State of Climate and Nature

Debate between Alex Sobel and Mary Creagh

Monday 13th July 2026 Commons Chamber

[Alex Sobel (Leeds Central and Headingley) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Government have produced a global biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and national security report, and I support the call by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Jonathan Davies) for the analysis to be released in full. The information already in the public domain warns about the exact cumulative heatwaves we are now experiencing. What work is being done to protect nature globally, particularly in relation to the Kunming-Montreal global biodiversity framework? What adaptations are being made here at home, to protect people from this extreme heat?

[Mary Creagh]

We are having a triple-COP year. We will be setting out our approach and our achievements as we move towards the biodiversity COP in Armenia and the climate COP in Turkey. There is also an important desertification COP taking place in Mongolia, which is on the frontline of the climate crisis as the permafrost there collapses. We are looking to ensure that every £1 we invest in climate also delivers for nature, because the era of £1 for one thing and £1 for another thing and Governments being asked to do this on their own is emphatically over.

Climate and Nature Bill

Debate between Alex Sobel and Mary Creagh

2nd reading
Friday 24th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Alex Sobel (Leeds Central and Headingley) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Minister, with whom I served on the Environmental Audit Committee when she was Chair. At that time we were very critical of the Environment Act 2021, and the lack of delivery on a deposit return scheme and a neonicotinoids ban. Both of those things the Minister has achieved this week. That is delivery in action. Targets are targets, but delivery and action are utmost, and the Government are undertaking that on nature.

[Mary Creagh]

My hon. Friend makes a great point, and I thank him for the sterling work he has done campaigning on those issues, not just in Leeds but nationally. He is right that when it comes to politics, it is all about show, not tell. I left this House in 2019, and these are subjects that I cared about even when I was not a Member of Parliament. The climate and nature crisis was what drove me to put myself forward for election again, because this is the place where we can make things happen. I heard what the hon. Member for South Cotswolds said about placards and protest, and about how the art of politics is about governing and choosing.