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

Scottish Ministers’ assessment of progress

The overall assessment of Scottish Ministers is that whilst progress towards implementing the objectives, proposals and policies set out in SNAP3 continues to be made in the first nine months since publication, it remains early in implementation of the five-year plan, and more needs to be done to rapidly increase the advancement of adaptation delivery over the next five years.

The arrival of SNAP3 has marked a shift in how we approach adaptation, with a stronger emphasis on system-wide action through a just transition that protects our most vulnerable people and places. The Plan is purposefully structured and signposted to reinforce other Scottish Government delivery priorities - including biodiversity, land reform, the National Planning Framework, transport infrastructure investment and community wellbeing.

We have enhanced the integration of risk evidence from the UK Climate Change Risk Assessment in our policy development approach and are directly addressing the recommendations outlined in the CCC’s previous assessment of progress in Scotland, in addition to the CCC’s formal consultation response to the draft SNAP3.

Delivery of adaptation action is a collective responsibility. It sits across Ministerial portfolios and Scottish Government Directorates. Recognising this shared ownership, each of SNAP3’s 23 delivery objectives has been assigned to a lead Scottish Directorate, which are noted at the start of each objective within the Adaptation Plan.

Since publication in September 2024, a number of significant delivery milestones have already been made over the last 9 months:

• Adaptation.scot hub was launched, acting as the digital home for all support and advice on adaptation.
• New surface water flood maps have been published, providing the most detailed and accurate picture of where flooding could occur from heavy rainfall.
• More than 20 infrastructure owners and operators have formally joined forces to protect Scotland’s critical infrastructure from weather and climate related impacts.
• Scotland’s innovative Climate Ready regional partnerships have matured, seeing Local Authorities and other public bodies working across boundaries on adaptation. A new collaboration in Tayside has been launched; 1,000 climate and weather stories gathered in South East Scotland; economic climate assessments for growth sectors in the Highlands completed; and Scotland’s first national gathering of bodies working at the regional scale has been held.
• The Nature Restoration Fund met its commitment to invest £65 million in nature restoration and local authorities received funding for Coastal Change Adaptation Plans.
• Scotland’s first Flood Resilience Strategy was published, setting out the long term approach for creating flood resilient communities and a commitment to a new national Flooding Advisory Service.
• For Businesses, a new SME climate resilience guidance is now available at findbusinesssupport.gov.scot and advisors in Enterprise Agencies have been trained to support climate resilience.
• Transport Scotland’s Vulnerable Locations Operational Group is delivering an expanding number of defined schemes, and a new Trunk Road Adaptation Plan will be published in 2025 to improve climate resilience across our national trunk road network.
• £14 million has been committed to the Future Farming Investment Scheme to support capital projects that boost efficiency and climate- or nature-friendly farming.
• Training and technical support for local authorities and public bodies has been increased, 65 member organisations, including 26 local authorities now benefitting from these services.
• The Biodiversity Investment Plan has been finalised outlining six key actions to further boost investment in nature restoration.
• A Soils Route Map for Scotland was published, establishing actions for a coordinated approach to healthy soils.
• Forestry Scotland’s Routemap to Resilience was published outlining actions to help woodlands adapt, respond, and recover from climate-related threats over the next decade.
• Expanded Met Office services have launched, including accessible climate projections on areas like predicted rainfall or sunshine hours now available for all Scottish local authorities areas for +2 °C and +4 °C scenarios.

It is noted that development of the adaptation monitoring framework remains an iterative process. This year the focus has been on drawing together existing data gathering processes to establish an evidence baseline on national climate adaptation. This approach has meant the framework currently focuses on delivery across SNAP3’s four domestic outcomes, namely on nature connectivity, community resilience, public services & infrastructure and the economy, business and industry. How to best capture and present baseline date on SNAP3’s outcome on international action will be considered in future iterations of the framework.

Drawing on the monitoring framework, examples of the baseline of progress already being made on climate resilience here in Scotland include:

• 21 of 32 local authorities are actively involved in adaptation partnerships and collaborations.
• 26 local authorities receiving adaptation and climate resilience guidance and training through the Adaptation Scotland programme.
• 41,556 people are registered for SEPA’s flood warning service, including 3,344 new registrations during 2024.
• 99% of householders with a history of flooding are able to obtain 5 or more quotes from insurers.
• 15.2% of businesses have taken action to adapt, up from 13.8% in the 2023 Business Insights and Conditions Survey.
• 32% of public bodies have advanced or comprehensive climate risk assessments based on 2023-24 annual reporting.
• 29% of adults have taken action to reduce the likelihood of wildfires when in the outdoors and 21% intentionally reduce how much water they or their household use according to first Scottish Climate Survey.
• 40% of all historic environment grants include climate as a driver for action.
• 8 coastal change adaptation plans are in development, and one has been finalised since new national guidance was published in 2023.
• 14,860 hectares of peatland were restored in 2024-25, up from 10,360 hectares in 2023-24..
• As measured by the Sustainable Fishing Indicator, our confidence that Scottish fish stocks are being fished sustainably has increased from 60% in 2019 to 73% in 2024.
• 15,000 hectares of woodland were created in 2023-24, representing the highest rate in 34 years.

The following sections of this report provide more detail on delivery to date of actions across the Adaptation Plan’s four domestic outcomes:

• Nature connects across our land, settlements, coasts and seas.
• Communities are creating climate-resilient, healthy and equitable places.
• Public services are collaborating in effective, inclusive adaptation action.
• Economies and industries are adapting and realising opportunities in Scotland’s Just Transition.

Data for all of the 38 objective indicators identified in the SNAP3 Monitoring and Evaluation Framework is also reported. The data included in this annual report uses the most up-to-date data available as of May 2025. As this is the first year of reporting the most recent year of data presented for each indicator represents the baseline measure. For each indicator a target direction of travel over time has been set. Progress against these target directions of travel against the baseline set out in this first annual progress report will be assessed from 2026 onwards.

Significant parts of SNAP3 are delivered through the ‘Adaptation Scotland programme’. This is a national service, funded by the Scottish Government, that develops and delivers expert advice and support to Scotland’s public sector, businesses and communities. High level progress made through the Adaptation Scotland programme is contained within this report, but further details are available in the latest Adaptation Scotland annual report.

Next steps

The Scottish Government will continue delivering the commitments outlined in SNAP3 and monitoring progress through the indicators set out in the SNAP3 monitoring and evaluation framework.

We expect to reflect this further progress through increasingly substantive updates in succeeding annual progress reports to Parliament. The next report is due in June 2026 and is scheduled to inform the next CCC assessment of adaptation in Scotland, anticipated for the second half of 2026.