THIS WEEK has brought a great gout of news about Scottish agriculture's best route to lowering its carbon emissions, and contributing to the global effort to rein in the climate change now so visibly causing chaos around the world.

We can only apologise for presenting essentially the same story three ways – Suckler Beef Climate Group chair Jim Walker's open letter to ScotGov, NFU Scotland's latest distillation of its proposals for a new Scottish farm support system, and the Farming for 1.5° Inquiry report – but maybe this week is the time for the subject to come to the fore, what with Germany and China suffering flash floods, Siberia and Canada facing uncontrollable wildfires, droughts simmering around the globe and even the UK Met Office issuing its first ever extreme heat warning.

With the United States and China now edging towards cooperation on the issue, even the hardcore of climate change deniers will have to face facts – whether carbon-cutting and science can hope to slow or reverse the climate change already underway, the world economy is going to be reshaped with carbon reduction in mind, and anyone selling a product that is deemed to be part of the problem may soon find themselves excluded from mainstream commerce.

So it is a great thing that so many of Scottish farming's best brains have devoted so much time to putting together a proposed package of measures that would allow the country to keep producing high quality food, but do so in a way that will reduce carbon and boost biodiversity. This broad consensus is unique in the world – no other farming sector is nearly as organised, or in agreement, as Scottish agriculture currently is. It is, without doubt, a tremendous opportunity for Scotland as a nation to lead the way.

However, although all three of this week's carbon-flavoured stories appear in the news section, none of them are actually news. The problem is, in fact, the lack of news.

Mr Walker's Suckler group reported back in March. This week he is just reminding ScotGov that it promised that report would produce policy on the ground long ago.

The other Farmer Led Groups reported soon after, but found their work buried in the rush to the Scottish elections. NFU Scotland must be commended on this week's exercise of compiling all these materials into one policy proposal, as should the independent authors of the Farming for 1.5° inquiry – but there's no avoiding the fact that ScotGov has known the guts of all this for nigh on three months now, and has done precisely nothing with any of it.

Scottish agriculture, with the encouragement of former rural affairs cabinet secretary Fergus Ewing, has handed the Scottish Government a roadmap to a future that can include a healthy domestic food supply, alongside net zero emissions and increased biodiversity. This week, we must ask what in the Hell is stopping new cabinet secretary Mairi Gougeon from following it?