 2022.

 (iv) The percentage of any reduction in the account for the year covered by the report, relative to the equivalent account for the immediately preceding year, which is accounted for by reductions in net Scottish emissions of greenhouse gases.

All (100%) of the reduction in the net Scottish emissions account between 2022 and 2023 was accounted for by changes in net Scottish emissions of greenhouse gases.

Section 34(1)(c) requires that this report provides The total amount of carbon units that were—

(i) Credited to or debited from the net Scottish emissions account for the year covered by the report.

No carbon units were credited or debited to the net Scottish emissions account for 2023.

(ii) Purchased by the Scottish Ministers in the year covered by the report.

No carbon units were purchased by Scottish Ministers in 2023.

(iii) Held by the Scottish Ministers immediately after the end of the year covered by the report and which remained available to offset greenhouse gas emissions for other target years.

No carbon units were held by Scottish Ministers immediately after the end of 2023.

Section 34(1)(d) of the 2009 Act requires that for each target year preceding the year covered by this report states the following.

(i) The aggregate amount of net Scottish emissions of greenhouse gases.

(ii) the amount of the net Scottish emissions account *

* The figures set out here for the net Scottish emissions account for the years 2010 to 2017 are consistent with the approach used in previous statutory annual target reports and are on the basis of Scottish emissions adjusted for the operation of the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS). The Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Act 2019 has subsequently altered the emissions accounting basis for assessing progress to targets from 2018 onwards, to remove that adjustment. As such, these earlier figures are not directly comparable to those in other columns of the table or other sections of the report.

(e) the fair and safe Scottish emissions budget, and the aggregate amount of net Scottish emissions of greenhouse gases for the period from 2010 to the end of the year covered by the report.

The fair and safe Scottish emissions budget for emissions over the period 2010 to 2050 is 1,028 MtCO₂e. The total amount of net Scottish emissions of greenhouse gases over the period from 2010 to 2023 is 684.5 MtCO2e.

 Section 34A(6) of the 2009 Act requires that, if the methods used to determine net Scottish emissions of greenhouse gases change and that change is such as to require adjustment of an amount for an earlier target year, the report must  —

(6)

(a) specify the adjustment required and state the adjusted amount, and  (b) explain why the adjustment is required.

The latest greenhouse gas inventory (1990-2023) contains some relatively minor revisions to previous estimates of emissions, these mainly relate to revisions to energy.  These revisions are listed in more detail in section 34 (v).

The combined impact of these changes has resulted in the previously published value for emissions in 2022 being decreased by 0.3 MtCO2e to the revised level of 40.3 MtCO2e.