Government Emissions Reported

Photo by Dave McLear

The Scottish Government published their annual report for 2007-08 on their own environmental performance yesterday (pdf here). These are the emissions targets that the Government has set for itself, not for the country as a whole. For the most part, it makes painful reading. Here are the figures:

Energy Use In Buildings

Target for 2011: 7221 tonnes CO2
Current Performance: 8082 tonnes CO2

Direct fossil fuel use actually rose 15% last year. They'll have to make their buildings 10% more efficient in the next 3 years to make target.

Recycling Office Waste

Target for 2011: 80%
Current Performance: 76%

This looks impressive until you realise that it is the lowest level of recycling since 2004, as Patrick Harvie points out.

Travel Related Emissions

Target for 2011: 2596 tonnes CO2
Current Performance: 3046 tonnes CO2

Rail Travel previous year: 246.5 tonnes CO2
Rail travel this year: 402.1 tonnes CO2

Air travel previous year: 1444.8 tonnes CO2
Air travel this year: 1359.3 tonnes CO2

Travel emissions actually increased by 6% last year. Not surprisingly, air travel makes up the bulk of the emissions. The emissions for rail travel almost doubled, which would have been a good sign if we had seen air travel almost half. But it didn't.

Water Consumption in Buildings

Target for 2020: 5.5 cubic metres per person
Current Performance: 6.84 cubic metres per person

While I'm despairing about the figures, and the lack of progress in some areas, I'm holding on to one thing: at least they're reporting on their emissions and setting targets, instead of just waffling about progress.