CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 3 12/03/2021

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

FOR DECISION

Title: COP26 AND OUR APPROACH TO NET ZERO

Pre­pared by: OLLY DAV­IES, HEAD OF COM­MU­NIC­A­TIONS AND ENGAGEMENT

Pur­pose:

To update mem­bers on the UN Cli­mate Change Con­fer­ence (COP26) in Glas­gow, as well as dis­cus­sions around a CNPA pres­ence at the event. To agree tar­gets for the Author­ity and Nation­al Park to achieve net zero emissions.

Recom­mend­a­tions

The Board is reques­ted to:

a) Approve a com­mit­ment for the Park Author­ity to achieve net zero emis­sions by 2025 at the latest.

b) Approve a com­mit­ment for the Park Author­ity to achieve zero dir­ect emis­sions by 2030.

c) Approve a com­mit­ment for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park to achieve net zero emis­sions by 2045 at the latest and to review that times­cale in light of planned car­bon budget work in ²⁰²¹⁄₂₂ and include in NPPP.

Back­ground

1. The UK is due to host the 26^th UN Cli­mate Change Con­fer­ence of the Parties (COP26) in Glas­gow from 01 to 12 Novem­ber 2021. COP26 will bring togeth­er del­eg­ates includ­ing heads of state, cli­mate experts and nego­ti­at­ors to accel­er­ate action towards the goals of the Par­is Agree­ment and the UN Frame­work Con­ven­tion on Cli­mate Change. As well as the nego­ti­ations, there will also be space for coun­tries, inter­na­tion­al organ­isa­tions and oth­er del­eg­ates to show­case cli­mate action, high­light diverse cli­mate change issues and share knowledge.

2. Cli­mate Sec­ret­ary, Roseanna Cun­ning­ham MSP, announced Scot­tish Government’s two key themes for COP26 as ​‘People’ and a ​‘Just Trans­ition’, reflect­ing the import­ance of both pub­lic engage­ment and ensur­ing people are at the heart of cli­mate policy.

3. All coun­tries that signed the Par­is agree­ment are required to sub­mit Nation­ally Determ­ined Con­tri­bu­tions (NDCs). Pre­vi­ously Scot­land and the UK were part of a joint EU NDC, which set an EU-wide emis­sions tar­get, but this situ­ation has changed post Brexit. Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment will set out how it intends to sup­port the Par­is Agree­ment goal of pre­vent­ing warm­ing of more than 1.5 degrees by pub­lish­ing its own indic­at­ive NDC ahead of COP26. The UK Gov­ern­ment are also devel­op­ing a UK-wide NDC ahead of the conference.

4. Both Scot­tish and UK Gov­ern­ments are explor­ing what dif­fer­ent Cov­id-19 scen­ari­os might mean for the organ­isa­tion of COP26, put­ting the health of the par­ti­cipants and loc­al com­munit­ies first. At this stage a range of scen­ari­os are being planned for, includ­ing both digit­al and in-per­son options. A form­al dead­line for expres­sions of interest in host­ing events at COP26 has been set for 05 March.

5. These events will be split between a Green and Blue Zone. The Green Zone will be man­aged by UK Gov­ern­ment from the Glas­gow Sci­ence Centre, and is a plat­form for the gen­er­al pub­lic, youth groups, civil soci­ety, aca­demia, artists, busi­ness and oth­ers to have their voices heard. The Blue Zone will be a UN-man­aged space and will play host to the form­al nego­ti­ations. The space brings togeth­er del­eg­a­tions from 197 Parties, along­side observ­er organ­isa­tions to share their stor­ies at pan­el dis­cus­sions, side events, exhib­its and cul­tur­al events.

CNPA Pres­ence at COP26

1. The CNPA is work­ing closely with Nation­al Park Author­it­ies at a UK level to look at the oppor­tun­it­ies to have a pres­ence at COP26. An Expres­sion of Interest has been sub­mit­ted on behalf of all the NPA’s on 5^th March to poten­tially have a joint pres­ence at COP26.

2. The CNPA is also work­ing with col­leagues through the Envir­on­ment and Eco­nomy Lead­ers Group to look at how we can sup­port the work of Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment at COP26.

3. We under­stand that there are cur­rently around 300 expres­sions of interest for events at COP26 (mostly in the Green Zone), with par­ti­cipants ran­ging from small-scale NGOs and com­munity groups to large com­pan­ies and third-sec­tor organ­isa­tions. Pri­or­ity will be giv­en to applic­a­tions that demon­strate a clear com­mit­ment to part­ner­ship work­ing, hence our emphas­is on col­lab­or­a­tion with NPUK and EELG.

4. A fur­ther require­ment of host­ing an event is that organ­isers need to con­firm their sup­port of the UK Cli­mate Change policy state­ment and make a Race to Zero organ­isa­tion­al com­mit­ment. The lat­ter would require us to name a date for the organ­isa­tion (and poten­tially the Park as a whole) to go net zero between now and 2050, estab­lish clear met­rics that we will use to meas­ure our pro­gress, and pro­duce a roadmap of key mile­stones on the way there. We have indic­ated pro­posed times­cales below for a Board decision.

CNPA and CNP Tar­gets for Net Zero

1. The Cli­mate Change Act 2019 com­mits Scot­land to net-zero emis­sions of all green­house gases by 2045. The UK Gov­ern­ment, mean­while, has set a tar­get of 2050 to achieve net zero status.

2. Board agreed on 06 Decem­ber 2019 to estab­lish a real­ist­ic date for the Author­ity to achieve zero dir­ect emis­sions as an organ­isa­tion. This was ori­gin­ally due by Decem­ber 2020 but was delayed due to the impacts of Covid-19.

3. Table I below shows the Authority’s total car­bon emis­sions per annum, col­lec­ted since ²⁰⁰⁷⁄₀₈ when we first adop­ted a con­trol of tCO2e as a cor­por­ate per­form­ance KPI. We anti­cip­ate 2021 fig­ures to fall fur­ther, but this will need to be con­sidered in light of the con­sid­er­able short-term impacts of Cov­id-19 on stand­ard busi­ness operations.

Table 1: total car­bon emis­sions per annum for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

Year	Scope I¹	Scope 2²	Scope 3³	Total	Unit­s¹
2007⁄08	100	39	।।	150	tCO2e
2008⁄09	108	42	13	163	tCO2e
2009⁄10	98	45	12	155	tCO2e
2010⁄11	105	50	12	167	tCO2e
2011⁄12	94	41	10	144	tCO2e
2012⁄13	90	40	15	145	tCO2e
2013⁄14	51	45	13	109	tCO2e
2014⁄15	44	47	12	103	tCO2e
2015⁄16	39	46	31	117	tCO2e
2016⁄17	35	39	33	106	tCO2e
2017⁄18	29	34	27	90	tCO2e
2018⁄19	29	24	45	97	tCO2e
2019⁄20	22	18	45	85	tCO2e

¹ Direct/​Scope I emis­sions are defined by Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment as those arising from dir­ect owned or con­trolled com­bus­tion in fur­naces, boil­ers and vehicles, as well as dir­ect chem­ic­al and oth­er pro­cess emissions.

² Elec­tri­city Indirect/​Scope 2 emis­sions are defined as those which arise in the gen­er­a­tion of pur­chased electricity.

³ Oth­er indir­ect emissions/​Scope 3 emis­sions are defined as any which arise as the con­sequence of the activ­it­ies of the pub­lic sec­tor but occur from sources not owned or con­trolled by it.

⁴ Tonnes of car­bon diox­ide equivalent

1. We pro­pose three dis­tinct tar­gets for the Park and the Park Author­ity. These are as follows:

Tar­get	Descrip­tion
Tar­get I — The Author­ity should achieve net zero emis­sions by 2025 at the latest.	This is achiev­able by the CNPA based on present trends. The CNPA will present a route map for this as part of devel­op­ing the next Cor­por­ate Plan.
Tar­get 2 — The Park Author­ity should achieve zero dir­ect emis­sions by 2030.	This lat­ter tar­get is harder to quanti­fy as it will rely on the devel­op­ment and rap­id decar­bon­isa­tion of trans­port, power etc out­side the Author­it­ies con­trol. The CNPA will present a route map for this as part of devel­op­ing the next Cor­por­ate Plan.
Tar­get 3 — The Cairngorms Nation­al Park should achieve net zero emis­sions by 2045 at the latest, in line with Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment net zero com­mit­ments and to review that times­cale in light of planned car­bon budget work.	This tar­get is in line with Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment but the work out­lined below (to be delivered in 2021⁄22) should allow the CNPA to review this in light of the car­bon budget work and include in the devel­op­ment of the next Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan.

Next Steps

1. To help meas­ure and track car­bon through a coher­ent frame­work and meth­od­o­logy, we plan to work on a car­bon baseline and budget in line with the work being car­ried out by oth­er Nation­al Parks in the UK. This work has already been done in the Lake Dis­trict and is being taken for­ward by 4 oth­er Nation­al Parks in Eng­land. It is hoped a stand­ard­ised approach will allow UK Nation­al Parks to track and bench­mark their pro­gress along­side one another.

2. The clear met­rics and out­come around net-zero will be developed as part of our work devel­op­ing the next Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan and the met­rics and out­comes for the CNPA will be developed as part of the devel­op­ment of our next Cor­por­ate Plan.

OLIV­ER DAVIES

Head of Communications

Date 12 March 2021