Scotland’s SNP government has been forced to drop plans first tabled by Nicola Sturgeon to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 75 percent by 2030, after ministers failed to hit their targets.

The final goal of reaching “net-zero” by 2045 will remain, but it is thought SNP bosses could also axe its annual climate targets.

A statement announcing the changes is expected to be made at Holyrood on Thursday afternoon.

It comes after the Climate Change Committee (CCC) – which provides independent advice to ministers – warned back in 2022 that Scotland had lost its lead over the rest of the UK in tackling the issue.

Last year the SNP failed to publish a plan it promised detailing how it was going to meet the targets.

The CCC said for the first time that the 2030 target was unreachable in March of this year.

It comes after former SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon saw her SNP administration as world leaders on climate change when the targets were introduced in 2019, often asserting that Scotland had the “most stretching targets in the world”.

Under her leadership, the Scottish government became the first in the world to declare a climate emergency and Glasgow hosted the COP26 climate summit in 2021, but environmentalists were unconvinced and believe the emergency response never came.

Scotland’s emissions reduction target for 2030 was tougher than for the UK as a whole, which was for a reduction of 68% by the same date.

The targets came after Holyrood parties tried to outbid each other on how fast they could reduce emissions, before ending up settling on a pace far beyond what experts had planned for.

The new legislation required ministers to set annual targets for reducing emissions, but eight out of 12 targets were missed.