The function of this report, No Time to Lose, is to provide the Commission’s annual assessment of Scotland’s progress towards achieving a just transition to a low carbon economy, as required by our remit. The report is the final output of the second Just Transition Commission.

The Commission concludes that the social license for climate action is under threat and needs to be renewed. This must mean a step-change from government towards delivery that measurably improves people’s lives. Government must make maximum use of the levers it currently holds, requiring employers to act responsibly around conversion and closure, and empowering local authorities to act. Sticking with the current business-as-usual scenario risks building a country where people continue to live in some of Europe’s leakiest buildings, and endure high levels of fuel poverty, deepening job insecurity and in-work poverty, and the undermining of efforts to reduce child poverty. It risks worsening rural depopulation at precisely the moment that we need to ensure communities in rural and island areas have the services and support they need to deliver much of the infrastructure and new forms of economic activity that will underpin the transition and its economic upsides for all of Scotland. Unless we renew our ambition and redouble our efforts, the enormous opportunity – both for meaningful climate action and for building a fairer and more prosperous country – will be lost.

At the heart of the report are six key messages, which are:

1. Progress has fallen short of what is needed. Instead of planning for success, we are reacting to crises.
2. Deliver anticipatory place-based planning for at-risk sites and regions and progress sectoral plans. There is no just path to Net Zero through deindustrialisation.
3. A just transition is still possible but requires courageous action across sectors. To maintain the social license for climate action, the Scottish Government must now use all levers at its disposal.
4. Investment for the just transition must be mobilised through financial leadership and market-shaping interventions. This includes incentive structures, conditionalities and community wealth building measures.
5. Communities and local authorities need capacity and resource to keep pace with developments, shape the transition and influence major decisions affecting their area.
6. Improve delivery with more meticulous monitoring and evaluation, applying data effectively in partnerships at local and regional level.

The Commission also provides 30 recommendations to government, spanning across critical areas including just transition planning, transport, housing, land and agriculture, investment, community wealth building, and monitoring and evaluation.

5 individual annexes are also included in the report. These cover a variety of additional outputs from the Commission, including its engagement with young people, and a lessons learned exercise intended to inform the decision of a future third Just Transition Commission.

In tackling our remit, the Commission has engaged far and wide across Scotland, meeting with over 900 people and all kinds of organisations, from crofters to global asset managers, oil majors to family-run fishing firms. The Commission is hugely grateful to everyone who has taken the time to share their individual thoughts, reflections and insights with the Commission: you have enhanced our work immeasurably.