Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how they prioritise measures to address issues relating to (1) climate change, and (2) biodiversity; whether more priority is given to one over the other; and if so, how they decide the differing level of priority.

The climate and biodiversity crises are linked, and this Government believes they have to be tackled together. Globally, climate change is the third biggest driver of biodiversity loss, while biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation further exacerbate climate change - releasing stored carbon into the atmosphere and reducing our ability to adapt to a changing climate.

As we develop our plans to deliver our world-leading net zero target at home, we will need to progress climate change and biodiversity objectives together. For example, we will need to balance land use change for mitigation purposes such as planting trees, with enhancing the natural environment and improving food security. Defra and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy are working closely together to ensure that this balance is met.

The Government has introduced significant new funding for nature restoration to address climate change, but this does not detract from our biodiversity goals - the funding is additional and complementary. We prioritise funding for ecosystems that provide the greatest contribution to our emissions targets, following the underlying science. Our assessment is that, on land, restoring degraded peatlands and appropriately creating and managing multi-purpose woodlands will offer the greatest benefits for tackling climate change, while also contributing to biodiversity goals, addressing these challenges together. Our Nature for Climate Fund is therefore providing £640 million over the course of this Parliament for the creation, restoration and management of woodland and peatland habitats.

We have a range of funding streams that support conservation of other habitats and wider biodiversity goals. This includes agri-environment schemes and green recovery funds, where the contribution to biodiversity, as well as wider environmental outcomes, is used to prioritise funding.

Research suggests that, globally, nature based solutions could provide up to a third of the most cost-effective carbon mitigation, but despite that, only around 3% of international climate finance is invested in nature. We believe there is a need for a significant increase in support for nature based solutions, which is why we have put nature at the heart of our climate ambitions – domestically and internationally.