Members will be aware that social distancing no longer applies, but Mr Speaker has encouraged us to continue to wear masks. Given the hybrid procedures, there have been some changes to arrangements. The timings of the debates have been amended to allow technical arrangements to be made, and there will also be a suspension between debates.
Members participating physically and virtually must arrive for the start of the debate, and Members are expected to remain for the entire debate. Mr Speaker has asked me to remind Members participating virtually that they must leave their cameras on for the duration of the debate and that they should be visible at all times to each other and to us in the Boothroyd Room. If Members have any technical problems, they should email the Clerks at westminsterhallclerks@parliament.uk. I also remind Members to clean their spaces when they arrive and as they leave, and by all means feel free to remove your jackets.
That this House has considered the priorities for the COP26 conference.
I want to place on record how grateful I am to the Backbench Business Committee for awarding us today’s debate and likewise how much I appreciate the support of my cross-party co-sponsors, especially the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), who addressed the Committee in my absence.
In a year dominated by coronavirus and the brilliant efforts of our scientists and the health service to overcome this terrible threat to our way of life, we must not lose sight of the huge importance of what lies ahead of us this autumn. In November, COP26 in Glasgow will be the biggest international summit the UK has ever hosted, on a subject that remains the single most significant long-term threat to our security, economy and environment. This is the first full debate that we have had on it in the House.
The extraordinary weather events that we have recently witnessed in Germany and Belgium have reminded us just how serious the threat of climate change is. The facts are clear: if left unchecked, climate change will render vast swathes of the world, including parts of our own country, uninhabitable and trigger a huge upsurge in poverty, mass migration and political instability that will have ramifications across the whole planet. On current trends, the world economy could be 10% smaller if we do not hit net zero by 2050. It is not just for the sake of our environment that we need to act; it is for the sake of our economy and security.
This is our problem, and it is the challenge of our generation. In that context, we should all be delighted that the UK, and specifically my right hon. Friend the Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma), has assumed the COP presidency at this vital time.
We have a full house for this debate. If everyone sticks to four minutes, we will get everyone in. If not, someone will miss out or we will have to impose a reduced time limit.
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate with you in the Chair, Mr McCabe, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke) on securing it. It could scarcely be more timely, as the extreme weather events around the world demonstrate how climate breakdown is accelerating.
With tomorrow marking 100 days to go until COP26, it is more urgent than ever to ensure it delivers. As hosts, the UK Government need to show bold and ambitious leadership, but last month the Climate Change Committee pointed yet again to the yawning delivery gap between the Government’s net zero ambitions and the absence of policies to achieve them. We urgently need clear direction from Government detailing how they plan to decarbonise each and every sector, raising global ambition and giving other countries a clear reason for why they too should go further and faster in their national commitments to limit global heating. Failure to act is not just dithering—it is dangerous and often deadly.
Turning to some of the goals set out by the COP26 unit, the first is to:
“Secure global net zero by mid-century and keep 1.5 degrees within reach”.
We need to face the fact that even if all the current nationally determined contribution pledges were fulfilled, that would still lock the world into well over 2° of global heating. The inconvenient truth is that a target of net zero by 2050 simply does not equate to keeping 1.5° within reach. Yet 1.5° is an absolute lifeline for those in climate-vulnerable countries, and exceeding that threshold would have devastating consequences. That is why I recently reintroduced the climate and ecological emergency Bill to Parliament, which would put 1.5° in statute. I welcome the cross-party support of over 100 MPs who are backing the Bill, and urge the Government to get behind it, too.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe, and to follow the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), who is an important member of the Environmental Audit Committee. I agree with her and with my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke), who opened this debate, that it is hard to overstate the significance of the opportunity that hosting the COP26 conference gives the Prime Minister to show leadership in climate action on the world stage. He needs to seize this opportunity in front of every nation on Earth to set out clear signals of UK Government action, to meet the ambitious targets set to achieve net zero Britain.
Obviously, the pandemic has been the Government’s priority for the past 16 months, but now the Prime Minister and the whole of Government need to give the same urgency to tackling climate change, which—as we are seeing from the extreme weather events happening this week around the world—is getting ever more pressing. We need delivery of more plans and more action to implement them, to show world leaders that it can be done. We can decarbonise our economies and still improve our prosperity with more and better jobs, but we are running out of time as a country to get these plans in place. Today, the innovation strategy was published, which provides a welcome focus on clean technology. Yesterday, in the Select Committee on Science and Technology, we learned that the hydrogen strategy will be published during the coming weeks, during recess. That is welcome, but many more strategies need to be published ahead of COP26 to show our intent. The heat and buildings strategy is foremost among them, alongside the Treasury’s net zero review.
I will focus my remaining remarks on how Parliament can help deliver a successful conference of the parties. The Environmental Audit Committee has been at the forefront of co-ordinating parliamentary scrutiny ahead of this great conference. We brought together the Chairs of 10 relevant Select Committees to establish a Committee on COP26 to provide routine scrutiny each month, covering climate finance, climate diplomacy, cross-Government support for COP26 objectives, and net zero delivery. We intend to follow this up after COP26 as part of our overall monitoring of delivery on the net zero agenda across Government Departments, and we will be chairing the first post-COP26 session in December to review the outcome of that conference and examine its implications for UK climate policy: how will the UK deliver on any multilateral commitments made?
Before I proceed, let me put on the record the apologies of the hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones), who cannot be here. He was a co-sponsor of the debate, but as Chair of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, he has to be in the main Chamber for a Select Committee statement.
It is 100 days until COP26 begins in Glasgow, and it is more important than ever—it is vital—that the Government get their own house in order. This is the biggest opportunity for real climate action since the great moment of hope that was the 2015 Paris agreement. It is deeply unfortunate that in recent months the Government have consistently chosen lip service over climate action. They have scrapped the green homes grant, which could have significantly reduced emissions from our homes. The planning Bill denies councils the ability to block new developments for environmental reasons. Most significantly, the Government have failed to set any direction on how to heat our homes in the future and how to expand the electricity grid for the doubling or trebling of our electricity need, let alone on tackling emissions from heavy industry, shipping or aviation.
Those changes and many more serve only to undermine our climate credibility on the international stage. The climate crisis is already damaging health through extreme weather, polluted air, food and water shortages, forced migration and the aggravation of disease. Just this week, the Met Office issued its first extreme heat warning. The British Medical Association, the Royal College of Nursing, The BMJ and The Lancet all agree that climate change is the biggest health threat of the 21st century.
We hold the COP26 presidency. It is our responsibility to push for serious ambition from countries worldwide—not only to influence them to legislate for net zero, but to achieve it as soon as possible. We have had a string of incredibly disappointing COPs in the years since the Paris agreement. Big decisions have been kicked further and further down the road.
One hundred days to save the next 100 years—that is how John Kerry, the US climate envoy, described this moment in our planet’s existence. It may sound dramatic, but the scientific consensus is that he is right. The United Kingdom bears a heavy responsibility to get the world to commit to doing the right thing, for the mainly poorer people who are dying today because of climate change in the global south, and for all future generations, as our own climate will definitely be affected if global warming goes above 1.5°C. The recent extreme heat in the western United States and in Canada, and the floods in Germany and in Belgium, have demonstrated that amply.
While not having one shred of complacency, we can take some encouragement from the fact that although only 30% of the global economy was committed to net zero by 2050 when the UK assumed the COP presidency, that figure has already risen to 73%. To achieve even more, we need to get three areas to work together in perfect harmony: technology, policy and markets. We need to get all three in the right place, because without any one of them, we will not achieve success. In my constituency, I am delighted that the A5 electric bus and car charging station has been given planning permission. It will provide a replicable model of how renewable energy can be used to charge buses, taxis and cars. I am also pleased that many more electric vehicle charging points will be installed across central Bedfordshire.
I will focus the rest of my remarks on agriculture. Two facts may surprise hon. Members. First, if food waste was a country, it would be the third highest greenhouse gas-emitting nation on earth. Secondly, in Africa, greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture are higher than fossil fuel emissions, which are themselves much higher than they should be. At COP21 in Paris in 2015, the United Kingdom and many other nations—although not, unfortunately, the United States—committed to the “4 per 1000” initiative. Soil can hold more carbon than all organisms and plants on the planet combined. Only nature can increase the carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and water in soil while producing copious nutrient- rich food.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr McCabe. I thank the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Mr Clarke) for securing the debate, and for highlighting global green finance in particular.
I extend my thoughts to all those impacted by the flooding in China and in central Europe these past weeks. The loss of life is devastating, and the emergency response heroes have my deepest respect. The flooding should be a wake-up call for us all about the unpredictable but inevitable impacts of rising temperatures. We urgently need serious action. Two priority areas for COP26 this autumn are to protect and restore ecosystems and to build resilient infrastructure to mitigate effects of the global heating we have already seen. It is right that those are priority areas, but because we cannot tackle either the problems with nature or the climate emergency without tackling the other as well, it is important that they are thought about equally.
I am concerned about what the Government will bring to the climate negotiations on both those issues, because although Ministers like to talk up their record on carbon and on nature restoration, the reality is far from the rhetoric. For example, we hear a lot from the Government about how they are taking unprecedented measures to restore nature, but we are in an unprecedented crisis and nature is in freefall—41% of UK species are declining, and one in 10 is threatened with extinction.
Faced with that shocking decline, it would be odd if there were any precedent for the action that the Government are taking, which is simply not enough. It is not just me who thinks that. The Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, the right hon. Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne), who spoke earlier, has commented on the Government’s plans for species abundance and nature restoration, saying they are “toothless”. The Committee’s recent report said:
“There is no strategy indicating how new biodiversity policies will work together. Implementation of these policies could be piecemeal, conflicting, and of smaller scale as a result.”
It is a pleasure to take part in the debate under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe.
This is an incredibly important debate ahead of a crucial conference—COP26. Making a success of the conference and delivering for everyone across the globe is more important than ever. Covid-19 has shown how fragile humanity is and that we face some challenges together, as the human race. Whether the challenge is covid-19 or climate change, we need to tackle it together, internationally. Given that, the priorities for COP26 must aim to build on the work done so far, but also take a leap forward, so that we can take more action to ensure that we secure the global net zero target by 2050 and keep the 1.5°C pledge within reach.
As host and president of this year’s United Nations COP26 conference, the UK is in a unique position to bring nations together, set ambitious targets and commit to accelerating plans to transition to a cleaner, greener and more resilient global economy. As the parliamentary champion of nature-based solutions for tackling climate change, I will focus my remarks on that area.
COP26 is an opportunity for the UK to utilise our expertise and political will to become a world leader in deploying nature-based solutions to tackle climate change, such as tree planting, nurturing kelp forests, stopping the burning of peat bogs, revitalising our hedgerows and much more. We can all now become hedgerow heroes as part of the Campaign to Protect Rural England campaign to protect and expand hedgerows across the UK.
I am delighted that the Hastings town deal includes a partnership between Plumpton College and the Education Futures Trust, introducing seven new land-based skills programmes to our local area. Globally, nature-based solutions have huge scope to mitigate climate change, with the potential to provide over 30% of the global climate mitigation effort required to limit temperature rise to 1.5°. The Prime Minister has already suggested that as one of his priorities for COP26, and he has pledged to increase investment in that area. Moreover, the G7 recently committed to a 30x30 target by aiming to conserve or protect at least 30% of land and oceans by 2030.
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Six years ago in Paris, the world came together and agreed a robust framework for action on climate change, committing to limiting temperature rises to an absolute maximum of 2° above pre-industrial levels by 2050 and to pursuing efforts to limit those rises to 1.5°, which would avoid the very worst effects of climate change. COP26, under our presidency, represents the first raising of ambition envisaged by the so-called ratchet mechanism of the Paris agreement, whereby each nation must submit updated emissions reduction plans covering the period to 2030. The decisions we take this year are therefore absolutely crucial to keeping that 1.5° cap within reach, and I hope today’s debate will focus on what those decisions need to be. We do not need a big, new global deal—the Paris agreement remains the right foundation—but at home and abroad it is time to turn promises into action, and COP26 is our forum to make that possible.
I know that our country will lead by example. We can be rightly proud of what we have achieved so far. Our emissions have nearly halved since 1990, while the economy is 75% larger. We were the first major economy to legislate for net zero emissions by 2050. We have world-leading plans to cut emissions by 68% by 2030 and 78% by 2035. We have announced the almost total removal of coal for power generation and boast a raft of important policies in the Government’s 10-point plan for green growth.
However, we cannot rest on our laurels. What we have done has allowed us to keep pace with the seriousness of events. We will have to continue to stretch ourselves if we are to get ahead of the problem and deliver net zero by mid-century. On decarbonisation, for example, the trickier half of the battle is still to come. With home heating and insulation, heavy industry, agriculture, aviation and shipping, the clean solutions we need cannot simply be left to work themselves out. There is a clear case for the Government to take a lead, to mandate priorities and enable solutions, as has happened so successfully with the contracts for difference mechanism, which has delivered a market-led solution whereby offshore wind is now cheaper than new gas-fired electricity generation. That is a really good example of how Government and the market can work together to deliver the most effective solutions at the least cost to the consumer.
In that same spirit, we need leadership from the Government now to support more research into new technologies such as green steel and to back technologies such as heat pumps, helping to reduce costs and enhance performance, as well as protecting those who cannot afford them.
This whole process will undoubtedly generate costs. It will also create economic opportunities. The UK has been adding low-carbon jobs at nearly three times the rate of the whole economy in recent years, and these are sustainable jobs in sectors with huge growth potential and are disproportionately in parts of the country with high historical unemployment rates.
My home region of Teesside is a really good example of that. The recent announcement by GE Renewable Energy that it is creating 2,250 jobs in our new freeport zone, manufacturing offshore wind turbine blades, is just the tip of the iceberg. Last week, 8 Rivers Capital and Sembcorp Energy UK announced the Whitetail Clean Energy project at Wilton, a 300 MW net zero power station, which will create 2,000 jobs during the construction phase alone. That is on top of the immense potential of technologies such as hydrogen and carbon capture, utilisation and storage to create good jobs for the long term.
Moving to a nationwide focus, a proper home insulation scheme, a major heat pump roll-out and significant research and development in the hardest to reach sectors all have immense economic potential. We need to make bold policy decisions in these areas now, and we will reap the rewards for the environment, our quality of life, the economy and the wider world as we export good policy and technologies overseas. Set against that, we always need to remember that the cost of our taking action would be dwarfed by the cost of doing nothing.
I want to look more broadly at our wider strategy for carbon and how we will engage with our partners to encourage the most effective possible global response. The COP26 President-designate deserves huge credit for the clear increase in ambition shown by the number of major emitters, including countries and private companies, that have followed our lead and adopted net zero targets. It has been especially heartening to see countries such as the United States and Japan joining the many who have done so. We need to maintain intense diplomatic activity to encourage others to follow their lead and to show that it is possible to decarbonise without jeopardising economic growth. The targets and commitments really matter.
Hon. Members will also recognise that long-term ambition, while welcome, is meaningless without the action required in the intervening period in order to get there. The world is still falling short in that area. The UK, the United States and the EU can all boast strong 2030 nationally determined contributions, but too many other large polluters have insufficient near-term targets and, frankly, in some cases, no real plan as to how to achieve their goals.
To give some idea of how seriously off track we are, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said that we would need to almost halve net greenhouse gas emissions from 2010 levels by 2030. However, before the pandemic struck, global emissions had continued to rise every year since 2010. The Paris agreement does not contain mechanisms to enforce action, so we rely on diplomatic carrots and sticks to persuade and cajole those nations hoping for a free ride to do their duty now and make significant emission cuts. Without a significant increase in the level of ambition and, especially, action during this decade, across the whole world longer-term net zero targets will fall at the first hurdle, and we will miss the opportunity to keep that 1.5° goal within our grasp well before we get to 2050. The urgency of the situation is clearly real. Every tonne of coal we burn, every hectare of forest we fell, and every house we fail to insulate in 2021 is part of the problem.
For many countries, especially those in the Caribbean, the Pacific and large parts of Africa, which make little or no significant contribution to the world’s greenhouse gas emissions but which bear the brunt of the impacts, action is going to be hard, and in some cases probably impossible, without our help. At the 2009 Copenhagen conference of the parties, developed nations agreed to provide $100 billion a year by 2020 in climate finance to support developing countries with adaptation and mitigation. Again, that pledge has not been met—estimates vary but they all show a significant ongoing shortfall. COP26 should be the moment that promise is honoured, and that should be a key negotiating target of the United Kingdom delegation. If we use climate finance wisely, we can help developing countries enjoy more jobs, better infrastructure and more trading opportunities. We should be clear that the UK is showing real leadership here, driving agreement at the G7 to end funding for overseas fossil fuel projects and doubling our climate finance to £11.6 billion over the next five years. However, we must use our COP presidency to ensure that our friends and allies follow our lead, because failure to do so would be a huge obstacle to progress.
COP26 will be a huge conference and it has a lot to live up to. There is more I could add, but looking at the call list for this afternoon, and it is great to see so many Members here, I am conscious that I should leave time for others to contribute. My main point in closing is to re-emphasise that we must rise to the level of events this autumn. It will be the last chance, frankly, that this sort of conference lands on our watch in the timeframe we have to deliver meaningful action.
The UK has a great story to share about our own progress, and we can set out a compelling template for the next stage of progress for other countries to follow, in a way few others could match. In a debate that sometimes becomes obsessed with targets, language and process, we need to show true British leadership at COP26 because it is the time for action and it is our chance to make sure that that clarion call is heard around the world.
The unit’s second goal, to
“Adapt to protect communities and natural habitats”,
is crucial. Ministers need to deliver on what the Climate Change Committee recently described as an “underfunded and ignored” area of policy. If adaptation is often ignored, loss and damage is even more overlooked. Countries are already experiencing climate impacts that they simply cannot adapt to. The damage caused by Hurricanes Irma and Maria in Dominica amounted to 226% of that country’s GDP, and 100% of its crops were destroyed. That is just one example of what loss and damage means. That is why we urgently need the Santiago Network for Loss and Damage to be fully operationalised, with new sources of finance to pay for it.
With its vast ability to store carbon and cushion us from shocks like flooding, nature can be our biggest ally in the fight against climate breakdown. Yet biodiversity is declining faster than at any time in history. The leaders’ pledge to protect 30% of land and sea for nature by 2030 is a step forward, but that protection must be delivered urgently in order to reverse nature’s terrifying decline. The UK is one of the world’s most nature depleted countries, and when looking at our seas, the case is even more stark. England has 40 offshore so-called marine protected areas, but in reality, there is little protection to speak of. In order to restore nature and protect our blue carbon stores, the Government must use their new powers in the Fisheries Act 2020 to ban destructive fishing practices in these areas.
The third goal is mobilising finance, yet as it stands we are still $20 billion short of delivering on the $100 billion commitment from 10 years ago. That amount must be delivered in full before COP26, so I ask the Minister how the COP26 presidency plans to meet the $20 billion shortfall. What steps are being taken to ensure that it is delivered as grants, rather than loans, and does she recognise that by slashing our aid budget, the Government have further undermined any leverage they might have had in persuading others to step up? Ministers like to boast that the UK has increased its climate finance to $11 billion, but they fail to mention the fact that that money came from an overseas development aid budget that is being cut by £4 billion, a move that goes against the commitment for climate finance to be new and additional sources of money. Unless we deliver on all of these issues, I fear we will not have the success that is necessary in Glasgow at the end of this year.
Achieving our commitments is going to require a huge cross-Government effort that cuts across departmental boundaries—an area of interest for our Committee. We regularly scrutinise across Departments, and the Government need to develop delivery mechanisms across Departments, too. I was pleased to see the presidency programme for COP26 published yesterday, inviting MPs and peers to register interest in attending the blue zone. It is encouraging to see young people and community engagement being offered a focus, and many groups around the country are keen to know how they may participate; frankly, our Committee is keen to know that, too. Along with other Select Committees, we put forward proposals—some 14 Select Committee Chairs put forward proposals, I think—for an engagement programme around COP26 in Glasgow or London. As yet, we have not heard any formal response on whether they will go ahead. The purpose is to engage with parliamentarians across the globe at this conference. There will be many people attending virtually and physically, and we need to harness their enthusiasm.
I hope the Minister sheds some light on whether there will soon be a formal response to that Committee request. How have the machinery of government changes introduced to support the president designate in bringing COP26 issues to the top of every departmental agenda across Government worked in practice? Will they endure to help the Government to deliver commitments that they make in Glasgow in November?
If we want the negotiations to solve our climate crisis, and if we want this forum to be trusted by stakeholders and Governments around the world, the Paris rulebook must be finalised by the end of this COP. The responsibility for that lies with the Government as host. We must not only break the deadlock on article 6 and transparency; the UK must use this opportunity to make progress on the issue of loss and damage, as we have already heard. We have seen nations ravaged by the covid pandemic while also facing climate impacts that are causing devastation. Those vulnerable communities deserve new and additional finance to compensate for the irretrievable non-economic loss caused, as well as the more quantifiable damage caused by natural disasters. I welcome the COP president’s commitment to operationalise the Santiago Network for Loss and Damage by COP26. It is so important that we ensure that that network is more than just a website; it must be a living, breathing network of organisations and countries delivering technical assistance on loss and damage to those who need it.
COP26 must be a COP of global solidarity. It is time for the Government to put their money where their mouth is. The world is watching to see whether the UK will step up to the plate.
An annual growth rate of 0.4% in soil carbon stocks in the first 30 cm to 40 cm of soil would significantly reduce the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere due to human activity. If we managed to achieve that, we would not only stabilise the climate, but ensure food security to provide food in sufficient quantity for a rapidly growing global population. To achieve it, we need to reduce deforestation and encourage agroecological practices that increase the amount of organic matter in soils to meet the “4 per 1000” target.
Agroecology is sometimes referred to as regenerative agriculture. Recently, I was pleased to attend the Groundswell regenerative agriculture farming conference with the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Thousands of UK farmers have started to farm in a nature-friendly way and are making more money as a result.
In the past 40 years, a third of global crop land has been abandoned due to soil degradation. That disrupts the small water cycle, which desertifies land and causes soil desertification on a massive scale. As Walter Lowdermilk observed, those civilisations that have not practised soil conservation have quite literally ended in dust, so my plea to the Minister is to ensure that we build on the achievement of COP21 and ensure that agriculture is front and centre of everything we do to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Similarly, the recent Climate Change Committee progress report made this call on the Government:
“Publish an overarching strategy that clearly outlines the relationships and interactions between the multiple action plans in development for the natural environment, including those for peat, trees, nature and plant biosecurity. This must clearly outline how the different strategies will combine to support the Government’s climate change goals on both Net Zero and adaptation, along with the wider environment and other goals.”
On one of the two key themes of COP26, the CCC and the EAC both say that the Government have no clear strategy. Without a joined-up plan for the UK, how do the Government hope to negotiate one for the entire United Nations?
Ministers are right to say that the UK’s global leadership starts with our ambition and delivery at home. However, I am worried that our representatives at the conference simply do not have the credibility to talk about the issues with any authority. One of the key pieces of natural infrastructure to mitigate the effects of the climate emergency is our peatlands. The CCC is clear that we need a plan to restore all blanket bogs. Instead, we see Ministers putting forward legislation that protects only 40% of our deep peat. Another piece of important natural infrastructure is our trees and woodlands. Again, the CCC is clear that we need 17% woodland cover by 2050 to meet net zero. Instead, Ministers propose only 12% coverage.
While a third of the UK’s seas are apparently protected, only 1% are well managed and only 5% of protected areas are safe from bottom trawling. The CCC says that there has been no significant improvement in the management of marine habitats since 2019.
Those are just some examples on adaptation. The Government have made progress on only five of 34 sectors mentioned in the CCC’s progress report. The stream of Government action plans, grants and press releases represents a litany of piecemeal half-measures. Now the Government say they will wait until after COP26 to publish their species abundance targets, but Ministers should take a plan to the conference, lead the debate by example and push for ambitious targets, not wait for an international consensus to emerge before taking any action.
Today, I challenge the Minister. What plans is she taking to COP26 for nature recovery? What ambitious targets will she press for at the negotiating table? How will she establish Britain as the leading light in the debate?
I know that my constituents care deeply about this issue. Every month, I meet with them to discuss different aspects of the negotiations and what they want to see coming out of COP26. They have a clear plan. If the Minister does not, I urge her to meet with us before the conference. If the Government are out of ideas, my constituents have plenty.
As a Member of Parliament who represents a coastal constituency, I take particular interest in our oceans and marine environments. As the Marine Conservation Society has been saying for some time, our seabeds are significant carbon stores, accounting for an estimated 205 million tonnes of carbon—some 50 million tonnes more than there is within our standing forests. It is not only our seabeds that do this, but our vegetated coastal habitats. That is why it is so important that we invest in the growth of our seagrass meadows, kelp forests and salt marshes. By taking a global lead in the use of nature-based solutions, the UK can demonstrate that tackling climate change does not have to be a huge financial burden on household income. Instead, we can enhance and nurture our natural environment for the enjoyment of all and future generations, while also meeting our net zero targets.
COP26 offers the UK a unique opportunity to lead in nature-based solutions and to achieve global agreement on the need to protect our natural environment and do more to preserve it for future generations. I know that, as president of COP26, the Government will take the opportunity to pursue that agenda.