CLIMATE targets ditched last year were “a fiction” designed to allow the Scottish government to “pat itself on the back,” according to a former minister.

Goals to slash emissions in Scotland by 75 per cent by 2030 and achieve net zero by 2050 was passed by parliament in 2019.

But Scottish Green co-leader Lorna Slater says her party “knew that those weren’t achievable targets,” despite their backing an even tougher target of 80 per cent at the time.