Posters

Abstract

The declaration of a Climate Emergency and advice from the Climate Change Committee (CCC) to UK and Scottish Governments that renewable electricity generation “must quadruple” to meet net zero targets has rendered existing policy frameworks for renewable energy technologies significantly out of date. Since the start of 2020, The Scottish Government has been reviewing its permitting framework. It has reviewed the current National Planning Framework (NPF3), published in 2014, as well as Scottish Planning Policy (SPP), which contains detailed national policy on several permitting topics. The updated document integrating SPP and Scotland’s national spatial plan will be known as National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4) and will be a new plan for Scotland in 2050 that sets out where development and infrastructure is needed to support sustainable and inclusive growth. Throughout the NPF4 consultation process, industry has called for a material enhancement of the permitting framework to enable the scale of renewables deployment required to meet Scotland’s climate change commitments. Following extensive early engagement to seek views on the scope and content of NPF4, The Scottish Government published its Position Statement on NPF4 in November 2020, setting out a long-term strategy driven by the overarching goal of addressing climate change and a focus on achieving 4 key outcomes, including Net-Zero Emissions. This has significant implications for the industry as it represents a fundamental change in permitting policy which recognizes the role of renewables in addressing climate change, as well as the changes needed in permitting policy to enable deployment.