from Caledonian Mercury, 26 May 2010
Scottish ministers have been condemned by their own expert advisers for failing to meet most of their targets for cutting pollution and greening government.
Their performance has been described as “poor” and “worrying” by the Sustainable Development Commission, which was set up to advise ministers on environmental policy. Ministers will only be forced to improve if they are subject to external scrutiny, the commission warned.
The Scottish government’s failure to live up to its much-vaunted green credentials has also been lambasted as depressing and hypocritical by environmental groups and opposition politicians. In its defence, the government says that it is now trying harder.
When ministers’ latest environmental performance report was published a few days ago, the spin was all positive. “The Scottish government is taking action to improve its environmental performance as it pledges to lead by example,” boasted the news release.
Though you wouldn’t know it from the blurb, the real picture revealed by the report for 2008-09 was very different. Of the eleven environmental targets ministers set themselves, eight are on track to be missed.
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