Climate change - Scottish National Adaptation Plan: annual progress report 2024-2025

Executive summary

Tackling the climate emergency is a priority for the First Minister and this Government. The impacts of climate change, in Scotland and globally, are increasingly apparent. The effects of flooding, coastal erosion, drought, and storms are putting pressure on our economy, society, and environment. This means that while it is right Scotland continues to play our part in reducing global emissions, we remain clear-eyed that we must also adapt to the inbound climate impacts already defined by past emissions.

Indeed, with the publication of a refreshed approach through Scottish National Adaptation Plan 2024-29 (SNAP3), it is clear that a thriving Scottish economy, society and environment is increasingly reliant on how effectively we carry out the objectives and policies set out in this Plan. This first annual progress report to the Scottish Parliament outlines delivery progress made since publication in September 2024.

This report updates on progress across the adaptation policy spectrum, including several SNAP3 commitments which have already been successfully delivered since publication. For example, successfully expanding of capacity building support for public sector bodies, with 65 organisations, including 26 local authorities, now receiving training, guidance and advice on adaptation action.

When SNAP3 was published, the Scottish Government also, for the first time, published an adaptation monitoring and evaluation framework to assess progress toward the Plan’s objectives and how we are building greater climate resilience in Scotland. This monitoring framework draws on 38 data ready indicators to assess progress across SNAP3’s 23 delivery objectives. The framework responds to a key recommendation from the last Climate Change Committee adaptation assessment for Scotland. As a result, in this report you will find the first baseline data set for the objective indicators developed in a way that means adaptation progress can be monitored annually. While some indicators have several years’ data collection already, allowing us to build a picture of progress and climate resilience trends, other indicators are baselined in this report for the first time, with trends emerging during SNAP3 implementation. These newer indicators, now established as a climate resilience indicator, will continue to be reported against in future annual progress reports – expanding the evidence base on how effectively Scotland is adapting to climate change at the national level.

Since publication of SNAP3, several key milestones across different sectors have already been met. Scotland’s first Flood Resilience Strategy was published in December 2024 and sets out what is needed to make our communities more flood resilient in the face of a changing climate, including the establishment of a Flood Advisory Service for Scotland. The Scottish Government also published the Scottish Biodiversity Strategy Delivery Plan in November 2024, describing joint action across climate change and the resulting loss of biodiversity, recognising the fundamental role a thriving natural environment needs to play to deliver a climate resilient Scotland. In addition, the Biodiversity Investment Plan, published in February 2025, outlined six key actions to further boost investment in nature restoration and climate resilience. Forestry Scotland’s Routemap to Resilience, launched in March 2025, is now driving actions to help woodlands adapt, respond, and recover from climate-related threats over the next decade. In May 2025, a new Soil Route Map for Scotland was published, consolidating soils policy into an overarching strategy for improving soil security, meeting another recommendation from the Climate Change Committee to improve coordination in a policy area that is critical for climate resilience. May 2025 also saw the Climate Ready Infrastructure Scotland Forum establishing agreement between more than 20 Scottish infrastructure owners and operators to pool knowledge, align efforts and take collective adaptation action. These headlines make up just a few of the climate resilience building activities being undertaken across Scotland to prepare for the impacts of climate change.

Delivering this step change in adaptation activity is timely since the evidence remains clear: the cost of adaptation inaction will be far greater in the long term than the proactively responding to growing climate impacts now. However, it also remains clear that adaptation action needs to continue to scale up across all sectors. This will not just preserve, but improve, our quality of life through more climate resilient communities, businesses, public services and natural environments.