Protecting and Restoring Nature: COP15 and Beyond

Debate between Caroline Lucas and Andrew Murrison

Thursday 14th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas]

I could not agree more with the right hon. Lady. In fact, I will come on to say a few words about peat very shortly. It sometimes feels that with all the focus on planting trees, which is very important, people sometimes forget that, actually, there is far more carbon sequestered in our peatlands than we will replace with our trees.

[Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)]

I am listening very carefully to what the hon. Lady has to say. Does she agree that one of the most important things that we can do is reduce the amount of waste that we send for incineration? In that respect, will she welcome the targets set out in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs consultation document of 16 March, which look as if they are taking the Government towards reducing the amount of waste that goes to incineration? Does she agree particularly that the incinerator at Westbury has no place in our waste disposal strategy going forward and does she hope that the Government will place a moratorium on these horrible things?

[Caroline Lucas]

I am delighted to agree with the right hon. Gentleman about the Westbury incinerator in particular and about incineration in general. He is absolutely right. The sooner that we can move towards a genuinely circular economy, where we are not producing the waste in the first place, the better.

I was talking about the progress at the pre-meeting of COP15 in Nairobi just a few weeks ago. Frankly, it was woeful. In the closing plenary, non-governmental organisations warned:

“Biodiversity and the ecosystems across our planet are on the brink of collapse, and so is the CBD process itself right now. If nothing changes, we are heading towards failure at COP15. We cannot afford for that to happen.”

Indeed, while Nairobi saw positive development on the goal for halting extinctions and the mission to achieve a nature-positive world by 2030, even those proposals are absolutely littered with brackets, meaning that they have yet to be agreed multilaterally. As a reminder, following the earlier talks in Geneva, Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, the executive secretary of the UN convention on biological diversity noted:

“Most of the recommendations…have many brackets. Not few—many brackets.”

According to observers there was an apparent lack of political leadership and urgency in those negotiating rooms in Nairobi, with countries failing to build consensus and with the text as a consequence being described as “messy and lacklustre”. As one campaigner with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds put it, “We have a marathon to finish before we can say that we are close to a successful outcome, but no one seems to be running let alone sprinting.”

As the Minister will know, the world failed to fully achieve any of the 20 UN biodiversity targets that were agreed back in 2010. Here in the UK, we missed a shocking 17 out of 20 targets, again leading the RSPB to declare that we had seen a “lost decade for nature.” The world simply cannot afford another lost decade. It is essential that an ambitious framework is agreed at COP15 and that we learn from the failed efforts of the past to ensure that its targets are met.

Here in Parliament today, there has been far less scrutiny of this summit in comparison with November’s COP26 summit in Glasgow. In some ways that is understandable given that COP26 was a UK-hosted summit, but it is still concerning that, to date, there have been no debates or ministerial statements on COP15 in the House of Commons, all the more so given that Ministers have themselves acknowledged that nature and climate are two sides of the same coin and that we needed a joined-up strategy both for COP26 and indeed for COP15.

While MPs have been able to engage with the COP26 President at COP26 oral questions for which I am very grateful, no parallel mechanism exists for COP15. As a consequence, I just do not think that we have the same familiarity with the UK’s negotiating objectives or, indeed, the milestones in the run-up to that Montreal summit.

I have some crucial questions for the Minister. Ahead of the summit in Nairobi, it was reported that the UK Government were helping to co-ordinate a High Ambition statement, which called for, among other things:

“An ambitious global biodiversity framework to halt and reverse biodiversity loss globally, with goals for 2050 and targets for 2030 and strong reporting and review mechanisms.”

That, of course, is very welcome, but will the Minister provide us with a more specific breakdown of the UK’s negotiating objectives? What steps is his Department taking to secure them? Will he commit to regularly updating this House as we progress towards the summit in December? Will he commit to raising the profile of the summit across government?

I appreciate, particularly this afternoon, that we have no idea who the Prime Minister will be in December, but regardless of who wins the Conservative leadership race, they should attend in person as a practical and tangible way of demonstrating their commitment to securing an ambitious global agreement. As we know from Glasgow, attendance of world leaders focuses minds and sets the pace of negotiations, and all of the evidence suggests that that will be much needed in Montreal.

Let me highlight several critical elements that will be essential in ensuring that that global biodiversity framework does indeed reverse nature loss. I welcome the strengthening of the 2030 mission, which now includes words on “halting” and “reversing” biodiversity loss, meaning that it is aligned with the Leaders Pledge for Nature, which is a vast improvement on the previous draft that aimed only to put biodiversity on a “path” to recovery by 2030. We also need to see specific and ambitious commitments from Governments to ensure that that mission is delivered, underpinned by robust accountability mechanisms and, of course, the necessary finance.

Looking at the agreement first, there should be a set of 2030 targets to prevent extinctions, recover species populations, and to retain and restore the extent and quality of habitats. Secondly, we need accompanying 2030 action targets that genuinely tackle the key pressures and drivers of biodiversity loss. Thirdly, we need agreement on the prominent target to effectively and equitably protect and conserve at least 30% of land, inland waters, seas, and coasts by 2030. I welcome the fact that the Government have championed this goal in negotiations so far. I hope in their role as a member of the High Ambition Coalition and as Ocean co-chair they continue to persuade others to do so.

Fourthly, in addition to a strong implementation mechanism, the UK Government should also champion a ratchet mechanism similar to that enshrined in the Paris agreement, to encourage countries to strengthen their plans over time.

Fifthly, the framework must recognise the important role of indigenous peoples and local communities in protecting biodiversity. Globally, their lands cover one third of the Earth’s land surface and 85% of biodiversity conservation areas. It is essential that the global framework respects and strengthens their land rights.

Sixthly, while target 16 includes some positive language on consumption, it is notable that the framework is missing a clear target to reduce countries’ ecological footprint. That is particularly crucial for our food systems, which are responsible for 80% of deforestation. The Environmental Audit Committee, of which I am a member, has recommended that the UK advocate for stronger wording on developed countries’ reducing unsustainable consumption and production, but as well as stronger language we need a clear target. I ask the Minister whether the Government will champion the need for an outcome on halving our global production and consumption footprint by 2030.

Then we come to funding. Any framework must be underpinned by the resources necessary to implement the targets and hold countries accountable for their progress towards achieving them, yet finance has been one of the most challenging parts of the negotiation so far. When he appeared before the Environmental Audit Committee last month, the Minister of State for the Pacific and the International Environment in the other place told us that, on finance:

“The UK has a particular role to play, given the networks and relationships that we built in the run up to COP 26… We intend to use and are using those networks to try to plug at least that part of the gap.”

That is welcome, but can the Minister tell us what kind of financial figures the Government are looking at? Can he tell us if that will be enough to meet the so-called biodiversity funding gap?

In the final plenary session in Geneva, developing countries called for richer countries to provide at least $100 billion a year for biodiversity, rising to $700 billion by 2030. That is obviously a large sum but, as the Minister for the International Environment reminded us, the top 50 food-producing countries spend about the same amount every year in subsidising often destructive land use. Regardless of the final figure, funding for biodiversity must of course be new and be additional to climate finance and overseas development aid and, at the very least, harmful subsidies must be redirected towards nature-positive activities and investments.

It may be that in his response the Minister will point to the fact that the Global Environment Facility saw its funding increase by almost 30% for 2022 to 2026. That is welcome, but let us remember that that funding supports countries to meet their obligations under not only the convention on biodiversity, but several other agreements, including the climate change agreement. Totalling just $5.25 billion, its funding remains vastly insufficient to respond to the growing crisis.

Domestically, the UK must meet the Paris agreement for nature with renewed commitment and determination to deliver on the ambition of the 25-year environment plan, to leave the environment in a better state. We all know that the Government are not short of warm words when it comes to being a global leader on the environment, but too often the reality tells a different story. Nature in this country is under pressure from every angle: industrial agriculture, climate change, pollution such as microplastics, which are now widespread in our environment, and untreated sewage regularly dumped in UK waters, creating a risk for the environment and public health.

The Government’s failure to ban peat burning meant that vital carbon stores were set alight just weeks before COP26, and its Environment Act 2021 targets fundamentally lack ambition, with a target of increasing species abundance by just 10% by 2042 compared with 2030 levels leading some to say that England will have less nature in 20 years’ time than we do today. That is hardly a helpful target, and it has led the Office for Environmental Protection to conclude that it

“will not deliver nature recovery”,

or achieve the aims set out in the 25-year plan.

Warm words need to be replaced with meaningful action. Given the scale of the biodiversity crisis, the Government must also go further and faster than the commitment in the Environment Act to halt the decline of species by 2030, strengthening it to reversing biodiversity loss by 2030. Simply stopping things getting worse is no longer enough. The pledge to protect 30% of land and sea for nature was welcomed by the environment sector, but research shows that as little as 5% of land is currently effectively managed for nature, not the 26% the Government sometimes suggest. For 30 by 30 to genuinely deliver, it must ensure that protective areas are effectively managed for nature in the long term, with effective monitoring.