Climate Change and Biodiversity

I beg to move,

That this House has considered climate change and biodiversity.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray.

Climate change has triggered more extreme weather conditions, causing heatwaves, droughts, high precipitation and flooding. Adapting to the impacts of climate change in the UK and around the globe is necessary to keep the human population safer. Taking steps now to adapt to future change will make us more resilient and less vulnerable to its impacts. Adaptation can include traditional engineering projects, such as sea walls or other coastal defences as sea levels rise, but the natural environment also has a significant role to play. Adaption covers everything from water storage to drought resistant crops, from green urban areas to protecting and restoring natural, indigenous ecosystems.

Nature-based solutions are often cheaper to implement and maintain than alternative grey infrastructure adaption options. When their multiplier benefits are taken into account, nature-based solutions usually have a significantly higher benefit-cost ratio.

The Climate Change Committee reports on progress on adapting to climate change in England. Many of its recommendations for improving adaption planning and implementation in England have been taken up by the Government and their arm’s length bodies. They accept the committee’s central message that they must take greater action to build resilience to the impacts of climate change.

The Climate Change Committee has advised that the UK should adapt to a 2° warmer world for the period 2050 to 2100 and assess the risks for a 4° temperature increase. It identified the eight priority risk areas that need the most urgent action: the viability and diversity of nature; soil health; the release of sequestered carbon; crops, livestock and forestry; collapse of supply chains for food, goods and vital services; power system failure; human health and productivity; and risks to the UK from climate change impacts overseas. Nature-based solutions can help to address all these risks.

Analysis has shown that nature-based solutions can help to address 33 of the 34 climate change risks identified as requiring more action in the Climate Change Committee’s third “UK Climate Change Risk Assessment”, including the eight risks requiring the most urgent action.

The UK’s national adaption programme sets out potential actions to address climate change risks. A recent report from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the WWF-UK, “Nature-based Solutions in UK Climate Adaption Policy”, highlights opportunities for nature-based solutions in the UK and provides recommendations on how best to use nature-based solutions to deliver widespread benefits to both people and wildlife. I respectfully refer the Minister to those recommendations.

The report highlights the opportunities and policy support needed to implement nature-based solutions across the UK in ways that deliver for nature, climate and people. It also outlines how nature-based solutions offer opportunities to mitigate the eight key risks to the UK identified by the CCC, while supporting the provision of public and private goods.

A wide range of nature-based solutions is being deployed in the UK. For example, sand dunes, salt marshes, and seagrass meadows are helping to protect against coastal flooding. Restored and in good condition, peatland can slow the flow of water during storms. Urban trees, parks and sustainable drainage systems can cool and retain moisture and reduce stormwater run-off, thereby cooling down our towns and cities during extreme heat and protecting against urban flooding.

One of the key recommendations of the RSPB-WWF report is that in the upcoming national adaptation programme—the NAP3, for 2023 to 2028—nature-based solutions must be properly integrated and given the opportunity to help us to adapt to a warming climate, while also providing other carbon and biodiversity benefits.

I agree with everything the hon. Lady is saying. I have two points to make about attracting private-sector investment for these nature-based solutions. First, we have to be very clear about the carbon offsetting value of the projects. Secondly, when the biodiversity net gain details of that strategy come forward, we need to be clear that they are creating more diversity. Does she share my concern that we are not really at the stage where we can properly measure the multitudes of benefits of investing in such schemes?

I completely agree with the hon. Member’s question. We need to measure metrics and outcomes more thoroughly as part of the process of using nature-based solutions to adapt to climate change. That is absolutely spot on.

My hon. Friend’s debate highlights that it is in areas such as hers, which are very vulnerable to flooding to the sea and other urban floods, that the expertise on such complicated issues is found. Does she agree that one answer to the question from the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) is that private investment could be attracted through recycling centres and former landfill areas? We cannot build buildings on contaminated land, but there is an opportunity to plant trees there, and that is exactly what is happening in Gloucester right now.

I quite agree with my hon. Friend. We have an issue with leaching from coastal landfill sites. We really need to think about that when addressing what we are going to do with them, and we also need to think about tree planting, not building developments.

I ask for the Minister’s thoughts on the key recommendation of the RSPB and WWF report. Nature-based solutions contribute to reducing our vulnerability to the impacts of climate change. They are no longer peripheral, and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has already started to develop policies that should be rolled out across all sectors. Nature-based solutions need to be mainstreamed in policy by establishing common goals, harmonising policy support and overcoming barriers across all sectors.

Increased funding is required. There is reportedly a £5.6 billion gap in the funding required to cover environmental gains, challenges facing the food system, an integrated response to net zero and local community benefits. But funding does not have to be the sole responsibility of government. Three per cent. of private financing mobilised under the 2018 Paris agreement went into adaptation, with more than 95% going towards mitigation. Adaptation will increase resilience, benefiting businesses and financial institutions, as well as nature and people.

The UK needs a clear vision for the role of nature-based solutions. They can be measured and monitored for their effectiveness by using defined metrics, indicators and targets, and standards can be set for high-quality nature-based solutions, benefiting nature, our environment and people. They need to be utilised.

I thank my hon. Friend for calling this debate. She is a doughty champion for her constituents, who are very lucky to have her represent Hastings and Rye. On her point about metrics, clearly consumers want to invest in and buy products that are nature positive and that support biodiversity. At the meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on environmental, social and governance, which the Minister was at, we talked about placing a green tractor on everyday products—it would be an equivalent to the Red Tractor mark—so that people would know that they were buying British products that are aiding biodiversity in the UK and helping restore nature. Does my hon. Friend think that is a good way of encouraging the public and business to get behind a nature-positive solution in the UK?

I thank my hon. Friend for a very good question. He is right: the public do really appreciate it and really understand the need for biodiversity. A very good message has been sent out, but the green tractor route really highlights the importance of biodiversity on the goods that people buy. I think it would be a really good measure to take forward.

We have a window of opportunity to take action to adapt to climate change and avoid the worst impacts, and political commitment and follow-through across all levels of Government to accelerate the implementation of adaptation actions is vital. I believe that the Government have the will to do this. Climate change will increasingly cause extensive, sometimes irreversible, damage to ecosystems. This degradation of ecosystems increases the vulnerability of people. The rise in weather and climate extremes has led to some irreversible impacts, as natural and human systems are pushed beyond their ability to adapt.

Nature-based solutions offer opportunities for cost-effective adaption to climate change, while also providing benefits to people and wildlife. Safeguarding biodiversity is fundamental for climate-resilient societal development. Conservation, protection and the restoration of land, freshwater and coastal ecosystems, together with targeted management to adapt to unavoidable impacts of climate change, reduces the vulnerability of biodiversity to climate change and benefits us all now and into the future.

There are something like nine speakers and we have 38 minutes left, so I ask Members to take approximately two or three minutes each, please.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I congratulate the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart) on securing this debate.

The world is facing a global biodiversity crisis triggered by human disruption to nature and the destruction of habitats. Members across the House know the seriousness of the challenges we face, but we also know we are nowhere near where we should be given the critical condition our nature is in. One million species are at risk of extinction due to human activity, but it is not only individual species that are threatened. The collapse in the abundance of nature also means that many of our ecosystems are not functioning as they should. Climate change is driving nature’s decline, and the loss of wildlife and wild places leaves us ill-equipped to reduce carbon emissions and adapt to a changing climate. We must recognise that the climate and biodiversity emergencies are intrinsically linked and should be tackled together.

Britain has faced a catastrophic loss in its biodiversity, with 41% of species having declined in abundance in the UK in the past 40 years. Of the G7 countries, we have the lowest level of biodiversity remaining. Immediate action is required to reverse current trends. The biodiversity crisis requires greater ambition. I ask the Government to reconsider the ambition of their biodiversity and environmental targets. In my constituency, Cheshire West and Cheshire Council, along with local communities, schools, businesses and partners and other organisations, are committed to making Chester a greener city and to building a community that people want and are able to live in now and in the future.

We must see a more ambitious approach to nature recovery, with local communities at its heart. The success of a nature recovery corridor in my constituency, led by community groups and guided by conservation experts, is an excellent example of how this can work in reality. Does the Minister agree that conservationists around the UK, such as those at Chester zoo, are in prime position to empower local people to help tackle the biodiversity crisis? Will she comment on what concrete plans the Government are making to commit to more ambitious biodiversity and environmental targets? We cannot put this crisis off any longer, and we must work together to protect and recover our global diversity.

I welcome this important debate. It comes at a brilliant time. Only yesterday the Prime Minister set up the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, which builds on the Government’s commitments in recent years to all those who live in the UK and around the world. Such an important development is welcome—and so soon after the publication of the Skidmore review on net zero. As I say, the formation of this Department is a clear commitment to caring for our planet and taking our responsibilities seriously to match and build on the commitments the Conservative Government have made since we legislated for net zero in 2019.

In this debate, we are recognising the critical role of biodiversity and nature-based solutions. We need to match our efforts to deliver decarbonisation with our efforts to recover nature and biodiversity. It would be a tragic shame to reach net zero but not reach our commitments to recover nature, which is why this debate is so timely and important. It can be done. We worry about food security and production in relation to nature recovery, but I believe there is no conflict—they can be done together and, in fact, they are co-dependent.

My hon. Friend is making a powerful argument. I completely agree; there can be no conflict between delivering the food production we need and reinvesting in the biodiversity we need. Does my hon. Friend not agree that the key to ensuring that there is no conflict is investment in new technology, which is something the Government need to look closely at?

I agree completely. Time and investment must be given to ensure that those technologies actually get to market and are commercially viable. I would go beyond that: it is about not just technology, but treating our land differently. A brilliant example of that in Cornwall is our use of herbal leys, which my hon. Friend will be familiar with, to increase the quality of the root structure of the grassland and retain moisture. There are all sorts of ways of providing better grazing land for cattle. It is certainly about devices and technology, but it is also about different ways of caring for the land from which we produce our food and which sequesters carbon.

I recently secured a debate in support of the nature and climate declaration, which embeds nature recovery in the road to net zero. The Climate and Ecology Bill is a natural instrument to build on this necessary approach. I am sure we will all be hearing more about how that Bill intends to deliver on the key things that were raised this morning by my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart) who opened the debate. I will leave it there.

It is a pleasure to serve under your stewardship and oversight, Mr Gray. I congratulate the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart), who made an excellent speech, on securing what is a really important debate.

In the two minutes I have, I want to talk about the uplands. They are massively important to us as a country and hugely important to our communities in Cumbria. They can be a massive contributor to our fight against climate change. They are where we see water management happen; 70% of our drinking water comes from the uplands. Think of the peatland and soils there, which are vital to carbon sequestration.

Very quickly on that point, the Somerset levels near my constituency contain 231 square miles of peatland, which store nearly 11 million tonnes of carbon. Every pound invested returns about four times that in economic and social benefits. The commitment to peatland restoration in the England peat action plan covers less than 20% of England’s peatland.

Order. Interventions must be brief.