The extreme cold weather for prolonged periods of 2010 has had a major impact on Scotland’s emissions, Environment and Climate Change Minister Stewart Stevenson revealed today.

Some of the coldest temperatures experienced in 91 years resulted in households across Scotland being forced to keep the heating on and resulted in a significant rise in both residential and power station emissions.

Latest statistics published today indicate that Scotland’s emissions rose by 1.9 per cent in 2010 on the previous year, when taking emissions trading into account. However, the longer term trend still shows a substantial emissions reduction of 24.3 per cent since 1990, over half way to the Climate Change Target of 42 per cent by 2020.

Historic emissions data has also been significantly revised upwards due to new data and changes in methodology. This revision contributes to Scottish emissions being higher than the statutory target for 2010 under the Climate Change (Scotland) Act but still showing a substantially better position than the UK as a whole with emissions in Scotland down by 24.3 per cent compared with 20.2 per cent across the UK.

In addition provisional figures from the UK Department for Energy and Climate Change indicate that emissions fell seven per cent in 2011, suggesting that emissions reductions will get back on track in 2011.

Source: ClickGreen