First and foremost, please be assured that I have bought renewable electricity for many years, travel by train rather than car whenever I can and cycle rather than drive whenever possible. I am also pushing to strengthen building regulations to create more zero energy bill homes, having met with the British architect Bill Dunster on many occasions, who is the pioneer of this concept.
In addition, I would also like to assure you that tackling climate change is a top priority for the Government and Ministers are committed to leaving the environment in a better state than that in which they found it.
I understand that while Ministers acknowledge the intentions of the Bill, the UK already has a world-leading emissions reduction framework in place. The Climate Change Act 2008 made the UK the first country to introduce a legally binding, long-term emissions reduction target. In October 2021, the Government published the Net Zero Strategy, building on the Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution. To oversee progress on achieving net zero, the Climate Change Committee (CCC) provides expert advice to the Government on climate change mitigation and adaptation. The UK’s 2050 net-zero target was considered, in line with advice from the CCC, to be the earliest feasible date for achieving net-zero carbon emissions.
Further, the Environment Act 2021 will drive the long-term action nature needs to recover through legally binding targets, new policy measures, a new environmental enforcement body, the Office for Environmental Protection, and placing environmental principles in domestic law in a consistent and transparent way. The Act includes a target to halt the decline of species by 2030.
The UK played a leading role at the UN biodiversity summit, COP15, in December 2022. The agreement made includes a global commitment to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030 and also protect 30 per cent of land and oceans by 2030. This builds on the actions agreed during the UK’s own COP and G7 presidencies, including securing the Leaders Pledge for Nature last year which commits world leaders to taking action to drive sustainable food production, end the illegal wildlife trade and tackle climate change.
Finally, I am assured that the Government has regularly funded public dialogues, which provide in-depth insight into people’s views to inform a wide range of policy areas. In recent years, the Government has run public dialogues on a range of climate and environment issues, such as net zero, heating, transport decarbonisation, hydrogen, food, advanced nuclear technologies, energy and the environment. The Government will continue to engage with the public on the changes needed to deliver net zero by the 2050 target and to listen to feedback.