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

221125CNPABdPaper5AA_SWCCarbonFootprint

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 5 25th Novem­ber 2022

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

FOR INFORM­A­TION

Title:GREEN­HOUSE GAS EMIS­SIONS ASSESS­MENT AND TAR­GET SCEN­ARIO FOR THE CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK

Pre­pared by: GAV­IN MILES, HEAD OF STRA­TEGIC PLANNING

Pur­pose

To inform the Board of the green­house gas emis­sions assess­ment for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park under­taken by Small World Con­sult­ing and a tar­get scen­ario to reach­ing net zero and to sum­mar­ise the work the CNPA will under­take to sup­port that journey.

Recom­mend­a­tion

That the Board con­sider the green­house gas emis­sions assess­ment for the Nation­al Park and note the tar­get scen­ario to reach net zero fol­lowed by the pos­it­ive car­bon con­tri­bu­tion that the Nation­al Park can make for Scot­land in future.


CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHORITY

Form­al Board Paper 5 25th Novem­ber 2022

A GREEN­HOUSE GAS EMIS­SIONS ASSESS­MENT AND TAR­GET SCEN­ARIO FOR THE CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK

FOR INFORM­A­TION

Back­ground and Stra­tegic Context

  1. The cli­mate crisis and the need to adapt to cli­mate change and to reach net zero are glob­ally accep­ted policies. Nation­al policy dir­ects Scot­land to reach net zero by 2045 or soon­er. The UK’s 6th Car­bon budget, the Cli­mate Change (Scot­land) Act 2019 and Scotland’s updated Cli­mate Change Plan set out nation­al path­ways towards net zero. The Cairngorms Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP) has cli­mate change embed­ded through­out its out­comes and actions and is the Nation­al Park’s Cli­mate Action Plan under the terms of the Glas­gow Declar­a­tion. In par­tic­u­lar, object­ive Al of the NPPP states:

Ensure the Cairngorms Nation­al Park reaches net zero as soon as pos­sible and con­trib­utes all it can to help­ing Scot­land meet its net zero commitments.”.

  1. For more than a dec­ade, the Lake Dis­trict Nation­al Park Author­ity has been under­tak­ing assess­ments of green­house gas emis­sions (GHG), car­bon budget­ing and plan­ning to reduce green­house gas emis­sions through world-lead­ing work by Small World Con­sult­ing (SWC). In 2021, the CNPA com­mis­sioned SWC to under­take a green­house gas emis­sions and tar­get scen­ario for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park (CNP), build­ing on the expert­ise developed in the work to sup­port the Lake Dis­trict Nation­al Park. The full report is attached as Annex 1.

  2. Over 2021 and 2022 SWC were com­mis­sioned by each of the UK Nation­al Parks to under­take the same work, cre­at­ing a baseline across the UK Nation­al Parks and allow­ing com­par­able assess­ments of the chal­lenges facing dif­fer­ent pro­tec­ted areas. That work is con­tinu­ing and so far, the South Downs Nation­al Park Author­ity and York­shire Dales Nation­al Park Author­ity have pub­lished their equi­val­ent reports. The rel­ev­ant reports for the Lake Dis­trict, South Downs and York­shire Dales Nation­al Parks are avail­able via the fol­low­ing links:

  3. Most GHG emis­sions report­ing is under­taken using a pro­duc­tion-based meth­od­o­logy that takes account of all emis­sions that are dir­ectly pro­duced with­in a geo­graph­ic area. The SWC meth­od­o­logy is based on a con­sump­tion-based emis­sions mod­el to include as com­plete a pic­ture as pos­sible of the cli­mate impact of people’s life­styles. This means that the indir­ect emis­sions that are embod­ied in goods and ser­vices con­sumed by res­id­ent and vis­it­ors with­in the CNP are also con­sidered. The estim­ates of industry-related emis­sions are rel­at­ively crude at this point time because of the way that sec­tors are repor­ted in busi­ness data and the geo­graphy of busi­ness addresses. How­ever, the data is suf­fi­ciently robust for com­par­is­on with oth­er areas. Inev­it­ably, there is some over­lap in cat­egor­ies of emis­sions between dif­fer­ent sec­tors, most


CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper 5 25th Novem­ber 2022

obvi­ously between land-based busi­nesses and land itself. As car­bon mon­it­or­ing and account­ing sys­tems become more accur­ate and con­sist­ent in future, mod­els and assess­ments will become more precise.

Emis­sions from res­id­ents, vis­it­ors in and trav­el­ling to the CNP and industry

  1. The SWC report (Annex 1) provides a detailed assess­ment of green­house gas emis­sions and a poten­tial path­way to net zero. The report is clear on the meth­od­o­logy used, the data avail­able and the lim­it­a­tions of data. The over­all emis­sions foot­print is explained in detail in chapter 5 of the report and fig­ure I provides a simple sum­mary. The emis­sions are repor­ted as the equi­val­ent tonnes of car­bon diox­ide (tCO2E).

Fig­ure I

Cairngorms Nation­al Park GHG Emis­sions tCO₂E (and % of total emissions)

                              Industry,
                              64853, 10%

                  Visitors travel             Residents, 277145,
                  to/from National                     42%
                  Park, 232591, 35%

                         Visitors
                         inside
                         National
                         Park, 89788,
                         13%

Fig­ure 2

Cumu­lat­ive GHG Emis­sions Com­par­is­on by Nation­al Parks tCO2E

0 500000 1000000 1500000 2000000 2500000 3000000 3500000 4000000 4500000 5000000 York­shire Dales Cairngorms Lake Dis­trict South Downs

■ Res­id­ents ■ Vis­it­ors inside Nation­al Park ■ Vis­it­ors travel to/​from Nation­al Park ■ Industry

  1. It is help­ful to put the emis­sions of the CNP in the con­text of oth­er com­par­able areas. Fig­ure 2 com­pares the CNP with oth­er nation­al parks where reports have been pub­lished and shows that the total emis­sions from the CNP are rel­at­ively small in

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper 5 25th Novem­ber 2022

com­par­is­on to those areas with more res­id­ents, vis­it­ors, or a com­bin­a­tion of both. Fig­ure 3 com­pares both size and num­ber of res­id­ents in those nation­al parks while fig­ure 4 illus­trates the vis­it­or num­bers to dif­fer­ent nation­al parks.

Fig­ure 3

Fig­ure 4

Annu­al Vis­it­ors (Mil­lions)

                                  25

Land Area (Km2) and Pop­u­la­tion (1000s)

    ■Land Area (km2) Population (1000s)

500

                                  20

450 400

                                  15

350 300

                                  10

250 200

                                  5

150 100 50 0 0 Cairngorms York­shire Dales South Downs Lake Dis­trict Cairngorms York­shire Dales South Downs Lake District

Land Use emis­sions and stor­age of green­house gases

  1. The land use sec­tor of the SWC report (Sec­tion 5.5) con­tains both sources and sinks of green­house gases. The sec­tor over­laps with the land use, land use change and forestry (LUL­CF) sec­tor for nation­al GHG report­ing so is con­sist­ent with inter­na­tion­al stand­ards for report­ing. The key dif­fer­ence is that the SWC land use sec­tor includes emis­sions from live­stock and fer­til­izer use, while the LUL­CF excludes those emis­sions which are then repor­ted sep­ar­ately with­in the agri­cul­ture sector.

  2. The meth­od­o­logy applied by SWC to land use GHG emis­sions and car­bon sequest­ra­tion is care­fully explained in the report and while the sci­ence is devel­op­ing every year, the report is based and the most up to date fig­ures and estim­ates relat­ing to dif­fer­ent types of land use avail­able at this point in time. Board mem­bers will know that there is debate about the rel­at­ive car­bon sequest­ra­tion of dif­fer­ent types of wood­land on dif­fer­ent soils and about the ways that changes from one land to anoth­er can impact the stor­age of car­bon on land. The report assumes that the most appro­pri­ate choices of wood­land estab­lish­ment would be applied to any future changes and that peat­land res­tor­a­tion is applied suc­cess­fully to cor­res­pond with nation­al tar­gets and objectives.

  3. Dif­fer­ent sec­tors and stud­ies will refine our under­stand­ing of the role of land and dif­fer­ent man­age­ment on car­bon stor­age in future. The sum­mary of the SWC estim­ate based on 2019 data is that the land use sec­tor was a mod­est net car­bon sink over­all of 16,260 tCO2E per year (about 2.5% of the annu­al emis­sions foot­print sum­mar­ised in fig­ure 1).

Route to net zero for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park and car­bon stor­age for Scotland

  1. The SWC report applies a scen­ario for redu­cing GHG emis­sions based on nation­al tar­gets and tied to the rel­ev­ant land uses and land char­ac­ter­ist­ics of the rel­ev­ant nation­al park. The tailored tar­gets for each area are then applied to show a hypo­thet­ic­al path­way to net zero and bey­ond. Sec­tion 6 of the SWC report in Annex I sets a scen­ario for redu­cing GHG emis­sions and increas­ing the stor­age of carbon

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper 5 25th Novem­ber 2022

through land that is aligned with the United Nations Par­is Agree­ment of 2015 at COP21 the UK’s 2050 net zero policy and Scotland’s updated Cli­mate Change Plan. It com­bines ambi­tious reduc­tions in emis­sions from energy, food, goods, travel of vis­it­ors and from land use with increased car­bon stor­age from land use. The mod­el assumes that all parts of the soci­ety and rel­ev­ant pub­lic bod­ies make the rel­ev­ant changes required. The tar­gets that SWC iden­ti­fied for peat­land res­tor­a­tion and wood­land expan­sion in the CNP were high­er than those that are set out in the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan, so a second scen­ario that applies the cur­rent Part­ner­ship Plan tar­gets has also been applied.

Fig­ure 5, CNP path­way to Net Zero based on Part­ner­ship Plan targets

                                              SMALL
2019    2020   2021   2022   2023   2024   2025   2026   2027   2028   2029   2030   2031   2032   2033   2034   2035   2036   2037   2038   2039   2040   2041   2042   2043   2044   2045   2046   2047   2048   2049   2050   WORLD

Year CON­SULT­ING 0 500,000 1,000,000

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  tCO2e per year

-1,500,0001,000,000500,000 Land Use CO2 Land Use Non-CO2 Travel To & From (Excl. Flights; Incl. Car Man­u­fac.): Vis­it­ors Oth­er Non-Food Shop­ping (Incl. Cars): Residents+Visitors Food & Drink: Residents+Visitors Energy-only GHG (Incl. Supp. Chain): Residents+Visitors+Industry ‑Total Tar­geted Emissions

Fig­ure 22. The Cairngorms Nation­al Park: Altern­at­ive path­way to Net Zero based on the wood­land and peat­land tar­gets from the new Part­ner­ship Plan

  1. The key point of this scen­ario is that if all the rel­ev­ant tar­gets are met, the CNPA would reach net zero in around 2024 under the core scen­ario and 2025 under the scen­ario using Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan tar­gets. In the years fol­low­ing 2024/2025, the CNP would start to make a sig­ni­fic­ant con­tri­bu­tion to car­bon stor­age for Scot­land and the UK. The CNP glide­path’ to net zero and bey­ond is shown in fig­ure 5 and both pro­jec­tions are shown in detail on pages 60 and 63 of Annex 1.

  2. The fact the CNP is the UK’s largest Nation­al Park, with sig­ni­fic­ant areas of peat­land that can be man­aged to pre­vent release of green­house gases as well as poten­tial for wood­land expan­sion is an import­ant ele­ment in its poten­tial path­way to net zero. Put simply, the CNP has a lot of land that can be man­aged to store car­bon more effi­ciently and com­pared to areas with a lar­ger res­id­ent pop­u­la­tion or num­bers of vis­it­ors, has rel­at­ively lower car­bon emis­sions from human activity.


CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Form­al Board Paper 5 25th Novem­ber 2022

  1. For com­par­is­on, the pro­jec­ted net zero date for the York­shire Dales Nation­al Park is 2033 – 2034, for the Lake Dis­trict Nation­al Park is 2037, and for the South Downs Nation­al Park is 2044.

  2. The report doesn’t attempt to make any dis­tinc­tion between the dif­fer­ent routes by which land can be man­aged to store car­bon in future. It is the fact that land with­in the CNP can be man­aged to store car­bon more effect­ively that mat­ters here, not wheth­er it is fun­ded through a pub­lic pro­gramme such as the Peat­land Action Pro­gramme, or via private fin­ance and car­bon cred­its bought by busi­ness that is remote from that land. The car­bon sequest­ra­tion poten­tial of the Nation­al Park will be con­sidered as part of Scotland’s con­tri­bu­tion, the UK’s con­tri­bu­tion and linked to each of its loc­al author­it­ies as well as to own­ers of land and the people, and insti­tu­tions who pay to store carbon.

Con­clu­sion and next steps

  1. The SWC green­house gas emis­sions assess­ment and tar­get scen­ario for the Nation­al Park is the first con­sump­tion-based estim­ate of emis­sions and of a path­way to net zero at the scale of the Nation­al Park and provides a clear baseline from which to mon­it­or change and pro­gress. Clearly, the report also high­lights many of the soci­et­al changes at a nation­al and inter­na­tion­al level that are not with­in the imme­di­ate con­trol of the CNPA or even any of the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan part­ners on their own. It relies on nation­al gov­ern­ment put­ting in place the neces­sary tools to sup­port those changes and for rel­ev­ant organ­isa­tions to imple­ment the changes with­in their control.

  2. At the Cairngorms Nation­al Park scale, the report rein­forces the import­ance of the actions already being delivered through the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP) and the Her­it­age Hori­zons Cairngorms 2030 pro­ject. The peat­land res­tor­a­tion and wood­land expan­sion tar­gets that are already with­in the NPPP are crit­ic­al to the CNP’s path­way to net zero and to the Cairngorms Nation­al Park’s con­tri­bu­tion to Scot­tish and UK tar­gets. The work on act­ive travel, cli­mate con­scious com­munit­ies, the future farm­ing pro­ject all help to raise aware­ness and sup­port changes to a lower car­bon future.

  3. The SWC work takes an over­view of the Nation­al Park, but indi­vidu­al sec­tors are already doing their own more detailed work into redu­cing emis­sions and will improve the avail­ab­il­ity and accur­acy of data over time. There is much sci­entif­ic debate about the rel­at­ive car­bon stor­age of changes in land use and land cov­er, par­tic­u­larly the con­tri­bu­tions of dif­fer­ent types of wood­land. We expect that prac­tic­al work in rel­ev­ant hab­it­ats with site-based assess­ments will refine our under­stand­ing with­in the Nation­al Park and the spe­cif­ic ground and cli­mat­ic con­di­tions here.

  4. We will provide an annu­al state­ment of the pro­gress towards net zero in the Nation­al Park that sets out change against this baseline as well as case stud­ies to show pro­gress at a sec­tor or pro­ject level.

Gav­in Miles 15 Novem­ber 2022 gavinmiles@​cairngorms.​co.​uk


×

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!