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

Introduction and context

As global greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise substantially, the climate impacts already seen today are projected to continue and intensify. For Scotland this means wetter winters, drier summers, persistent and protracted sea level rise and more variable and unpredictable weather conditions.

A thriving Scottish economy, society and environment is increasingly reliant on how effectively we respond to these inbound trends.

The Climate Change Committee (CCC), our independent statutory climate change advisors, recommend that Scotland should do all it can now to prepare for +2 °C of warming by 2050 and assess relevant activities and investment against the risks of up to +4 °C of warming by the end of the century.

The third Scottish National Adaptation Plan 2024-2029 (SNAP3) is the most comprehensive adaptation policy package to date, setting out an expanded range of activities to ensure Scotland is building resilience to climate change.

Statutory framework for adaptation

The Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 sets the statutory framework for Scotland’s efforts to adapt to climate change. The legislation requires a five-yearly Adaptation Plan addressing risks from the most recent UK Climate Change Risk Assessment, which in turn is revised by the CCC every five years.

Progress on delivery of each Scottish National Adaptation Plan is to be reported annually to the Scottish Parliament and independently assessed by the CCC twice in each five-year cycle.

This is the first annual progress report on the new Adaptation Plan, SNAP3. Previous annual reports are available on the Scottish Government website.

The next CCC assessment of adaptation progress in Scotland is scheduled for the second half of 2026.

Scotland’s current Adaptation Plan

SNAP3 responds to the third UK Climate Change Risk Assessment and the advice of the CCC. The Plan was also informed by the extensive feedback the Scottish Government received through 12-weeks of public engagement and consultation on a draft SNAP3 in 2024. A full analysis of consultation responses identified several key themes which shaped the final Plan.

SNAP3 is structured in five chapters, covering five outcomes to deliver a climate resilient Scotland. Under each outcome are delivery objectives (to a total of 23) where over 200 key policy actions are set out. Each delivery objective has a lead SG Directorate.

The Plan was also accompanied by Scotland’s first monitoring and evaluation framework, a comprehensive tool to assess progress toward the Plan’s objectives, meeting a key recommendation of the CCC. This framework supports our annual reporting to the Scottish Parliament, features 38 data-ready indicators to track progress building climate resilience in Scotland, and provides, for the first time, data and evidence to understand and evaluate adaptation delivery at a national scale.