The Scottish Government aims to reduce car kilometres by 20% by 2030 from a 2019 baseline. Parking policy has been acknowledged as having the potential to play an important role in supporting this reduction target.

This research has gathered evidence on the effectiveness of different parking management interventions in reducing car use. Its purpose is to inform the development of parking policies which support the joint commitment by Scottish Government and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) to reduce car use by 20% by 2030.

Findings

Five parking interventions were identified as having an impact on car kilometre reduction, modal shift (the percentage of travellers using cars), and/or car ownership:

1. Parking standards, off-site or non-adjacent provision of residential parking, low-car and car-free housing
2. Parking pricing, on-street and off-street
3. Parking levies
4. Park and ride
5. Parking capacity reductions at city or neighbourhood level

The research found strong evidence that four out of the five intervention types have a positive impact on car kilometre reduction, modal shift or car ownership.

The exception to this is park and ride, which was found to generally increase vehicle kilometres travelled when located close to destinations. However, when located close to journey origins, it could reduce vehicle kilometres in the order of 1.5km per park and ride user.

The four most impactful interventions align with wider Scottish Government policy, including encouraging active travel, reducing car dominance, reducing congestion and air pollution, and supporting sustainable investments.

Further details on the findings can be found in the report attached.

If you require the report in an alternative format such as a Word document, please contact info@climatexchange.org.uk or 0131 651 4783.

Scottish Mediation defines mediation as: “a flexible process that can be used to settle disputes in a whole range of situations. […] The mediator helps parties work out what their issues and options are, then uses those options to work out an agreement.”

Over five days at the end of August, I attended accredited mediation training with a group of people working across climate change engagement. In addition to learning about mediation we explored how the approach may be applied to conflict resolution around climate action.

We need to take action at pace to transition to a net zero, climate-ready future. That comes with considerable potential for conflict. Indeed, many engaged at both a local, national and global level have found themselves in the middle of heated and intense conflicts that block progress and harm those involved.

Understanding conflict

Conflict and disagreement are part of life. By understanding how conflict escalates to the point where the two sides see no way forward, it is possible to avoid trench warfare.

Conflicts about local climate action can follow a well-known conflict escalation pattern: an issue becomes personal through antagonism, labelling and stereotypes; this leads to defensiveness, other issues are draw in, communication breaks down, mistrust spirals, ending in polarised camps that do not see any possible solutions other than defeating the adversary.

What mediation offers is a structured process that has the potential to help climate practitioners manage and work through the potential conflicts involved in delivering climate action.

These skills and techniques can be used to bring people with divergent and conflicting views together, to work through challenges constructively, unlocking new ideas and seeing conflict as an opportunity for positive change.

Change is difficult

Individuals and communities can feel helpless and hopeless in the face of climate risks like sea level rise or increased flooding. Rapid and significant change is scary and unsettling.

Anger, loss and grief are all natural feelings that are important for us as individuals that other people acknowledge.

We are all often more intent on getting our own point across rather than listening to someone else’s. As a result, people tend to talk in parallel, neither really listening to the other, which leads to more frustration and greater anger.

Mediation gives participants space to reflect on their feelings before refocusing on going forward in an agreed way.

Creative problem solving

Solutions in a mediation process come from the participants. The process can help unlock and facilitate people’s ability to identify and discuss new and unexpected solutions, and gives them an opportunity to make concessions gracefully, without pushing them to admit fault or back down.

This gives back agency and brings a constructive focus on the opportunity for innovation and creativity.

Climate action needs creative problem solving where people can home in on what they gain rather than what they may lose.

So, while a formal mediation process may not be the answer to how we reduce the number of cars on the road or how to avoid wars over access to water, by finding new ways of unlocking progress on challenging issues, mediation seems a useful tool in our climate action acceleration toolkit.

Related links

Scottish Mediation

The Scottish Government aims to reduce car kilometres travelled by 20% by 2030, and states that reducing car use will build stronger communities, including revitalising town centres and developing 20-minute neighbourhoods.

This report provides an evidence base on the environmental, economic and social impacts of sustainable travel for local high streets and town centres for those promoting, campaigning on, designing and delivering sustainable travel interventions.

The research involved a literature review, stakeholder interviews and case studies. As a companion to this report, a suite of engagement materials has been produced for use when engaging with communities, businesses and local representatives on plans to implement sustainable travel measures.

Summary of findings

The research found that introduction of sustainable travel can result in multiple positive benefits for high streets, such as: 

• better environment
• making room for people and nature
• valued places that people enjoy
• healthier, happier and safer communities
• thriving businesses, better links to jobs and more spending

Summary of recommendations

The report recommends the following measures, which could be taken to increase sustainable travel to high streets and town centres:

• Maximise the benefits of sustainable travel through holistic projects that meet community needs.
• Provide guidance on how to measure benefits and evaluate interventions in order to identify and communicate these benefits effectively.
• Identified benefits should play an important role in constructive engagement.
• Groups potentially negatively impacted by interventions need to be particularly catered for in engagement.

Further details on the findings and recommendations can be found in the report attached.

To meet Scotland’s net-zero targets, it is important that the Scottish Government understands how its policy and spending decisions impact greenhouse gas emissions.

This research explores options to improve understanding of the consequences of Scottish Government’s spending choices on emissions and increase the transparency and value of the carbon assessment of the Scottish Budget to support scrutiny and informed discussion.

The findings contribute to the Joint Budget Review on matters related to climate change between the Scottish Government and Scottish Parliament.

The research considers a number of options based on but not limited to current systems and practices within the Scottish Government, proportionality to the policy process, capacity, avoiding unintended consequences and the practical application. Lessons are drawn from across all policy areas, and from other jurisdictions. The recommendations cover a number of areas, however there is a focus on governance, processes, capacity and culture.

Recommendations

The report recommends that the Scottish Government:

1. Improves the clarity and transparency of Government decisions that impact on climate change, acknowledging that trade-offs will always exist between different objectives.
2. Pursues a cultural shift to ensure sufficient time and resource for robust decision-making processes, allowing business cases, carbon assessments and impact assessments to be undertaken, challenged and scrutinised.
3. Enhances cross-governmental policymaking governance, to have oversight and challenge function on the existence and quality of processes and appraisal throughout the entire policymaking process. The governance process would require the capacity for an enhanced approach to pre-budget carbon assessments.
4. Urgently expands their internal capacity and skills, including recognising that civil servants cannot expect to undertake processes as intended without enough time, resourcing, and a significant increase in practical policymaking and appraisal guidance.
5. Considers periodic external auditing of climate change policymaking governance, processes and carbon assessments.
6. Introduces a Net Zero Test to ensure that all spending with major emissions implications undergoes a quantitative carbon assessment.
7. Creates a second cross-governmental governance team (see recommendation 3), responsible for assessing climate impacts, providing oversight and a challenge function. The team would ensure the Net Zero Test and carbon assessments are being undertaken and of suitable quality. This would in addition support work across Government to embed consideration of carbon throughout policymaking process. To be effective the team will require the ability to influence Government-wide change.
8. Recognises the power of Scottish Government procurement in driving economy-wide carbon reductions. We recommend the Government considers a swift roll out of quantitative carbon management procedures, building on the success of the Cross Tay Link Road case study and carbon management procedures in the City Region & Growth Deals team.
9. Considers retiring the taxonomy-based carbon assessment of the Capital Budget and the high-level carbon assessment of the Budget. This will have implications for the Climate Change Act.
10. Considers the challenging environment for data collection under current budgetary processes, and that a longer lead in time will be required for better data.
11. Moves towards the use of individual-level carbon assessments and gap analysis to provide suitable data for fiscal and policy scrutiny. In time, further mechanisms for scrutiny should also be explored, such as a carbon equivalent to financial memos for any announcements that require legislative changes, and publication of carbon assessment results after decisions have been made.

While these recommendations are made for the Scottish Government, many of the principles are shared with agencies and local government. Supporting alignment with these principles across the whole of government will be critical to developing an understanding of how government spending choices impact on emissions.

This paper summarises findings from research to map areas with high potential for future hydrogen production and, subsequently, areas with a building stock that has high technical suitability to use hydrogen for heating.

The policy context for hydrogen for heating is set out in the response from the Scottish Government published alongside the summary report.  

The Scottish Government’s Climate Change Plan requires over a million homes currently heated by gas boilers to convert to zero emissions heat over the next eight years. Overall, emissions from homes and buildings need to fall by 68% from 2020 to 2030.

The use of 100% hydrogen in heating our homes is dependent on strategic decisions by the UK Government on the future of the gas grid that will not be made before 2026.

The study identified regions in Scotland where hydrogen can best be produced based on a range of assumed criteria, datasets retrieved for assessment and stakeholder discussions. The project focused on green hydrogen, which is produced from renewable energy sources, and blue hydrogen, which is produced mainly from natural gas.

The analysis identified the following seven high potential areas in Scotland deemed most able to produce low or zero carbon hydrogen in the near future and where a considerable percentage of properties are technically suitable to accept hydrogen for heating:

1. Fife, 66.2%
2. Falkirk, 63.7%
3. Highland, 54.6%
4. Angus, 53.6%
5. Aberdeenshire, 48.2%
6. Aberdeen City, 43.7%
7. Na h-Eileanan Siar, 12.1%

Alongside a summary of the report, we are publishing a response by the Scottish Government that sets the context for the use of hydrogen for heating in Scotland.

In 2022, the Scottish Government consulted on a draft route map that sets out interventions to reduce the distance travelled by car by 20%, by 2030. Some of those relate specifically to children and young people (CYP).

This project aims to provide evidence to support the development of integrated policy interventions to increase sustainable travel among Scotland’s CYP and their families.

Researchers reviewed Scottish, Welsh and Danish policy, and literature evaluating interventions related to sustainable travel among CYP and families, focusing beyond the journey to/from school.

Summary findings

• It is worth addressing travel behaviours beyond the school commute, including for leisure and other purposes.
• There is potential in supporting infrastructural improvements with interventions that capitalise on the social environment of educational settings. For instance, a transport network that promotes independent movement from around age 12, around the transition to high school or earlier, would support sustainable travel norms before children reach driving age.
• Designing integrated interventions to maximise both sustainable travel and related policy objectives such as physical activity and road safety could have an impact. For example, Learning for Sustainability is embedded in the Curriculum for Excellence and affords opportunities for interventions targeting multiple objectives – sustainable travel, physical activity, safety and wellbeing – aligning with the ‘Getting It Right for Every Child’ approach.
• There is potential in including interventions that target families with younger children (0-4 years old) and whole family units. These might include providing smaller bikes, bike seats and cargo bikes through cycle share schemes; family-friendly rail fares and facilities in public transport and at interchanges; and in the design of walking and cycle routes to accommodate groups. 
• Intervening with specific age groups and during key moments of change such as the transition from primary to secondary school, leaving school and starting a family could have an impact. This might include opportunities to piggyback on existing interventions such as baby boxes.  

The executive summary of the report includes a full list of findings and recommendations for policymakers in national and local government that set out priority actions to promote sustainable travel amongst children, young people and their families.

In its climate policy and international engagement, the Scottish Government is already a strong voice calling for a gender-responsive approach and women’s participation. Integrating the Scottish Government’s visions for climate justice and a feminist approach to foreign policy is an opportunity to demonstrate powerful leadership in shaping a new feminist approach to international climate justice.

Climate change, conflict and gender are mutually reinforcing dynamics that interact to destroy lives and livelihoods, especially for the most disadvantaged. From an analysis of Scottish Government work to date, and best practices in international policy and programming, this project suggests strategic policy opportunities through which the Scottish Government could boost its global roles in climate justice and gender equality, and contribute to peace and security.

The report describes the levels of action required to achieve a feminist approach to international climate justice. This framework can be used to analyse policy in Scotland and beyond:

Building from a strong base, the report identifies a range of priorities and entry points for the Scottish Government to ensure its development strategy more systematically and meaningfully engages with the relationships between climate change, conflict and gender inequality: 

1. Centre economic justice in climate justice
2. Use the Climate Justice Fund and International Development Strategy to support just, inclusive and sustainable feminist economies
3. Empower women peacebuilders and environmental defenders to advocate for economic transformation
4. Advance gender equality through all Climate Justice Fund and International Development programming 
5. Leverage partnerships at home and abroad and continue to learn

These opportunities are discussed with reference to how they respond to the action needed at each level of the framework.

Adaptation pathways is a decision-making tool employed to adapt to climate change and the inherent uncertainties of future risk.  This research sets out to explore the evidence base to help design and apply adaptation (investment) pathways to the tidal reach of the Clyde drawing on international practice and UK guidance.

This research is a first for Scotland providing:

• information to help frame actions and decisions at a local, regional and national level around future flood resilience and long-term adaptation on the Clyde;
• practical insights into the application of adaptation pathways practice to the Clyde; and
• a starting point for the co-design and development of a route map and future actions.

Over the last 200 years the Clyde has experienced significant adaptation and transformation. Building on this history of adaptation, stakeholders have expressed a desire to re-imagine the current relationship between the river, people and place; to create a vibrant connected river corridor and waterfront, and make the river “an asset to be proud of”.

The approach to adaptation for the Clyde will need to be transformation-orientated, with place making and resilience at the heart of investment decision making and future pathway design.

Recommendations

Recommended first steps for adaptation on the Clyde include to:

1. agree a framework for the application of adaptation pathways for the Clyde that fosters systems-thinking and a process for place-based decision making;
2. agree what “a resilient Clyde” means, to inform design principles for investment and pathway development, and shape indicators for monitoring and evaluation;
3. establish a ‘resilience zone’, a geographic boundary for decision-making;
4. build an action plan (Mission Map) for the first five years of investment; and
5. scope and develop a knowledge portal to support innovation, collaboration and long-term monitoring and evaluation.

“This independent report is yet another reminder of the climate change issues that we face, in this case along the Clyde. My challenge is this – that the partners in Clyde Mission, including this Government, the City Region and Local Authorities work together and with other key partners to fully consider this report and develop an approach which is innovative, assists and promotes investment and builds the resilience of our communities and businesses.”

Màiri McAllan, Minister for Environment and Land Reform

“The successful cities of the future will be those which put climate change adaptation at the heart of decision making. This comprehensive report, focussing on the tidal Clyde, is an important first step in making climate change adaptation a business-as-usual consideration for communities, local government, agencies, and the private sector. I look forward to working with colleagues in Clyde Mission to translate the report’s recommendations into action.”

David Harley, Head of Water and Planning (SEPA), Climate Change Adaptation Lead (Clyde Mission)

Scottish Government guidance strongly encourages managed adaptive flood risk management. However, none of the schemes in the 2016-2021 delivery cycle incorporate adaptive plans or reference multiple climate change scenarios.

This project looks at case studies developing adaptive flood risk management plans to inform guidance. It particularly looks at how to address the five critical barriers identified in our 2019 report Taking a managed adaptive approach to flood risk management planning in Scotland.

The aim is for future guidance to help local authorities embed adaptive approaches and, in doing so, support the resilience of people and places to a changing and uncertain climate, and create greater long-term value and societal benefits.

The recommendations are based on three case studies; Outer Hebrides coastal adaptation, Moray fluvial adaptation, and The Clyde tidal adaptation.

Key findings and recommendations

• Managed adaptive approaches to flood risk management in Scotland are far from mainstream, and emerging practice is not yet keeping pace with policy ambitions
• The three case studies explored in this research illustrate that the concept of a managed adaptive approach, although not widely in use, is flexible enough to support a range of local circumstances and applications, including: asset-orientated, stakeholder-orientated and transformation-orientated adaptation ambitions and investments.
• The case studies also demonstrate the value of “learning by doing” which in itself is a core aspect of taking a managed adaptive approach to flood risk management planning, and important to scaling up future activity and promoting successes.
• To this effect this research highlights the importance of the ‘getting started and framing’ phase and involvement of stakeholders. To set adaptation investments up for success, it is therefore recommended (regardless of the approach adopted) that step 1 of the process is positioned as a readiness assessment and includes five core activities:

1. Define ambitions, success and value – ambitions should be co-designed with stakeholders and include a local definition of resilience (now and in the future).
2. Plan the adaptation process – co-design of the process and approach with stakeholders.
3. Funding and finance – initial assessment of the potential funding and financing opportunities reflecting the adaptation ambitions and wider local, regional and national strategies, policies and plans.
4. Monitoring and evaluation – drawing on the statement of ambitions and definition of resilience an initial assessment of indicator needs and data availability should be completed.
5. Capacity building and learning – an initial assessment of the capacity and capabilities of the project partners should be undertaken to determine resource, expertise and skills needs. This assessment should consider the importance of fulfilling four key design roles: systems thinker, leader and story-teller, designer and maker, and connector and convenor.