CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 2 — 6^th Decem­ber 2019

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

FOR DECISION

Title: CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK — NET ZERO WITH NATURE

Pre­pared by: GRANT MOIR, CEO

Pur­pose

This paper looks at how the Cairngorms Nation­al Park and the CNPA responds to the chal­lenges of the glob­al cli­mate emer­gency. This is about build­ing on work already under­way but is about a step change in what we need to do to con­trib­ute to the net zero tar­get by 2045 and the even more press­ing 75% reduc­tion by 2030.

While con­sid­er­able work is tak­ing place in the Cairngorms to address cli­mate change, busi­ness as usu­al will not put us on the tra­ject­ory to reduce emis­sions and trans­form our eco­nomy. This is the first in a series of papers over the next year.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Board are asked to endorse the fol­low­ing four recommendations:

a) To identi­fy the glob­al cli­mate emer­gency as an over­arch­ing pri­or­ity for the CNPA. b) To agree that it should be one of the cent­ral themes of the next Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (2022 – 2027) for the CNP. c) To agree to the CNPA estab­lish­ing a real­ist­ic date to achieve zero dir­ect emis­sions as an organ­isa­tion. To agree this tar­get date with the Board by Decem­ber 2020. d) To dis­cuss the deliv­ery of Net Zero with Nature and the role of young people at the first meet­ing of the Cairngorms Youth Action Team.

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK — NET ZERO WITH NATURE – FOR DECISION

The Nation­al Context

1. Last year, the Inter­gov­ern­ment­al Pan­el on Cli­mate Change (IPCC) issued a stark warn­ing that the world must halve CO2 emis­sions by 2030 if we are to avoid glob­al tem­per­at­ure rises of more than 1.5 degrees. The Net Zero report¹ by the UK Com­mit­tee on Cli­mate Change advised that Scot­land could achieve net-zero emis­sions (whereby any remain­ing emis­sions are bal­anced by solu­tions such as forestry or peat­land res­tor­a­tion) by 2045. It noted that this would require a sub­stan­tial increase in effort across all sec­tors of the economy.

2. At the same time, the Inter­gov­ern­ment­al Sci­ence-Policy Plat­form on Biod­iversity and Eco­sys­tem Ser­vices (IPBES) issued a report² warn­ing about the dam­age human beings are caus­ing to the plan­et. The IPBES report shows that the pres­sures on nature are increas­ing, and that the loss of spe­cies and eco­sys­tems is a glob­al and gen­er­a­tion­al threat to human well-being.

3. These reports high­light that trans­form­at­ive change is required if we are to address the twin chal­lenges of cli­mate change and glob­al biod­iversity loss. They do how­ever both sug­gest that it is not too late to act, but that all coun­tries must act quickly and decis­ively to address these fun­da­ment­al challenges.

4. Recog­nising the impact that the glob­al cli­mate emer­gency will have on every com­munity and every busi­ness, and in response to calls from young people, sci­ent­ists and busi­nesses across the coun­try, the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment has set ambi­tious tar­gets as part of its Cli­mate Change (Emis­sions Reduc­tion Tar­gets) (Scot­land) Act 2019. This sets a tar­get of net-zero emis­sions by 2045 and a 75% emis­sions reduc­tion by 2030.

5. Scotland’s Cli­mate Change Plan³ sets out a com­pre­hens­ive view of how all aspects of soci­ety across industry, trans­port, energy, build­ings, heat­ing and land use will need to change if we are to reach our vis­ion for grow­ing the eco­nomy, improv­ing the well­being of the people of Scot­land and pro­tect­ing and enhan­cing our nat­ur­al envir­on­ment. The Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment has com­mit­ted to updat­ing the Plan in light of the new tar­gets with­in six months of the bill receiv­ing Roy­al Assent so this will be around April 2020.

6. The Cli­mate Change Act also puts into law the require­ments for the trans­ition to a net-zero eco­nomy to be ​“just”. Last year the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment estab­lished a Just Trans­ition Com­mis­sion⁴ to advise on a how to achieve a net-zero eco­nomy in a way that is fair for all by fol­low­ing the inter­na­tion­ally recog­nised prin­ciples that requires all act­ors to:

a) Plan, invest and imple­ment a trans­ition to envir­on­ment­ally and socially sus­tain­able jobs, sec­tors and eco­nom­ies, build­ing on Scotland’s eco­nom­ic and work­force strengths and poten­tial b) Cre­ate oppor­tun­it­ies to devel­op resource effi­cient and sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic approaches, which help address inequal­ity and poverty c) Design and deliv­er low car­bon invest­ment and infra­struc­ture, and make all pos­sible efforts to cre­ate decent, fair and high value work, in a way which does not neg­at­ively affect the cur­rent work­force and over­all economy.

1. Much of the cli­mate emer­gency response focusses on redu­cing emis­sions (mit­ig­a­tion). Due to the com­plex­ity of how our atmo­sphere works, many of these inter­ven­tions will take dec­ades for the cli­mate bene­fits to be real­ised. In the mean­time, it is essen­tial that we also con­cen­trate on resi­li­ence and adapt­a­tion actions to address the ongo­ing impacts of cli­mate change such as ​‘hot­ter dry­er sum­mers, warm­er wet­ter win­ters and increased flood­ing’ that we are all start­ing to exper­i­ence. The Second Scot­tish Cli­mate Adapt­a­tion Pro­gramme 2019 – 2024 was pub­lished in Septem­ber and sets out how Scot­land will pre­pare for the chal­lenges of a chan­ging climate.

2. Achiev­ing net zero by 2045 is an immense chal­lenge that will require struc­tur­al changes at all levels of soci­ety. There are many pro­found changes that need to hap­pen includ­ing how we use our land to reduce car­bon while pro­du­cing food and biod­iversity amongst oth­er bene­fits; how we decar­bon­ise heat, trans­port and elec­tri­city while main­tain­ing secure, reli­able sup­plies at a fair and afford­able cost; and how the trans­ition to a low car­bon eco­nomy can be pos­it­ive for soci­ety, the eco­nomy and the environment.

3. This paper attempts to help CNPA Board Mem­bers to think about what we can do to address these chal­lenges and sup­port the trans­ition to a net-zero eco­nomy, whilst main­tain­ing resi­li­ent com­munit­ies, busi­nesses and nature.

Cairngorms Con­text – Cur­rent Work

1. The Cairngorms has some dis­tinct chal­lenges and oppor­tun­it­ies in ceas­ing its con­tri­bu­tion to, and liv­ing with the effects of, cli­mate change.

2. The Cairngorms are ideally placed to cap­it­al­ise on the country’s require­ment for nature-based solu­tions such as peat­land res­tor­a­tion and wood­land cre­ation. Cur­rently it is estim­ated there are 91,000ha⁵ of degraded peat­land emit­ting an estim­ated 0.77 mil­lion tons⁵ of car­bon diox­ide equi­val­ent every year in the Nation­al Park and the 16.8% of wood­land cov­er is below the Scot­tish aver­age of 18% (and well below the European aver­age). There is much good work already under­way as shown below and in Table 1 but this will need to be scaled up across the Nation­al Park in order to meet the newly recog­nised emergency.

Cairngorms Con­text – Future Work

1. The NLHF have recently asked for expres­sions of interest in their new Her­it­age Hori­zons fund. The CNPA have sub­mit­ted an Eol and will find out wheth­er it has got through this first stage in the next few weeks.

2. If suc­cess­ful the NLHF fund­ing will help cre­ate land­scape-scale demon­stra­tions of cli­mate-ready land­scapes sup­port­ing com­munit­ies that have been involved in, and dir­ectly bene­fit­ted from, the change. The pro­pos­al is to work Park-wide, deliv­er­ing 4 major object­ives, across three dif­fer­ent land-use mod­els of ​‘con­ser­va­tion’, ​‘sport­ing’ and ​‘mixed land-use’ to:

a) Com­ple­ment Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment fund­ing by tri­al­ling new land-use mod­els and col­lab­or­a­tions. b) Build com­munity capa­city to work with loc­al nat­ur­al assets for improved cli­mate resi­li­ence c) Recon­nect people with nature, inspir­ing sup­port for the change needed in all areas of soci­ety. d) Cre­ate an inter­na­tion­al show­case for inclus­ive and equit­able land-use transformation

1. We are already exper­i­en­cing the impacts of cli­mate change with hot­ter dry­er sum­mers, warm­er wet­ter win­ters, more intense rain­fall and more flood­ing. More fre­quent extreme weath­er events such as heat­waves and floods are likely to cause dis­rup­tion across the Nation­al Park.

2. There will be a need for the Cairngorms to adapt to the chan­ging cli­mate and to ensure that we have a robust approach to flood pre­ven­tion, wild­fires etc.

3. Table I sum­mar­ises some of the main oppor­tun­it­ies and chal­lenges across key areas of work and research the CNPA is aim­ing to take for­ward to ensure the under­pin­ning evid­ence is in place for the next Nation­al park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP) 2022 – 2027.

CNP Future Policy Context

1. The cur­rent Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan con­tains a lot of work that is help­ing to deliv­er net-zero by 2045. 2020 will see the CNPA start to devel­op the evid­ence base for the next NPPP (2022 – 2027). This will include work to estab­lish what tar­gets should be set for the Park to provide our con­tri­bu­tion to net-zero in Scot­land by 2045.

2. The CNPA have already com­mis­sioned three pieces of research to help provide the best data for the next NPPP. These are included in the table below. The first report is on Snow Cov­er and Cli­mate Change in the Cairngorms Nation­al (see para 20).

3. This paper provides the first step in devel­op­ing our think­ing about the next NPPP. It is likely that the next NPPP will look to 2045 as its time horizon.

Snow Cov­er and the Cairngorms Nation­al Park

1. The CNPA has worked with Cli­ma­tex­Change to com­mis­sion the James Hut­ton Insti­tute to look at ​‘Snow Cov­er and Cli­mate Change in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park’. This report is attached at Appendix A. It is cru­cial that the assess­ment of snow cov­er is con­sidered as part of the wider work on cli­mate change. There are implic­a­tions for water sup­plies and qual­ity, sal­mon fish­ing, snowsports, flora and fauna. This in turn will have a big impact on res­id­ents in the Park and vis­it­ors to the Park.

2. The report acknow­ledges that lim­it­a­tions in the data and sug­gests a num­ber of poten­tial next steps. The CNPA will con­sider these as part of the research for the next NPPP. The CNPA will also use the inform­a­tion in the report to inform its policy con­sid­er­a­tions on a num­ber of issues in the Nation­al Park, includ­ing the mas­ter­plan work for Cairngorm Moun­tain, cur­rently being led by HIE.

(Table 1 fol­lows here, but is too large to repro­duce in this format. It shows an Ini­tial assess­ment of cur­rent work being car­ried out by the CNPA and key research to inform action to achieve net zero.)

CNPA Cor­por­ate Con­text – Zero Dir­ect Emissions

1. The Author­ity has adop­ted an envir­on­ment­al man­age­ment key per­form­ance indic­at­or (KPI) around redu­cing our estim­ated car­bon emis­sions from busi­ness oper­a­tions for over 10 years. Our baseline is taken from our mod­elled emis­sions in ²⁰⁰⁷⁄₀₈ of 150 tonnes of equi­val­ent CO2 emis­sions (tCO2e) mod­elled in that year. Our KPI adop­ted is a ​“dir­ec­tion­al” tar­get of achiev­ing an annu­al reduc­tion in emis­sions of between 2% and 3%.

2. Our aim in mon­it­or­ing the Authority’s cli­mate impact has been to use a robust mod­el­ling tool which is con­sist­ent from year to year and which can there­fore reli­ably show the Authority’s per­form­ance and trends in man­aging and redu­cing our cli­mate impact, while being suf­fi­ciently admin­is­trat­ively simple to be delivered with­in exist­ing resources. We have adap­ted our mod­el­ling tool since adop­tion of the KPI to adopt a revised mod­el­ling tool pro­moted by Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment. We have remod­elled all pri­or year data since adop­tion of the new mod­el­ling tool in 2016 to give con­sist­ent trend data.

3. Our most recent tar­get range for the year ended 31 March 2019 was between 107.4 tCO2e and 120.1 tCO2e, where­as our actu­al per­form­ance was 97.5 tCO2e, some 10 tCO2e (9.3%) ahead of the lower of the tar­get range for the year.

4. Mov­ing into the next year, ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁, we expect a step-change reduc­tion in emis­sions to an estim­ated 80 tCO2e. The actions taken sup­port­ing this expect­a­tion are covered in the fol­low­ing section.

5. Our estim­ated mod­elled emis­sions of around 80 tCO2e in the year to March 2021 is based on the impact of the fol­low­ing invest­ments and assumptions:

a) Switch­ing 4 vehicles in the pool car fleet by end of ¹⁹⁄₂₀ to hybrid vehicles from dies­el; b) Switch­ing 2 vehicles in the pool car fleet by end of ¹⁹⁄₂₀ to elec­tric vehicles from dies­el; c) Reduc­tion in short haul flights; d) Refresh and update of the travel and sub­sist­ence policy which will pro­mote a reduc­tion in emis­sions; e) Changes in Board meet­ing sched­ules and asso­ci­ated down­turn in Board travel; f) A broadly stand still staff­ing complement.

1. Figure1 shows deliv­ery against CNPA KPI tar­get range since ²⁰⁰⁷⁄₀₈ and fore­cast through to 31 March 2021.

(Fig­ure 1 fol­lows here, but is too large to repro­duce in this format. It shows Cairngorms NPA Mod­elled Car­bon Emis­sions – Final Fig­ures ²⁰⁰⁷⁄₀₈ to ²⁰¹⁸⁄₁₉ and Fore­casts ²⁰¹⁹⁄₂₀ to ²⁰²⁰⁄₂₁)

1. The mod­elled pos­i­tion does indic­ate our best estim­ate of our pos­i­tion regard­ing cli­mate impact through emis­sions from busi­ness activ­it­ies on the basis of the Authority’s present scale of oper­a­tions. We can expect to be at a level of gen­er­at­ing about 80 tCO2e by 31 March 2021, with some reas­on­able expect­a­tion of adapt­a­tions being able to reduce that level by a small annu­al per­cent­age. As tech­no­logy and infra­struc­ture improves, fur­ther step changes in vehicle trans­port emis­sions will also be possible.

2. The cur­rent con­sulta­tion from Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment pro­poses that all pub­lic sec­tor bod­ies have to set a date by which they intend to achieve ​‘zero dir­ect emis­sions’. The CCC scen­ario for net-zero has all sec­tors at zero, or vir­tu­ally zero, emis­sions except agri­cul­ture, some parts of industry, and inter­na­tion­al avi­ation. The CNPA can­not off­set its emis­sions in this scen­ario and so we will have to work with part­ners to look at over what times­cale we can achieve zero dir­ect emis­sions and reduce indir­ect emis­sions. This will require time to con­sider the implic­a­tions but we will come back by Decem­ber 2020 with a times­cale set­ting out the likely date for ​‘zero dir­ect emis­sions’ from the CNPA based on best cur­rent evidence.

Next Steps

1. While the glob­al cli­mate emer­gency presents pro­found chal­lenges, the evid­ence shows that Scot­land can achieve net zero emis­sions by 2045, and that tech­no­lo­gic­al, beha­vi­our­al and nature-based solu­tions will all be essen­tial in end­ing Scotland’s con­tri­bu­tion to cli­mate change, whilst main­tain­ing resi­li­ent com­munit­ies, busi­nesses and nature.

2. The Cairngorms has sig­ni­fic­ant nat­ur­al assets, and an oppor­tun­ity to set out an ambi­tious vis­ion and pro­gramme of action to lead the way to a low car­bon future, that ensures a nature-rich future that bene­fits resi­li­ent loc­al com­munit­ies and that con­trib­utes to a thriv­ing and for­ward-look­ing, pros­per­ous Nation­al Park. This will be at the core of the next Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan.

3. The CNPA will be host­ing a cli­mate con­fer­ence on 9 March 2020 in Aviemore. The speak­ers include Roseanna Cun­ning­ham, Cab­in­et Sec­ret­ary for Envir­on­ment, Cli­mate Change and Land Reform and Chris Stark, CEO, Com­mit­tee on Cli­mate Change amongst oth­ers. This is about rais­ing the pro­file of the issues in the Cairngorms and provid­ing a plat­form as we devel­op the policy responses with­in the Cairngorms to con­trib­ute to Scotland’s tar­get of being net zero by 2045.

4. Fol­low­ing the con­fer­ence in June 2020 there will be a fol­low up board paper on cli­mate change. This will set out the work on future peat­land and wood­land tar­gets for the Nation­al Park and fur­ther work being under­taken in oth­er areas iden­ti­fied in the table.

(Annex I — Snow Cov­er and Cli­mate Change in the Cairngorms Nation­al Park fol­lows here, but the con­tent is not included in the provided text.)

¹Net Zero – The UK’s con­tri­bu­tion to stop­ping glob­al warm­ing ²Glob­al Assess­ment Report on Biod­iversity and Eco­sys­tem Ser­vices ³Cli­mate Change Plan ⁴Just Trans­ition Com­mis­sion ⁵Based on JHI peat depth data assum­ing 20% is act­ively erod­ing, 20% drained, 40% is mod­i­fied, 10% is near nat­ur­al and 10% is pristine using the con­di­tion cat­egor­ies and emis­sion val­ues from Smyth et​.al. (2015) ​“Devel­op­ing Peat­land Car­bon Met­rics and Fin­an­cial Mod­el­ling to Inform the Pilot Phase UK Peat­land Code.”