Skip to content
Please be aware the content below has been generated by an AI model from a source PDF.

221125CNPABdPaper5AA_Annex1_CNPGHGAssessmentReport

Okay, here’s the con­ver­ted mark­down from the file you sent. I’ve included the text con­tent extrac­ted by OCR and struc­tured it into a mark­down format that emphas­izes head­ings, lists, and tables. Note: Since I can’t see” the visu­al format­ting (col­ors, font sizes, etc.) of the ori­gin­al doc­u­ment, I’ve used stand­ard Mark­down con­ven­tions. Also, some parts of the OCR might be a little off, espe­cially with sym­bols or unusu­al characters.

SMALL WORLD CONSULTING

A green­house gas emis­sions assess­ment and tar­get scen­ario for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park

A report by Small World Con­sult­ing Ltd

Octo­ber 2022 Small World Con­sult­ing Ltd Lan­caster Envir­on­ment Centre Gor­don Man­ley Build­ing Lan­caster Uni­ver­sity, Lan­caster LA1 4YQ info@ sw​-con​sult​ing​.co​.uk 01524 510272 www​.sw​-con​sult​ing​.co​.uk

Con­tents

  • Exec­ut­ive summary……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………5
  • Background………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..5
  • This report……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….5
  • Lim­it­a­tions and uncertainties……………………………………………………………………………………………………..7
  • Results………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………7
  • Key highlights………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….7
  • Tar­gets scenario……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….8
    1. Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..12
    1. Policy drivers………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..13
      • 2.1. Cli­mate change policy………………………………………………………………………………………………………….13
      • 2.2. Health impacts of air pollution…………………………………………………………………………………………….15
      • 2.3. Cli­mate-driv­en impacts in the UK………………………………………………………………………………………..15
      • 2.4. Real world action and beha­viour change……………………………………………………………………………..16
      • 2.5. Policy implic­a­tions for loc­al plan­ning authorities………………………………………………………………….17
    1. Cairngorms Nation­al Park: demo­graph­ic pro­file and key statistics………………………………………………18
      • 3.1. People and key characteristics…………………………………………………………………………………………….19
      • 3.2. Geo­graphy and landscape……………………………………………………………………………………………………21
      • 3.3. Con­sump­tion and spend­ing characteristics…………………………………………………………………………22
    1. GHG report­ing con­ven­tions and methods………………………………………………………………………………….23
    1. Cairngorms Nation­al Park: Con­sump­tion-based GHG emissions……………………………………………….27
      • 5.1. Res­ults overview…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..27
      • 5.2. Res­id­ents’ and vis­it­ors’ GHG foot­print components…………………………………………………………….30
      • 5.2.1. Food…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….30
      • 5.2.2. Homes and accom­mod­a­tion away from home……………………………………………………………31
      • 5.2.3. Travel……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………32
      • 5.2.4. Everything else…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..34
      • 5.2.5. Com­par­is­on of res­id­ents’ GHG emis­sions with UK nation­al aver­age by category……36
      • 5.3. Industry assessment…………………………………………………………………………………………………………36
      • 5.3.1. Scope of industry assessment………………………………………………………………………………………37
      • 5.3.2. Industry sec­tor analysis……………………………………………………………………………………………….37
      • 5.3.3. Energy-only industry analysis………………………………………………………………………………………43
      • 5.3.4. Large emit­ters analysis……………………………………………………………………………………………….44
      • 5.3.5. Com­par­is­on of annu­al industry foot­print with UK averages…………………………………….44
      • 5.4. Ana­lys­is of emis­sions from through-traffic and major roads………………………………………………..45
      • 5.5. Land use emissions…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….46
      • 5.6. Factors for con­sid­er­a­tion in land use target-setting…………………………………………………………….48
      • 5.6.1. Trees, wood­lands and forestry……………………………………………………………………………………..48
      • 5.6.2. Loc­al author­ity opportunities………………………………………………………………………………………49
      • 5.6.3. Peat­lands and wetlands……………………………………………………………………………………………….49
      • 5.6.4. Agri­cul­tur­al land­scape and food production……………………………………………………………..50
      • 5.6.5. UK tim­ber pro­duc­tion context…………………………………………………………………………………….51
    1. A vis­ion for a low-car­bon Nation­al Park: GHG targets………………………………………………………………….54
      • 6.1. Scen­ario based on land use tar­gets appor­tioned from the Sixth Car­bon Budget…………….57
      • 6.2. Scen­ario based on land use tar­gets from the new Part­ner­ship Plan………………………………….61
    1. Con­clu­sions and recommendations……………………………………………………………………………………………64
    1. Acronyms………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..67
    1. Glossary……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………68
    1. Appendices…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..76
      • 10.1. Appendix: Scot­tish Policy Com­par­is­on to UK/ England……………………………………………………..76
      • 10.2. Appendix: Nation­al Park key statistics………………………………………………………………………………..78
      • 10.3. Appendix: Sum­mary data­sets used for car­bon foot­print and con­fid­ence levels………………79
      • 10.4. Appendix: Car­bon foot­print defin­i­tions and data sources………………………………………………….80
      • 10.5. Appendix: Res­id­ents GHG emissions………………………………………………………………………………….81
      • 10.6. Appendix: Vis­it­ors GHG emissions……………………………………………………………………………………..82
      • 10.7. Appendix. Industry foot­print estimates……………………………………………………………………………83
      • 10.7.1. Appendix: SIC Codes (2007) sum­mary and IDBR description………………………………………83
      • 10.7.2. Appendix: IDBR industry footprint………………………………………………………………………………84
      • 10.7.3. Appendix: IDBR vs GVA industry foot­print estimates………………………………………………….85
      • 10.7.4. Appendix: Pol­lu­tion invent­ory for large emitters……………………………………………………….86
      • 10.8. Appendix: Emis­sions from major roads…………………………………………………………………………….87
      • 10.9. Appendix: Methodology…………………………………………………………………………………………………..88
      • 10.9.1. Appendix: His­tory of mod­el development…………………………………………………………………..88
      • 10.9.2. Appendix: Mod­el devel­op­ment for Nation­al Park family…………………………………………88
      • 10.9.3. Appendix: Out­line of emis­sions estim­a­tion methodology…………………………………………89
      • 10.9.4. Appendix: Tar­get set­ting rationale……………………………………………………………………………..90
      • 10.9.5. Appendix: Assump­tions for land use sector……………………………………………………………….93
      • 10.9.6. Appendix: Land class cat­egor­ies for report­ing nationally………………………………………..95
      • 10.9.7. Appendix: Changes in meth­od­o­logy for quan­ti­fy­ing peat­land GHG emissions………95
      • 10.9.8. Appendix: Tar­get set­ting meth­od­o­logy for land use change…………………………………..98

Doc­u­ment control

Nation­al Park Car­bon Foot­print Mod­el Devel­op­ment by: Dr Dmitry Yumashev, Mike Bern­ers-Lee, Lor­raine Ritchen-Stones, sup­por­ted by rep­res­ent­at­ives from UK Nation­al Parks and AONBs.

Tech­nic­al Sup­port: Mat­thew Bond MRes, Dr Tom Dav­ies, Dr Han­nah Wright, Dr Tom Higgs

Mod­el res­ults expor­ted from: Ver­sion 10 on the 25th May 2022

Report pre­pared by: Lor­raine Ritchen-Stones MBA, MSc, Dr Dmitry Yumashev, Mike Bern­ers-Lee, Dr Han­nah Wright, Mat­thew Bond MRes, Dr Tom Dav­ies, Dr Tom Higgs

Small World Con­sult­ing Ltd, +44 (0) 1524 510272, www​.sw​-con​sult​ing​.co​.uk

Proofread­ing: Jen­nifer Lyon, Lion­ess Translation

Res­ults qual­ity checked by: Mike Berners-Lee

Title: A green­house gas emis­sions assess­ment and tar­get scen­ari­os for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park

Report Ver­sion: 8

Status: Approved by Gav­in Miles, Head of Stra­tegic Plan­ning, Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority

Dated: 28th Octo­ber 2022

Approved by: Approved by Mike Berners-Lee

Expec­ted Changes: Cli­ent feed­back incorporated

Doc­u­ment Details

Ref­er­ence: Cairngorms NP GHG Assess­ment Report v8 221028

Tem­plate: Nation­al Park Car­bon Baseline Report Tem­plate Ver­sion 17.doc

No of pages: 105

Acknow­ledge­ments

We thank the Cairngorms Nation­al Park pro­ject team for their input and support.

Exec­ut­ive summary

Back­ground

As the world wakes up to the cli­mate and wider envir­on­ment­al emer­gency, rap­id reduc­tion in green­house gas emis­sions and sus­tain­able land man­age­ment are becom­ing increas­ingly cent­ral to the loc­al, nation­al and inter­na­tion­al policy agendas.

Togeth­er, the UK’s 15 Nation­al Parks and 46 Areas of Out­stand­ing Nation­al Beauty (AONBs) are home to over 1.5 mil­lion res­id­ents, attract approx­im­ately 250 mil­lion vis­it­ors per year, and account for around 18% of the UK’s land area. If these pro­tec­ted land­scapes can become exem­plars of low- car­bon trans­ition and envir­on­ment-con­scious land man­age­ment, their nation­al and inter­na­tion­al pro­files could give them a level of influ­ence that far out­weighs the scale of their own emis­sions. The excit­ing and cre­at­ive chal­lenge for each pro­tec­ted land­scape is to find a way to cut emis­sions in line with cur­rent sci­ence, and be lead­ers in land stew­ard­ship and plan­ning author­ity while sim­ul­tan­eously cre­at­ing bet­ter places for people to live, work and visit.

This report

This report, for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park, is one of a series of meth­od­o­lo­gic­ally com­pat­ible reports pro­duced for each UK Nation­al Park and Welsh AONB, with the Cots­wolds AONB and Can­nock Chase AONB in Eng­land also join­ing. They are designed to provide a robust and con­sist­ent evid­ence basis for cli­mate action, matched to the unique char­ac­ter­ist­ics and cir­cum­stances of each pro­tec­ted land­scape, as we enter an era in which cli­mate mit­ig­a­tion and sus­tain­able land man­age­ment become ever more cent­ral to all our lives, our work and to all policy decisions.

This report con­tains a con­sump­tion-based assess­ment of the green­house gas emis­sions attrib­ut­able to res­id­ents and vis­it­ors, includ­ing travel to and from the land­scape (Fig­ure 1), and a set of Par­is- aligned tar­get recom­mend­a­tions for trans­ition­ing to a low-car­bon economy.

Con­sump­tion-based emis­sions report­ing dif­fers from more tra­di­tion­al pro­duc­tion-based report­ing, such as that used by the UK in set­ting its 2050 net zero tar­get. A pro­duc­tion-based assess­ment would cov­er all the emis­sions that are dir­ectly pro­duced with­in the bound­ary of the land­scape wheth­er by people or busi­nesses or from land, plus those arising from pro­duc­tion of the elec­tri­city used with­in the land­scape. How­ever, the con­sump­tion-based approach adop­ted here cov­ers, in addi­tion, all indir­ect emis­sions that are embod­ied in the goods and ser­vices con­sumed by res­id­ents and vis­it­ors with­in the land­scape. In doing so, it bet­ter reflects the full cli­mate impact of people’s life­styles, and brings into focus for poli­cy­makers import­ant areas of cli­mate impact that a pro­duc­tion-based assess­ment over­looks. The most import­ant of these are the impact of food, of oth­er pur­chased items (such as cars, clothes, IT equip­ment, house­hold goods and fur­nish­ings), and of res­id­ents’ and vis­it­ors’ travel to and from the land­scape, out­side its boundaries.

Account­ing for emis­sions from land use and man­age­ment is also cru­cial for Nation­al Parks and AONBs. These land­scapes are mostly rur­al, with com­par­at­ively small pop­u­la­tion and large parts of land under vari­ous forms of agri­cul­tur­al man­age­ment, in addi­tion to non-agri­cul­tur­al hab­it­ats such as wood­lands, wild­flower mead­ows, heath­lands and peat­lands. Land-based emis­sions originate

One fea­ture of con­sump­tion-based report­ing is that it does not include emis­sions from industry (except where an industry’s goods and ser­vices are con­sumed by res­id­ents and vis­it­ors). There­fore, for per­spect­ive, this report also includes a simple estim­ate of emis­sions related to indus­tries with­in the Nation­al Park or AONB, includ­ing their sup­ply chains. It is import­ant to note that there is some inev­it­able over­lap between industry-related emis­sions and res­id­ents’ and vis­it­ors’ emis­sions, for example when people buy from loc­al busi­nesses with­in the area. Like­wise, there is an over­lap between emis­sions from agri­cul­ture as an industry sec­tor and land-based emis­sion with­in each land­scape. Fig­ure 1 illus­trates the rela­tion­ship between the main com­pon­ents of our cent­ral assess­ment and the industry emissions.

This report also includes a scen­ario for Par­is-aligned green­house gas emis­sion tar­gets across six key areas. These areas were selec­ted for the ori­gin­al Lake Dis­trict Nation­al Park assess­ment, and have been chosen in order to find a best fit” between com­pet­ing desires: to cov­er everything of sig­ni­fic­ance with­in the influ­ence of loc­al poli­cy­makers, to keep the bound­ary simple to describe, to avoid double-count­ing, and to make use of any data read­ily avail­able for track­ing pro­gress. As a res­ult, the scope for the tar­get areas is slightly dif­fer­ent from that of the over­all emis­sions assess­ment. The six tar­get areas are:

  • Energy-only emis­sions by res­id­ents, vis­it­ors and industry
  • Food and drink con­sumed by res­id­ents and visitors
  • Oth­er goods pur­chased by res­id­ents and visitors
  • Vis­it­or travel to and from the Nation­al Park or AONB
  • Land use non-CO2 com­pon­ent (includ­ing emis­sions from live­stock and fertilisers)
  • Land use CO2 component

Lim­it­a­tions and uncertainties

Due to the com­plex­ity of sup­ply chains and the lim­it­a­tions of avail­able data, con­sump­tion-based emis­sions estim­ates always con­tain a con­sid­er­able degree of uncer­tainty. How­ever, giv­en cur­rent con­straints on data avail­ab­il­ity, these estim­ates are suf­fi­ciently robust to provide an evid­ence basis for car­bon man­age­ment and tar­get set­ting. The estim­ate of industry-related emis­sions is par­tic­u­larly crude, being based on com­par­at­ively simple rev­en­ue data and gen­er­ic UK-wide emis­sion factors.

Res­ults

Cairngorms Nation­al Park (See Fig­ure 2 — Fig­ure 5)
Annu­al emis­sions from residents277,145 tCO2e (14.4 tCO2e per per­son per year)
Annu­al emis­sions from vis­it­ors while in the Nation­al Park89,788 tCO2e (20.8 kgCO2e per visitor-day)
Annu­al emis­sions from vis­it­ors trav­el­ling to/​from the Nation­al Park232,591 tCO2e (112.5 kgCO2e per visit)
Annu­al industry emissions64,853 tCO2e

Key high­lights

The Cairngorms encom­passes the largest area of all the Nation­al Parks but has the fifth-low­est res­id­ent pop­u­la­tion. The Cairngorms res­id­ents’ con­sump­tion is roughly 11% above the UK aver­age (excl. pub­lic ser­vices), which is slightly lower than the aver­age across all Nation­al Parks. The con­sump­tion data shows that the res­id­ents’ health expendit­ure is nearly 36% high­er than the UK aver­age, con­sist­ent with the Nation­al Park hav­ing a dis­pro­por­tion­ately high share of the older population.

In a giv­en year, the foot­print of the res­id­ents of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park is estim­ated to be around 17% high­er than the UK aver­age. Sev­er­al fossil fuel-based sources of green­house gas emis­sions are par­tic­u­larly high. The res­id­ents’ emis­sions from fly­ing and oth­er forms of trans­port (excl. driv­ing) are estim­ated to be around 29% high­er than for an aver­age UK res­id­ent. Driv­ing emis­sions are around 34% above the UK aver­age. The Cairngorms house­hold elec­tri­city foot­print is nearly 58% high­er than the UK aver­age. House­hold fuel emis­sions (exclud­ing vehicle fuel) are just under 11% above those of an aver­age UK res­id­ent, although this estim­ate has high uncer­tainty since mul­tiple prop­er­ties are off the gas grid in the Nation­al Park, and because there is insuf­fi­cient data for resid­ual fuel use (oil, coal, bio­mass). It must be noted that our estim­ates for emis­sions from house­hold fuel and elec­tri­city use do not include renew­able energy solu­tions such as sol­ar panels

and heat pumps, nor do they factor in the uptake of elec­tric vehicles. As of 2019, the share of these tech­no­lo­gies across house­holds was com­par­at­ively low and no suit­able data with suf­fi­cient geo­graph­ic­al detail was available.

The Cairngorms Nation­al Park has one of the highest shares of vis­it­ors stay­ing overnight among all land­scapes on the pro­gramme (just under 50%). Aver­age dur­a­tion of stay for overnight vis­it­ors is around 3.2 days which is on the lower side. Estim­ated aver­age mileage trav­elled on land to get to the Cairngorms the highest among all Nation­al Parks and AONBs ana­lysed (around 280 miles) and is dom­in­ated by cars. Around 27% vis­it­ors are thought to come from over­seas, also the highest among all the land­scapes on the pro­gramme. The vis­it­ors’ foot­print while trav­el­ling to and from the Nation­al Park is dom­in­ated by vehicle fuel (55%), fol­lowed by fly­ing (26%). The foot­print of trav­el­ling to and from the Park is over 2.5 times high­er than while in the Park. The total foot­print of all vis­it­ors (both in the Park and while trav­el­ling to and from) is slightly high­er than that of the residents.

The industry foot­print of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park is dom­in­ated by agri­cul­ture and forestry (30%), and accom­mod­a­tion and food ser­vices (16%). Farm­ing with­in the Nation­al Park is pre­dom­in­antly sheep and cattle pro­duc­tion. A fun­da­ment­al dif­fi­culty with estim­at­ing industry foot­print is that loc­a­tions where com­pan­ies are registered and where the required busi­ness data is avail­able do not always match with the loc­a­tions of busi­ness activ­it­ies and emis­sions. Anoth­er chal­lenge is the insuf­fi­cient num­ber of sec­tors repor­ted in the busi­ness data that matches closely to the bound­ary of a pro­tec­ted land­scape, which forces us to apply gen­er­ic UK-wide emis­sions factors.

The Cairngorms Nation­al Park is estim­ated to have a size­able traffic foot­print from the major A roads (A9, A86, A889 and A95), which amounts to nearly 60% com­pared to the total foot­print of the res­id­ents. Through-traffic is estim­ated to account for over 99% of the emis­sions from the major A roads.

Tar­gets scenario

A min­im­um Par­is-aligned tar­get tra­ject­ory has been con­struc­ted for each of the six ele­ments of the tar­gets, as illus­trated in Fig­ure 6. When com­bined, they res­ult in a net zero date of 2024 for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. The rationale behind select­ing the six emis­sions cat­egor­ies and exclud­ing oth­er sources of emis­sions is provided in Sec­tion 6, togeth­er with an altern­at­ive path­way asso­ci­ated with the full con­sump­tion-based foot­print. We note that the net zero date reflects the unique char­ac­ter­ist­ics of the land­scape, includ­ing the land use types and their respect­ive areas, the num­ber of res­id­ents and vis­it­ors and their con­sump­tion pat­terns, and the level and type of indus­tri­al activ­ity. It also assumes the recom­men­ded decar­bon­isa­tion and car­bon sequest­ra­tion efforts, includ­ing land use change, ratchet up to the required levels imme­di­ately in the base year of the assess­ment. In real­ity, the high levels of ambi­tion for dif­fer­ent sec­tors explored in this report are likely going take sev­er­al years to achieve, giv­en that post-COV­ID emis­sions have largely reboun­ded, and that decar­bon­isa­tion trends to date have been rel­at­ively small in mag­nitude com­pared to what we know is required for keep­ing glob­al warm­ing below the safer 1.5°C lim­it from the Par­is Agree­ment. These factors are expec­ted to push the pro­jec­ted net zero year back by sev­er­al years. The net zero date should there­fore not be taken in isol­a­tion as a level of ambition.

1. Intro­duc­tion

As the world wakes up to the cli­mate and wider envir­on­ment­al emer­gency, rap­id reduc­tion of green­house gas (GHG) emis­sions and sus­tain­able land man­age­ment are becom­ing increas­ingly cent­ral to the loc­al, nation­al and inter­na­tion­al policy agen­das. In 2019, the UK strengthened its pro­duc­tion-based tar­gets, set­ting itself a leg­ally bind­ing tar­get of net zero by 2050. This promp­ted the fam­ily of UK Nation­al Park Author­it­ies and sev­er­al Areas of Out­stand­ing Nat­ur­al Beauty (AONBs) to seek assess­ment of their green­house gas emis­sions col­lect­ively. The ambi­tion of these pro­tec­ted land­scapes was to go bey­ond the UK Government’s pro­duc­tion-based tar­gets and identi­fy the full con­sump­tion-based scale of the green­house gas emis­sions attrib­ut­able to res­id­ents and vis­it­ors, includ­ing travel to and from the landscape.

This report, for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park, is one of a series of meth­od­o­lo­gic­ally com­pat­ible reports pro­duced for each UK Nation­al Park, each Welsh AONB, as well as the Cots­wolds and Can­nock Chase AONBs in Eng­land. The baseline year for the assess­ment is 2019, the most recent pre-COV­ID year. The report also includes recom­mend­a­tions for Par­is-aligned tar­gets on GHG emis­sions reduc­tion across six key areas, as well as for car­bon sequest­ra­tion through land-based cli­mate mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures. Togeth­er with the estim­ated 2019 GHG baseline, achiev­ing these tar­gets would mean the Cairngorms reach­ing con­sump­tion-based net zero emis­sions by 2024, sub­ject to the tar­gets being ful­filled and to the con­sid­er­able uncer­tain­ties remain­ing in the data.

Togeth­er, the UK’s 15 Nation­al Parks and 46 AONBs are home to over 1.5 mil­lion res­id­ents, attract approx­im­ately 250 mil­lion vis­it­ors per year, account for around 18% of the UK’s land area, and con­tain sig­ni­fic­ant amounts of peat. If they can become exem­plars of low-car­bon trans­ition and envir­on­ment-con­scious land man­age­ment, their nation­al and inter­na­tion­al pro­files could give them a level of influ­ence that far out­weighs the scale of their own emis­sions. The excit­ing and cre­at­ive chal­lenge for each pro­tec­ted land­scape is to find a way to cut emis­sions in line with cur­rent sci­ence, and be lead­ers in land stew­ard­ship while sim­ul­tan­eously cre­at­ing bet­ter places for people to live, work and visit.

Almost every action con­nec­ted with people liv­ing, work­ing and spend­ing time in the pro­tec­ted land­scapes gives rise to green­house gas emis­sions, which lie with­in the influ­ence and there­fore man­age­ment respons­ib­il­it­ies of the Nation­al Park Author­it­ies or Loc­al Author­it­ies for the AONB. While the need to trans­ition from fossil fuels to renew­able energy is the single greatest chal­lenge in respond­ing to the cli­mate emer­gency, for the pro­tec­ted land­scapes in par­tic­u­lar, land man­age­ment is also a crit­ic­al ele­ment of deal­ing with both the cli­mate and biod­iversity crises.

The unique char­ac­ter­ist­ics of each pro­tec­ted land­scape give rise to dif­fer­ent pri­or­it­ies and oppor­tun­it­ies for cut­ting green­house gas emis­sions and for sus­tain­able land man­age­ment. For example, the ratio of vis­it­ors to res­id­ents var­ies greatly. Some Nation­al Parks and AONBs have large indus­tri­al or mil­it­ary sites with­in their bound­ar­ies. To vary­ing degrees, each land­scape is tra­versed by major roads that carry con­sid­er­able volumes of traffic (not neces­sar­ily stop­ping in the area). All these factors affect the eco­nom­ic makeup of each landscape’s geo­graphy, and have strong implic­a­tions for the asso­ci­ated GHG foot­print and decar­bon­isa­tion efforts. In terms of land man­age­ment chal­lenges and oppor­tun­it­ies, the pro­tec­ted land­scape vary greatly in their levels of peat­land and wood­land cov­er­age, in their amount and types of agri­cul­tur­al land, and in the pop­u­la­tion dens­it­ies of res­id­ents and visitors.

The main body of this report is designed for a broad audi­ence, includ­ing some who may be less famil­i­ar with car­bon ana­lys­is, but who have an act­ive interest in the find­ings. This includes Nation­al Park and AONB board mem­bers, loc­al busi­nesses, part­ner organ­isa­tions, and mem­bers of the gen­er­al pub­lic who wish to par­ti­cip­ate in the trans­ition to a low-car­bon and sus­tain­able eco­nomy. A tech­nic­al appendix has been pro­duced for those wish­ing to con­sult more meth­od­o­lo­gic­al detail.

2. Policy drivers

2.1. Cli­mate change policy

While the world has had to focus on deal­ing with the glob­al pan­dem­ic since Janu­ary 2020, cli­mate change has nev­er­the­less remained high on the inter­na­tion­al agenda. This sec­tion sum­mar­ises key drivers for change which the Nation­al Park may wish to respond to in deliv­er­ing its stat­utory duties.

Cli­mate change driv­en by anthro­po­gen­ic GHG emis­sions, plus the wider eco­lo­gic­al crisis, are some of the biggest chal­lenges facing human­ity today, and a joined-up response to tack­ling them is likely to improve both situ­ations. A 2018 report by the Inter­gov­ern­ment­al Pan­el on Cli­mate Change (IPCC) out­lined the need to reduce glob­al green­house gas emis­sions by 45% (from 2010 levels) by 2030, and achieve net zero emis­sions by 2050¹. It states that these reduc­tions are neces­sary in order to lim­it the increase in glob­al mean tem­per­at­ure to 1.5°C rel­at­ive to pre-indus­tri­al levels. This is the more ambi­tious tar­get of the Par­is Agree­ment by the parties to the UN Frame­work Con­ven­tion on Cli­mate Change (UNFC­CC); it is also under­stood to be a safer” warm­ing lim­it both for soci­et­ies and eco­sys­tems glob­ally. In 2019, the UK Gov­ern­ment agreed to a leg­ally bind­ing tar­get of net zero green­house gas emis­sions by 2050.

Sub­sequently, the IPCC pub­lished its Sixth Assess­ment Report (AR6) in stages, with the final volume released in March 2022. Com­piled by the world’s lead­ing sci­ent­ists, this report provides a com­pre­hens­ive update on the latest sci­entif­ic learn­ings about cli­mate change, and is inten­ded to serve as a resource for glob­al cli­mate nego­ti­ations, nation­al policies and busi­ness planning.

The first part of the AR6, entitled Cli­mate Change 2021: The Phys­ic­al Sci­ence Basis”, was released ahead of the 26th UNFC­CC Con­fer­ence of the Parties (COP26) hos­ted in Glas­gow in Novem­ber 2021². Not­ably, it affirms that the increase of car­bon diox­ide, meth­ane, and nitrous oxide in the Earth’s atmo­sphere through the indus­tri­al era, i.e. since the late 19th cen­tury, is the res­ult of human activ­it­ies. What is clear in the report is that our chance of lim­it­ing the increase in glob­al mean tem­per­at­ure to 1.5°C above pre-indus­tri­al levels now appears small. Keep­ing warm­ing below the safer” 1.5°C lim­it will likely require the most ambi­tious actions – i.e. those at the top end of known tech­nic­al feas­ib­il­ity – to reduce emis­sions and also upscale efforts on car­bon sequestration.

The Depart­ment of Busi­ness, Energy and Indus­tri­al Strategy (BEIS) is the lead for report­ing on GHG emis­sions in line with the UNFC­CC require­ments in the UK, includ­ing Scot­land and Wales. An

¹ IPCC (2018) Spe­cial Report: Glob­al Warm­ing of 1.5°C Sum­mary for Poli­cy­makers.” https://​www​.ipcc​.ch/​s​r​15​/​c​h​a​p​t​e​r​/spm/.

² IPCC (2021) Cli­mate Change 2021: The Phys­ic­al Sci­ence Basis https://​www​.ipcc​.ch/​r​e​p​o​r​t​/​s​i​x​t​h​-​a​s​s​e​s​s​m​e​n​t​-​r​e​p​o​r​t​-​w​o​r​k​i​n​g​-​g​roup- i/.

inde­pend­ent body, the UK Cli­mate Change Com­mit­tee, advises the whole of the UK, includ­ing devolved admin­is­tra­tions, on emis­sions tar­gets and pro­gress. The Sixth Car­bon Budget (2020) recom­mends that the UK set a budget to require a 78% reduc­tion in UK green­house gas emis­sions by 2035 rel­at­ive to 1990, which is a 63% reduc­tion from 2019 levels³. Fur­ther detail relat­ing to this is provided in Sec­tion 2.4 out­lining asso­ci­ated real-world change towards decarbonisation.

The Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment pub­lished its Update to the Cli­mate Change Plan 2018 – 2032: Secur­ing a Green Recov­ery on a Path to Net Zero” in Decem­ber 2020. The doc­u­ment sets out the new ambi­tious tar­gets to end Scotland’s con­tri­bu­tion to cli­mate change by 2045 (net zero), and a com­mit­ment to reduce emis­sions by 75% by 2030 (com­pared with 1990). Recog­nising the role that both pub­lic and private invest­ment must play in deliv­er­ing the trans­ition to net zero emis­sions, the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment launched the first tranche of its £2 bil­lion Low Car­bon Fund4.

Ahead of COP26, in Octo­ber 2021, the UK Gov­ern­ment pub­lished its Net Zero Strategy: Build Back Green­ers. This out­lines the Government’s strategy to reduce emis­sions across the eco­nomy, includ­ing power, fuel sup­ply and hydro­gen, industry, heat and build­ings, trans­port, waste, and green­house gas removals. It also con­siders sup­port­ing the wider trans­ition across the economy.

COP26 con­cluded with the agree­ment of the Glas­gow Cli­mate Pact, with 153 coun­tries put­ting for­ward new 2030 emis­sions tar­gets (“Nation­ally Determ­ined Con­tri­bu­tions”, NDCs). The NDCs pledged at COP26 are estim­ated to rep­res­ent a tra­ject­ory towards a tem­per­at­ure rise of 2.4°C (rel­at­ive to pre-indus­tri­al levels) by the end of the cen­tury, where­as the exist­ing Net Zero pledges, if fully imple­men­ted, would lim­it glob­al warm­ing to 1.8°C.7

Pri­or to COP26 clos­ing on the 13th of Novem­ber, the UK’s Envir­on­ment Act 2021 received Roy­al Assent, becom­ing law on the 9th of Novem­ber 2021 as an Act of Par­lia­ment. The broad aims of the UK Envir­on­ment Act are to improve air and water qual­ity, pro­tect wild­life, increase recyc­ling and reduce plastic waste. The Act also provides the means to set tar­gets for par­tic­u­late mat­ter (affect­ing the qual­ity of ambi­ent air) and spe­cies abund­ance. More import­antly, it sets envir­on­ment­al prin­ciples which the Nation­al Park Author­it­ies or Loc­al Author­it­ies for AONBs will need to be famil­i­ar with as they ful­fil their stat­utory plan­ning author­ity oblig­a­tions, namely:

  • The prin­ciple that envir­on­ment­al pro­tec­tion should be integ­rated into policymaking,
  • The prin­ciple of pre­vent­at­ive action to avert envir­on­ment­al damage,
  • The pre­cau­tion­ary prin­ciple, inso­far as it relates to the environment,
  • The prin­ciple that envir­on­ment­al dam­age should, as a pri­or­ity, be rec­ti­fied at source,
  • The pol­luter pays” principle.

³ Cli­mate Change Com­mit­tee (2020): The Sixth Car­bon Budget: The UK’s Path to Net Zero,” p. 13 https://​www​.thec​cc​.org​.uk/​w​p​-​c​o​n​t​e​n​t​/​u​p​l​o​a​d​s​/​2020​/​12​/​T​h​e​-​S​i​x​t​h​-​C​a​r​b​o​n​-​B​u​d​g​e​t​-​T​h​e​-​U​K​s​-​p​a​t​h​-​t​o​-​N​e​t​-​Z​e​r​o.pdf.

⁴ Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment (2020) Secur­ing a green recov­ery on a path to net zero: cli­mate change plan 2018 – 2032 — update p.1

HM Gov­ern­ment (2021), Net Zero Strategy: Build Back Green­er” https://​www​.gov​.uk/​g​o​v​e​r​n​m​e​n​t​/​p​u​b​l​i​c​a​t​i​o​n​s​/​n​e​t​-​zero- strategy.

COP26, The Glas­gow Cli­mate Pact,” p.8 https://​ukcop26​.org/​w​p​-​c​o​n​t​e​n​t​/​u​p​l​o​a​d​s​/​2021​/​11​/​C​O​P​26​-​P​r​e​s​i​d​e​n​c​y​-​O​u​t​c​o​m​e​s​-The- Climate-Pact.pdf.

https://​cli​mate​ac​tion​track​er​.org/​g​l​o​b​a​l​/​t​e​m​p​e​r​a​t​ures/.

2.2. Health impacts of air pollution

In addi­tion to the impact of cli­mate change on the envir­on­ment, green­house gas emis­sions also have an impact on human health and well-being. It is estim­ated that between 28,000 and 36,000 UK deaths each year are attrib­ut­able to air pol­lu­tion. Poor air qual­ity can have a dis­pro­por­tion­ate impact on the health and well-being of chil­dren, older people and oth­er vul­ner­able indi­vidu­als. The NHS has iden­ti­fied that more than 2,000 GP prac­tices and 200 hos­pit­als are in loc­al­it­ies affected by tox­ic air. In the UK, 5.4 mil­lion people are cur­rently receiv­ing treat­ment for asthma: 1.1 mil­lion chil­dren (1 in 11) and 4.3 mil­lion adults (1 in 12). Every day, three fam­il­ies are dev­ast­ated by the death of a loved one due to an asthma attack, and tra­gic­ally, two thirds of these deaths are pre­vent­able (Asthma UK2020).

Almost 16% of pre­vent­able deaths in Scot­land, com­pared to 30% in Eng­land, due to non- com­mu­nic­able dis­eases can be spe­cific­ally attrib­uted to air pol­lu­tion (NHS Plan, 2019). While cit­ies in Scot­land have lower levels of par­tic­u­late pol­lu­tion than many in Eng­land, dan­ger­ous levels are still reached⁹.

https://​www​.hps​.scot​.nhs​.uk/​w​e​b​-​r​e​s​o​u​r​c​e​s​-​c​o​n​t​a​i​n​e​r​/​a​i​r​-​p​o​l​l​u​t​i​o​n​-​a​n​d​-​h​e​a​l​t​h​-​b​r​i​e​f​i​n​g​-​n​o​t​e​-​m​o​r​t​a​l​i​t​y​-​a​s​s​o​c​i​ated- with-exposure-to-fine-particulate-matter-pm25-attributable-mortality-in-scotland/

⁹ Lee, D., Robertson, C., Ram­say, C., Gillespie, C. and Napi­er, G., 2019. Estim­at­ing the health impact of air pol­lu­tion in Scot­land, and the res­ult­ing bene­fits of redu­cing con­cen­tra­tions in city centres. Spa­tial and Spa­tio-tem­por­al Epi­demi­ology, 29, pp.85 – 96.

2.3. Cli­mate-driv­en impacts in the UK

The impact of cli­mate change on our nat­ur­al world is evid­enced by high­er tem­per­at­ures, chan­ging rain­fall pat­terns, changes in eco­sys­tems, sea level rise, increas­ing fre­quency and intens­ity of storm surges, retreat­ing gla­ciers, and melt­ing sea ice and ice sheets. In the UK we are see­ing sig­ni­fic­ant changes in the winter and sum­mer rain­fall pat­terns. The UK Met Office’s latest report states that Win­ters in the UK, for the most recent dec­ade (20092018), have been on aver­age 5% wet­ter than 1981 – 2010 and 12% wet­ter than 19611990”, and that Sum­mers in the UK have also been wet­ter, by 11% and 13% respectively”10. Total rain­fall from extremely wet days increased by around 17% in the dec­ade 2008 – 2017 for the UK as a whole. How­ever, the changes are most marked for Scot­land, and not sig­ni­fic­ant for most of south­ern and east­ern Eng­land. In addi­tion to increas­ing pre­cip­it­a­tion volumes, cli­mate change has already made it 12 – 25% more likely that the UK will again exper­i­ence a sum­mer as hot as 2018, which is pro­jec­ted to become 50% more likely with future warming.

In terms of human responses to flood­ing, a recent report by Nat­ur­al Eng­land also sug­gests that envir­on­ment­al inequal­ity is great­er with­in deprived com­munit­ies, which exper­i­ence the largest neg­at­ive cli­mate impacts, e.g. flood risk, air pol­lu­tion, poor-qual­ity river water and waste haz­ards. Research has shown that there are sig­ni­fic­ant men­tal health impacts asso­ci­ated with flood­ing, includ­ing a 20.1% chance of prob­able depres­sion with­in 12 months, 28.3% prob­able anxi­ety and 32.6% prob­able PTSD for those indi­vidu­als who dir­ectly exper­i­ence being flooded (based on the cost per house­hold over a 2‑year peri­od, ran­ging from £3,144 to £6,980 depend­ent on flood depth)11.

¹⁰ Met Office (2015), UK Cli­mate Pro­jec­tions: Head­line Find­ings”, July 2021, ver­sion 3 р. 6 – 7 https://​www​.met​of​fice​.gov​.uk/​b​i​n​a​r​i​e​s​/​c​o​n​t​e​n​t​/​a​s​s​e​t​s​/​m​e​t​o​f​f​i​c​e​g​o​v​u​k​/​p​d​f​/​r​e​s​e​a​r​c​h​/​u​k​c​p​/​u​kcp18 head­line find­ings v3.pdf

¹¹ Priest, S., Viavattene, C., and Cot­ton, J. (2019) Envir­on­ment Agency present­a­tion: New eco­nom­ic costs for the men­tal health impacts of flooding.”

2.4. Real world action and beha­viour change

In addi­tion, cli­mate-driv­en changes in rain­fall pat­terns and tem­per­at­ures cre­ate sig­ni­fic­ant adapt­a­tion chal­lenges for spe­cies that depend on their loc­al envir­on­ment­al con­di­tions and hab­it­ats, pos­ing an even great­er risk to future biod­iversity and food security.

The Sixth Car­bon budget, togeth­er with sec­tor reports, has respon­ded to these policy drivers with high-level pro­pos­als that neces­sit­ate real-world plan­ning, action and beha­viour change. Key high­lights from the report are lis­ted below:

  • By the early 2030s, all new cars and vans, and all domest­ic and non-domest­ic replace­ment boil­ers are low-car­bon – largely electric.
  • By 2040 all new trucks are low-carbon.
  • UK industry shifts to using renew­able elec­tri­city or hydro­gen instead of fossil fuels.
  • UK industry cap­tures its remain­ing car­bon emis­sions and stores them safely (and permanently).
  • By 2035 the UK’s elec­tri­city pro­duc­tion is zero carbon.
  • Low-car­bon hydro­gen is scaled up as a fuel for ship­ping, trans­port and industry, and for some build­ings it replaces nat­ur­al gas for heat­ing (demand for nat­ur­al gas is set to double/​treble by 2050).
  • UK wastes few­er resources and reduces its reli­ance on high-car­bon goods.
  • UK has a nation­al pro­gramme to improve insu­la­tion of exist­ing buildings12.
  • Few­er miles trav­elled by car and air.
  • Diets change, redu­cing con­sump­tion of high-car­bon meat and dairy products13 by 20% by 2030.
  • Agri­cul­ture and the use of farm­land are trans­formed, while main­tain­ing the same levels of food per head pro­duced today.
  • By 2035, 460,000 hec­tares of new mixed wood­land are planted to remove CO
×

We want your feedback

Thank you for visiting our new website. We'd appreciate any feedback using our quick feedback form. Your thoughts make a big difference.

Thank you!