Watchdog urges Scotland to take action after repeatedly missing climate targets

Scottish ministers have been accused of abandoning a series of policy pledges and ignoring calls for cuts to meat and dairy consumption. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

The UK’s climate watchdog has warned that Scotland needs to take “immediate action at pace and scale” to cut its emissions after ministers axed a series of policy pledges.

The Climate Change Committee (CCC), an official advisory body, said ministers in Edinburgh needed to take urgent action to curb emissions from buildings and transport to cut Scotland’s overall emissions to nearly zero by 2045.