The comments made by Caroline Lucas, the Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion, on Twitter on 7 November 2022.
PM has no credibility when he urges others at #COP27 to keep Glasgow commitments when his own Govt hasn’t met finance pledges, hasn’t raised ambition of UK emission cuts, is continuing fossil fuel subsidies, won’t rule out new coal and is greenlighting more oil & gas #WalkTheTalk
The letter sent by Keith Taylor, the then Green Party MEP for South East England, to the Guardian newspaper on 16 January 2012.
Your report (13 January) of a packed village-hall meeting standing up to the chief executive and PR machine of the US multinational Cuadrilla over its plans to drill for gas clearly exposed the strength of feeling on this issue. The villagers are determined to oppose this oil and gas company’s attempt to expand its dangerous fracking practice from Lancashire to the south of England.
There is growing evidence that fracking can cause a range of environmental problems. A recent study by the US Environmental Protection Agency reported evidence of pollution, finding a range of chemicals in the groundwater around shale gas wells in Wyoming. Last year in Lancashire a report to investigate minor earthquakes found it was “highly probable” that fracking in the Blackpool area by Cuadrilla was the cause. Mounting evidence about the negative impacts of shale gas extraction, along with the growing number of applications to drill in the UK, mean that now more than ever a thorough and independent investigation is needed into the possible effects on the environment and people’s health. Until then the government should halt drilling operations.
In any case, shale oil will contribute little towards meeting our emissions targets. We should instead be investing in renewable energy, which is clean and safe. Other European countries are aware of the risks – France recently banned fracking. In the European parliament the Greens are questioning the European commission about whether this technique complies with EU regulations on water and chemicals, and I will be meeting constituents next week to support their campaign against fracking.
Keith Taylor MEP
Green, South East England
The speech made by Keith Taylor, the then Principal Speaker of the Green Party (alongside Caroline Lucas) on 22 September 2006.
Great to welcome delegates here to the greenest city in the uk where, just 18 months ago we secured the highest ever UK general election vote and where next year, we are looking forward to significant gains in the local elections
This is our first national conference since this May’s local elections where there was an increase of almost a third in the number of cllrs across the country. The elections that saw massive Labour losses and the LibDems failing to win a single seat. I’d like to congratulate those winning candidates and their local parties – their diligence and determination is an example to us all.
What those results show is that people are turning to the Greens because the traditional politics, whether at Westminster or in their Town Hall is no longer part of the solution, it’s part of the problem.
What those results show is that people are recognising that our vision of environmental, social and economic justice is the right vision for the 21st century.
Those votes have been given to us so we can continue our work ..So that Caroline Lucas can fight for Fair Trade not Free Trade so Jean Lambert can defend public services and human rights. So Jenny Jones and Darren Johnson can carry on the greening of our capital city, as Londoners clearly want. So councillors across the country can bring the green revolution to people’s doorsteps..making improvements to people’s lives.
We are doing all this, and more, delivering concrete political achievements in all the decision-making chambers to which we’re elected
And it doesn’t take much imagination to realise how much more we’ll be able achieve once the first Greens are elected as MP’s to Westminster,
Fellow greens, at the start of the 21st century humankind faces a climate change challenge which could literally end our time as the dominant species on this planet.
Over the last 200 years there have been social and political challenges which have been solved by the emergence of new philosophies, new movements.
At the beginning of the 19th century out of UK population of 16m, only 400,000 people were allowed a vote. After dedicated campaigns from reformers it took till 1928 until all adults, men and women had a vote.
And it wasn’t til midway through the 20th century, in a bid to combat ignorance, disease, squalor, and poverty the Beveridge Report laid the foundations of the Welfare State.
New thinking to provide new solutions to new problems.
And now it is our climate that is on a critical path in world affairs, because of the activities of humankind.
People are hungry for a solution, the planet is desperate for mercy, and it is green thinkers like us who have the answers..
But when people look to the Westminster political parties for those climate change answers, what do they get?
With the party of government, for all their posturing and ‘world leadership’ on global warming, they see carbon emissions going up not coming down under new labour!
Furthermore, when Blair eventually does go, the country has to hope in vain his replacement will be any better – the New Labour project has entirely failed to lead the world on climate change by example – and they’ve proved leading by spin alone just doesn’t work.
And when we look to the tories/lib dems –
It’s good that environmental awareness has at last surfaced onto the mainstream agenda – because18 months ago at the last election it was nowhere.
Indeed Cameron – architect of the brand new hug-a-hoodie-ride-a-bike- conservatism, failed to mention climate change at all when he wrote the Tories last manifesto.
And as for Ming, just look and see what decisions the LibDems take when they are in power, more roads like the M74 in Scotland which was branded by FoE as probably the worst environmental decision ever taken by the Scottish Assembly.
That’s repeated across the UK with more runways approved or supported by the LDs in Manchester, Exeter and Sheffield
But this new found enthusiasm from the Tories and the LibDEms for tackling climate change is hollow without understanding the need for wholesale radical economic reform. The green taxes proposed by the Lds this week in Brighton are only part of the solution. A part that won’t work in isolation.
Economic management is at the heart of tackling carbon reduction.
For as long as the Westminster parties remain wedded to the joint beliefs the ‘market’ will deliver social and environmental solutions and that unrestrained unfettered economic growth at home and abroad must be given free rein we will make no real progress
They are clinging to the economic strategies of the past which were about increasing consumption, about growth at any cost. But that growth brings effects the future can simply no longer absorb.
The economic strategies of the past will not meet the needs of the future.
Those traditional targets have no room for restrained and channeled growth, for reigning in our addiction to oil, and profligate energy use
Nor do they accommodate or promote a world where simple solutions, using technology we already have…for wind farms, for solar panels, for energy efficient homes, … that could start us on the road to recovery and adaptation where local, small measures adopted on a global scale could make the high energy lifestyles of today unrecognizable.
TERROR
Since our last conference we’ve also see the fifth anniversary of the twin tower attack and since Bush and Blair declared their disastrous War on Terror.
Five years on but disaster follows disaster and the world is now a far more dangerous place than it was five years ago…
Tens, possibly hundreds, of thousands of people have died as a result of the War on Terror, most of them civilians. Crimes against humanity have been committed, and the situation in the Middle East is bloodier than ever.
The Americans have simply thrown international law, and respect for international law, out of the window.
Under the new neo-con world law, set and sheriffed by the US they seek to secure both continuous oil supplies and the destruction of any groups and governments perceived as hostile to US policies, democratically elected or not.
Pre-emptive strike policies have now become a valid form of defence, and god help anyone who stands in their way. Right-thinking people the world over hope the lessons of Iraq are learnt before the same mistakes are made in Iran.
This policy is both illegal – It violates the UN charter – and immoral
And our own country’s involvement has been ignoble and shameful with Yo Blair’s act-now-pray-later-anything-you-say-boss-brown-nosing adoration of Bush and anything American.
Blair is responsible for crimes against humanity and should be tried alongside Bush accordingly It’s not only abroad that the New Labour project is intent on leaving their damaging mark on our society.
With both Blair and Brown’s support for a Trident nuclear weapons replacement they are spending billions in contravention of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty.
And in championing Trident, a replacement for a system which was designed to be a deterrent in a cold war which no longer exists, they have the full support of the Tories, and though the Lib Dems might be sitting on the fence we al know which way they are going to jump!
Trident – the nuclear weapons system that, as part of the world wide web of WMD’s, ensures we are all only seconds away from annihilation at any one time.
Tragedy is that whilst the nuclear nations spend billions on more efficient ways of killing people, millions die of malnutrition or lack of clean water for want of aid
And at home, when we look at the energy crisis and government enthusiasm for a new programme of nuclear power stations we can see just how out of touch the they really are, both with the aspirations of this generation and any sense of responsibility to generations yet to come.
We already have 2.3 million cubic metres of nuclear waste in storage,every single tax payer in this country is already paying 1000 pounds a head to clear up the toxic legacy of our current generation – but the government want to build more! There are better, cleaner, safer and cheaper alternatives, that don’t endanger our children’s health. That provide cheap and reliable energy and an end to fuel poverty, that don’t leave a dirty dangerous and expensive legacy for future generations to deal with.
We should immediately rule out a greater use of the nuclear option and focus on cleaner, safer, renewable forms of energy. There should be a national strategy in place now to address the impacts of Peak Oil
The challenge for the Green Party
So how can the GP increase the pressure? Simply put, to achieve change through the political process we nee more greens elected.We already have the policies that can appeal to millions, now we have to sharpen up our act in admin delivering our message We need to be presenting our case across doorsteps, in works canteens, in colleges and meetings. We must all be messengers that another world is possible We must keep faith as other parties make their half-hearted attempts to jump on the green bandwagon.As it says on the back of a pair of Levis, beware of imitations.the time is arriving for our party, we have a job to do and a responsibility to step forward with our green solutions
CALL TO ARMS
The UK needs a new political order to deliver a new political will, to breathe life into the aspirations of people in their millions waking up to the real threat climate change poses, to put people at the centre of policies and curb the corporate takeover of the UK.
The Green Party are a central part of that new political order
That’s because, unlike the major parties with their self interest in preserving their own structures and government’s corporate links, we’re different. We are honest, trustworthy and courageous. We are not afraid to challenge and change the political climate, and the patronage that supports it. We need drastic, radical action on global warming – not tinkering round the edges. We have already adopted Tradeable Carbon Quotas and Contraction and Convergence – these together with a basket of other measures are solutions that will work and they must be widely adopted right now because we don’t have time to squander.
The Westminster parties have failed to take decisive action, as yet they have not adopted these models
But the greens are prepared to do this, because we are motivated by more than political expediency and tomorrow’s headlines. Our overarching ambition at home and abroad is a just and sustainable world.
This means facing some hard choices and having the courage to challenge the status quo of life in Britain today and the effects it has
….Something the other parties aren’t prepared to do.
They aren’t prepared to look at a country where…
1 in 4 children grow up in poverty where the gulf between rich and poor is every day widening, public services are being eroded schools and hospitals sold off to the highest bidder and civil liberties eroded in the name of respect where billions are wasted on the Big Brother ID card scheme
….no, the other parties don’t want to go there..let alone say “something has go to change”
They would prefer not to admit that…
the world’s policeman has turned into a bully-boy and words like intolerance, bigotry, hatred, persecution and ethnic cleansing are stock in trade of evil leaders and the rich live in excess at the expense of the poor or that the world’s poorest are suffering the impacts of our over travelled, over consumptive lives in the West, and where extreme weather events are more frequent and the dead and displaced are measured in their millions
We must not shirk from confronting these wrongs
We have a part to play in returning true environmental, social and economic justice whether it be to the Transit camps at DarfurOr the refugee camps in Gaza
Conference, I think now is the time that we must declare war on carbon.
This is a war we CAN win, and a war we MUST win for human survival. The front line is here, the time for action is now.
And I believe the Greens are the party with real and pragmatic plans to get us out of this hole
A party that understands to lower our emissions by 90% by 2050
reduce energy demand source from renewable sources, improve efficiency.
..We must have binding , compulsory carbon reduction targets
We need to control and reduce aviation emissions, with a special aviation emission trading system
We need to look at the way we live and how we can change that to fit within the resources of one world.
And we must shout loud and clear that voters shouldn’t be taken in by the green-sounding platitudes of the gray parties.
There is only one party that’s really green, and that’s the Green Party
And we have the solutions that the future needs.Because we only have one planet, and we only have one chance, and that is why we will continue to win peoples hearts and minds. And that’s why people will vote Green.
Conference, we must never give up our quest, because the future is in our hands, and history waits to see if humankind is up to the challenge we’ve been given.
Thank you.
The speech made by Peter Ainsworth, the then Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, on 12 February 2002.
I know that this has been for many of you a truly terrible year. Your chairman has described it as ‘horrendous’.
It was horrendous even by the standards which your industry had sadly come to expect.
In the three years to June 2001, over 60,000 farming jobs were lost, and total farm incomes crashed from over £5 billion to £1.8 billion. What other industry could take that kind of punishment and survive?
By the start of last year, for many of you, achieving the National Minimum Wage was a pipe dream.
You could be forgiven for asking what you had done wrong to invite the series of traumas, akin to the plagues of Ancient Egypt, which one after another struck. BSE, Classical Swine Fever, dreadful harvests, unprecedented rainfall, a collapse in commodity prices.
And just when you thought it could not possibly get worse – it did.
Next week will see the grim anniversary of the date on which Foot and Mouth became official.
The scale of the disaster remains vividly in the mind. Over 2000 confirmed cases across thirty counties. Many of you saw your livelihoods quite literally vanish before your eyes as some 6.5 million animals were slaughtered, often in brutal circumstances, on nearly 10,000 farms.
These are the official figures.
Some estimates have put the number of animals slaughtered at nearer 10 million.
I know that these numbers, horrific as they are, don’t tell the whole story. It is hard for anyone who was not directly touched by the tragedy to understand the emotional impact on the farming communities and families where the culling took place.
I am acutely aware of the vital role played by this Association in providing advice, information and consolation during those painful months. It was a ghastly time, but the worst of times can often bring out the best in people and the whole country was moved by the resilience, determination and decency of the farming community during those days.
There remain many questions to be answered by the Government over its handling of Foot and Mouth. When, precisely, did Ministers first become aware that the disease had broken out? Why was there a three day delay in imposing a total movement ban? Why were Ministers so slow in grasping the need for urgent action? Why was there no contingency plan in place? Why didn’t they mobilise local vets? Why did they rule out vaccination? Why was chaos allowed to develop before the army was finally called in to help with the disposal of carcasses? Was contiguous culling carried out legally? Who drew up the maps on which the culling was based? Why does the Prime Minister refer all enquiries to Defra when it was he who assumed personal responsibility for managing the outbreak?
Were the Government’s eyes so transfixed by the date of the General Election that they couldn’t see the tragedy unfolding before them?
All these questions, and more, we will continue to ask.
But the honest way to learn the Lessons of Foot and Mouth would be to hold an independent public inquiry.
Just why the Government has set its face against a thorough public scrutiny of its handling of the disease can only be guessed at. The fact is that if they have nothing to hide they have nothing to fear from a Public Inquiry, and in the absence of openness, we are left to draw our own conclusions about what it is they do not want to have exposed.
What is certain is that the Prime Minister’s stance on this issue has done nothing whatever to heal the growing rift between Government and countryside which was already all too visible before the last Election.
To make matters worse, the first measure introduced by the Government since the outbreak, the Animal Health Bill (Animal Death Bill) confers sweeping new powers of entry and destruction on Ministers and officials, and insinuates that farmers were chiefly responsible for the spread of Foot and Mouth.
The uncompensated financial loss caused by Foot and Mouth to the livestock industry stands at over £1 billion.
But the true costs to the wider economy have been far greater.
It was only in the aftermath of the devastation that the Government seems to have begun to grasp the idea that farming is not an isolated activity, and that what happens to farming affects us all. That is why the future of agricultural policy is so important.
Much has been said and written of the opportunities which now exist to develop a radical new approach to farming policy, but Ministers who lecture the rural community about the need for change must remember that before change must come trust. There remains an urgent need to restore consumer confidence in British farm produce, but equally urgent is the need to address the dysfunctional relationship between Government and the farming community.
The most important policy objective must be to enable a return to profitable farming; this, more than any new regulations, will help to ensure the future of the rural environment. In fact the swathes of red tape are part of the problem and the Curry report has some useful recommendations to make in this area. Of course there is a need for regulation where issues concerning human health, the environment and animal welfare are concerned, but the command and control culture which originates from the Common Agricultural Policy and finds its expression in the Defra paperchase would be quaint if it were not so damaging.
In all the discussions about the Future of farming, too little attention has been paid to the particular difficulties suffered by the tenant farmers. Given that you account for some 9.5 million hectares, 40% of land farmed in this country, your interests might be expected to form rather more than a footnote.
If structural changes are believed to be necessary to farming, then Government thinking must take account of tenant farmers. With no assets to rely on, facing retirement can be a daunting prospect.
That is why, before the last Election, we promised to use the Rural Development Regulation to introduce a retirement package for tenant farmers which would not only benefit existing tenants but also, importantly, help encourage newcomers into the tenanted sector.
The Government made a similar pledge but so far they have done nothing to keep it; and we will work with you to hold them to their promise.
Many of the problems facing farming and the environment will yield no easy or quick solutions, but a determined effort to get government out of the daily management of rural businesses would be a start.
It seems that hardly a week goes by without some new regulation making life harder. In fact, since 1997 there have been a staggering 15,000 new regulations which have impacted on farming in some way. From the Right to Roam to the vibration of tractors, nothing can be allowed to happen without Ministerial approval and the endless, wasteful unproductive bureaucracy that goes with it.
As Iain Duncan Smith said recently;:
“It sometimes sees that what is not illegal is becoming compulsory”.
What is happening to our country? What is happening to our freedom?
And what is the meaning of Free Trade when British farmers are being asked to compete for supermarket orders with overseas producers who are less constrained by animal welfare, hygiene and environmental regulations?
We must ensure that you are able to compete on fair terms.
When it comes to farming, I want to hear a little less about free trade and a lot more about fair trade.
The Curry Report had little to say about this, but it had much to say about modulation; indeed although it contains helpful thinking on better marketing and streamlining bureaucracy, modulation is its Big Idea.
I am keen to help you do what, by and large, you have always done: manage the environment in sustainable way. The beauty of our landscape is of huge economic benefit, but it is more than that. For most of us, whether we live in the countryside or in cities, it has an intangible strength; something which cannot be adequately portrayed in a picture postcard; something essential to the way we think of ourselves as a nation.
This environment is your work place and it has been fashioned by farmers over the centuries. It didn’t get there by accident, it got there because of you and your predecessors.
But the words sustainable development become meaningless if sustainable does not also mean profitable.
What worries me about the enthusiasm shown by Curry for modulation is that, under existing EU laws, it could simply mean that the taxpayer ends up paying an even higher bill, whilst farm incomes continue to decline and farmers become more, not less, dependent on the state.
I will not attempt, this afternoon, to reform the CAP, although radical reform is urgently needed. The present stand off between the Commission on the one hand and Poland on the other shows just how great the problems are. Let me just say that you have a right to expect the British Government to have identified clear objectives long before now and to be taking a lead in mapping out the future of European agricultural policy. Well, if you know what Margaret Beckett wants out of CAP Reform do let me know, because I haven’t got a clue and don’t suppose she has either.
The problems centred around the CAP and WTO talks must not be allowed to divert attention from measures which could be taken now. I have touched some of them:
Start cutting bureaucracy now;
Begin to rebuild trust;
Help with retirement plans;
Encourage new entrants to farming;
Tackle unfair imports.
And how about this? Margaret Beckett is keen to talk about encouraging local consumption of local food. We all think this is a good idea. Why doesn’t the Government take a look at its own food procurement policies and put its money where its mouth is (or vice versa)?
Finally, the negligent approach to controlling illegal food imports is a disgrace which should be put right immediately. After all that went wrong last year, after all the waste and the cost and the heartbreak, perhaps the most disturbing thought is that literally nothing has been done to prevent Foot and Mouth being imported again tomorrow.
I am once again, extremely grateful for the opportunity to share some thoughts with you today.
In the months ahead, I look forward to working with TFA to develop the policies which you need, which we all need, for rural Britain to reverse the years of decline and to become once again a vibrant place to work and a source of physical and emotional nourishment.
And I will never forget that all too often, Government has been part of the problem not part of the solution.
A section of the article written by Keir Starmer, the Leader of the Opposition, in the Observer Newspaper on 6 November 2022.
Sunak is the latest person to attempt to govern an ungovernable party. He is unable to focus on Britain’s future because he’s plastering over the mess the Tories have made. Just this weekend, he used his first interview as prime minister to shrug his shoulders and say he can’t fix the problems we face. This tired, fatalistic, outdated approach is a recipe for more of the same. It has no chance of grasping a fairer, greener future.
It is time for a fresh start. One that recognises the crises we face are linked and will only be solved by a new approach.
The UK’s energy bills disaster was exacerbated by Putin’s grotesque invasion of Ukraine. But it was caused by 12 years of failure by Tory governments to unhook Britain from its dependence on fossil fuels.
At the same time, we have an accelerating climate crisis, illustrated most recently by the devastating floods in Pakistan and Britain’s first 40C days.
The truth of our age is that the solution to both of these calamities is adopting cheap, clean, homegrown power as fast as we can. We are lucky; our island nation has abundant natural resources of wind, water and solar. It is an act of national self-harm not to prioritise them over more expensive gas. I wouldn’t be dragged to Cop27 as prime minister, I’d be leading the way. My first objective would be to persuade world leaders that we need to get to clean energy as quickly as possible. It’s why I have set a world-leading commitment for Britain to be the first major economy to reach 100% clean power by 2030. The ambition of those plans is matched only by my determination to deliver them. Under my Labour government, the UK will become a clean energy superpower.
The speech made by Alok Sharma, the COP26 President, on 6 November 2022.
Distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to declare open the twenty-seventh session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Friends, let me begin by thanking our friends here in Egypt for such a warm welcome.
My team and I know just how demanding hosting such a conference is, and how many people have worked incredibly hard to get us to this point.
So congratulations, and thank you again.
Now as the UK Presidency comes to an end, I want to reflect on what we achieved together in Glasgow,
and also what has happened since in our Presidency year.
Last November, the world gathered at COP26 against a fractured and fractious geopolitics, as a once-in-a-century pandemic dragged mercilessly on.
And yet, leaders recognised that, despite their differences, often profound, cooperation on climate and nature is in our collective self-interest.
And thanks to that spirit of cooperation and compromise, we forged together the Glasgow Climate Pact.
Collectively we achieved something historic, and something hopeful.
With your help:
We closed the Paris Rulebook.
We made unprecedented progress on coal, and on fossil fuel subsidies.
We committed to rapidly scale up finance, and to double adaptation finance by 2025.
We reiterated the urgency of action and support for loss and damage, and established serious work on funding arrangements.
We hope that this will pave the way for a formal agenda item and tangible progress here in Egypt.
And every Party, and I repeat this, every Party agreed to revisit and strengthen their 2030 emissions reduction targets, to align with Paris.
I want to thank the 29 countries which have already updated their NDCs since Glasgow.
From Australia to Micronesia.
India to Vanuatu.
Norway to Gabon.
And we also made progress outside the negotiating rooms, with commitments from business, from finance, from philanthropy.
Friends, thanks to the work we did together, we achieved our objective, the goal at the heart of the Paris Agreement:
we kept 1.5 degrees alive.
Now, none of us could have anticipated the year that followed.
We have been buffeted by global headwinds that have tested our ability to make progress.
Putin’s brutal and illegal war in Ukraine has precipitated multiple global crises: energy and food insecurity, inflationary pressures and spiralling debt.
These crises have compounded existing climate vulnerabilities, and the scarring effects of the pandemic.
And yet, despite this context, there has been some progress in implementing the commitments we delivered in Glasgow.
Over 90 percent of the global economy is now covered by a net zero target, up from less than 30 percent when the UK took on the COP26 role.
The biggest companies and financial institutions in the world have committed to net zero and they have done so in force,
with a global wall of capital creating green jobs, and directing billions into the green industries of both today and tomorrow.
Countries and companies are making tangible sectoral progress,
from Zero Emission Vehicles to our Breakthrough Agenda,
and are accelerating the rollout of renewable energy across the world.
The Secretary General has been clear: our shared long-term futures do not lie in fossil fuels and I agree with him wholeheartedly.
Every major report published this year underscores the point that progress is being made.
Thanks to the commitments we garnered ahead of and at COP26, and indeed in our Presidency year, emissions in 2030 are expected to be around six gigatons lower.
That is the equivalent of 12 percent of today’s global annual emissions.
And with full implementation of all the commitments in place today, including NDCs and net zero targets, the reports suggest that we are heading to 1.7 degrees warming by the end of the century.
Not 1.5.
But still, progress.
So, to those who remain sceptical about the multilateral process, and of the COP process in particular, my message is clear:
as unwieldy and sometimes as frustrating as these processes can be, the system is delivering.
And there are many people to thank for that.
And certainly too many to name.
The Prime Ministers and Presidents who have sensed the changing wind, and indeed sought instead to harness it.
The Ministers to the miners who have recognised a just and sustainable future can only be delivered with a clean energy transition.
The civil society organisations, youth representatives and indigenous peoples who pushed us to consider and reconsider what was possible in Glasgow, have continued to do so since.
And, of course, the brilliant officials, the brilliant civil servants around the world, not least in the UK’s COP Unit, who have helped to deliver progress.
And yet, despite this progress, I fully recognise the scale of the challenge still in front of us.
Just as every report shows that we are making some progress, they are equally clear that there is so much more to be done in this critical decade.
Friends, we are not currently on a pathway that keeps 1.5 in reach.
And whilst I do understand that leaders around the world have faced competing priorities this year,
we must be clear,
as challenging as our current moment is, inaction is myopic, and can only defer climate catastrophe.
We must find the ability to focus on more than one thing at once.
How many more wake-up calls do world leaders actually need?
A third of Pakistan under water.
The worst flooding in Nigeria in a decade.
This year, the worst drought in 500 years in Europe, in a thousand years in the US, and the worst on record in China.
The cascading risks are also clear.
Entire economic sectors becoming unsustainable and uninsurable,
entire regions becoming unlivable,
and the strain on the global movement of goods,
and the pressure on people to relocate because of the climate crisis, becoming almost unimaginable.
So, this conference must be about concrete action.
And I hope that when the world leaders join us today, they will explain what their countries have achieved in the last year, and how they will go further.
It is very simply, a matter of trust.
Without its constituent members delivering on their commitments, and agreeing to go further, the entire system falters.
I will do everything in my power to support our Egyptian friends.
The UK is here to reach ambitious outcomes across the agenda, including on mitigation, on adaptation, and on loss and damage.
And we know that we have reached a point where finance makes or breaks the programme of work that we have ahead of us.
So whilst I would point to some of the progress shown on the $100 billion,
I hear the criticisms, and I agree that more must be done, by governments and by the Multilateral Development Banks,
including on doubling adaptation finance by 2025, and establishing a post-2025 goal.
Ultimately though, I remain hopeful.
Look back to where we were before Glasgow.
Look back to where we were before Paris.
Indeed, as we mark the thirtieth anniversary, look back to where we were before Rio.
With thanks to all of you, the UK’s Presidency ends as a demonstration that progress is possible, is happening and is continuing.
Yes, we need to accelerate that progress in the remainder of this decisive decade.
But I believe fundamentally that we can.
We know what we need to do to keep 1.5 degrees alive.
We know how to do it.
And Sameh, you and your team have our full support.
So now friends, let’s make sure we delivery, let’s make it happen.
Thank you.
The speech made by Prince William, the Prince of Wales, on 2 November 2022.
I am personally delighted to be here at the Tusk Conservation Awards, to celebrate their tenth year alongside so many alumni from past events.
Our shared goal is to draw the world’s attention onto some truly remarkable people working on the frontline of conservation in Africa today.
I am sure you will all agree with me that the commitment, innovation and courage shown by each of our winners and finalists is deeply humbling. And as always, it’s been wonderful to see their outstanding work on the big screen.
These short films brilliantly bring to life the work which the Tusk Awards champion. Thank you to all the talented filmmakers behind them.
Tonight’s event provides a perfect moment not only to reflect on the remarkable achievements of our nominees, but also take stock of the immense challenges that we continue to face in preserving the natural world.
The many ecosystems of Africa are precious; they underpin economies and livelihoods and support an extraordinarily rich biodiversity that plays a critical function in reversing climate change.
As Sir David Attenborough reminded us at this ceremony five years ago, Africa’s wildlife is truly special. What the Awards alumni, their dedicated teams and local communities are protecting is ‘one of the great natural treasures of the world’.
And yet, we also know that it is just a fragment of what there once was. That is why it is vital that we do everything in our power to halt the frightening decline in species that our planet has witnessed over the last 50 years.
It is also why the work of Tusk and its partners is so critical. It’s only by collaborating and building partnerships across communities, organisations, and the public and private sectors that we can foster lasting, meaningful change.
Tusk has taken the lead, both through its Conservation Symposium and new Collaboration Fund, to encourage initiatives that deliver impact, share solutions and build partnerships to scale up conservation efforts.
We must empower communities that face the challenges of coexisting with wildlife and we must promote grass-roots organisations to establish community-led approaches that preserve and enhance their natural heritage.
We are living through turbulent times and it is all too easy to lose sight of how critical it is that we look after our natural world. But we must remain focused on investing in nature and the environment, protecting it for future generations. We must not pass on the baton to our children and grandchildren, apologising for our lack of collective action.
Instead, we must do all we can to support those who support our natural world, often at great risk to themselves.
The Roll of Honour that we saw earlier serves as a shocking reminder of the ultimate price paid by too many men and women on the frontline of conservation.
The work that rangers and game scouts do as nature’s guardians is truly remarkable.
They patrol thousands of miles each year, putting their lives on the line every day, protecting wildlife and eco-systems, supporting communities, and mitigating harmful human-wildlife conflict.
They do vital work in collecting data to monitor species and deepen our understanding of the world around us. They inspire the next generation to love and respect nature and they teach our children about the fragility of the natural world.
For this reason, I want to applaud Tusk and its partners for its ambitious Wildlife Ranger Challenge campaign that has now raised over $16m to support the salaries and operations of some 9,000 African rangers impacted by the pandemic. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the dedication and bravery of these men and women.
Let me finish by congratulating our finalists and award winners again. David, Ian – when we spent time together earlier this year, I was reminded of both your commitment and dedication – it is truly inspiring. And to Achilles, Neddy, Miguel and Dismas – I know that your work is helping to ensure that Africa’s incredible natural heritage is protected for future generations. I look forward to working alongside all of you during my future visits.
You all should be rightly proud to join the remarkable Tusk Alumni whose incredible achievements over the last ten years have helped lead these efforts.
To everyone else who has made this evening and these awards possible, including those behind the scenes tonight and Tusk’s partners and sponsors, I say ‘thank you’.
I wish you all a wonderful evening.
The speech made by Trudy Harrison, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, in the House of Commons on 3 November 2022.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I know, because we had a little chat earlier, that you share my enthusiasm for this debate, and I cannot imagine a better way to spend the end of the parliamentary day than celebrating the very first World Biosphere Day. Let me begin by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby), for securing this timely debate—because today is indeed the day—and my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) for playing his part today.
As my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon recognised, I have personal experience of North Devon thanks to her very generous invitation, when I was the cycling Minister last summer, to join her on a bike on the Tarka trail. So I have seen for myself the beauty of North Devon, and I absolutely appreciate why her area has secured UNESCO world biosphere status. The UNESCO biosphere programme began in 1971 and there are, as we have heard, seven accredited biosphere reserves in the UK. I would like to spend a little time highlighting the programme and its success, and also the importance of nature.
It is incredibly important that we recognise that much global GDP—more than half, in fact—depends on biodiversity. Over $44 trillion is estimated to be moderately or highly dependent on biodiversity. The loss of tropical rainforests, the collapse of global pollinators and the reduction in marine fisheries would lead to a contraction of global GDP by 2.4% by 2030. That is exactly why we are acting locally and thinking globally. Central banks are directly exposed to nature risk. The Dutch and French central banks have found that 36% and 42% of their portfolios, respectively, are highly dependent on nature.
What has occurred at the North Devon biosphere reserve in is only possible because of collaboration. There is very little that one person can achieve on their own, but I do want to join my hon. Friend with a special mention for Andy Bell, who has co-ordinated the North Devon biosphere reserve partnership. Since its designation 46 years ago—it is as old as me—the biosphere reserve has enabled the fantastic creation of four extra marine conservation zones. It has improved the water quality with habitat and on-farm actions in 34 catchments, planted over 60 hectares of woodland in partnership with landowners, created 20 hectares of saltmarsh, restored 1,500 hectares of culm grassland with the Devon Wildlife Trust and improved over 120 km of riverbank habitat.
This absolutely demonstrates the value of the biosphere programme in bringing together a broad range of stakeholders with a shared endeavour to connect people with nature, and as a mechanism to leverage funding to deliver sustainable development at the catchment scale. It is all very much in line with the principles set out by the biosphere sustainable development aims. This is through nature conservation, with the protection of biodiversity and cultural diversity, and through scientific research, underpinning development through research, monitoring, education and training. We need sustainable development that is socially, culturally, economically and environmentally aligned, symbiotically supporting each other.
The International Day for Biosphere Reserves is UNESCO’s invitation to take inspiration from the solutions already implemented in those areas, and to build genuinely sustainable development everywhere, with full respect for nature and the living world. I absolutely recognise the role that the Man and the Biosphere programme has played in achieving sustainable development goals, by sharing experiences and testing policies. That includes the sustainable management of biodiversity and natural resources, and mitigation and adaptation to climate change.
I also wish to recognise our newer biosphere reserves. Those include the Brighton and Lewes Downs, known as the living coast biosphere reserve, which covers more than 390 square kilometres of land and sea, and—my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight is in his place—the Isle of Wight, which was awarded UNESCO biosphere status in 2019, and covers 914 square kilometres of land and sea. Both those areas are undertaking similar local engagement through their respective biosphere reserve partnerships, reflecting their distinct local terrestrial and marine ecosystems. My hon. Friend called on me to recognise further protections, and we are looking at that as part of what was set out in the Environment Act 2021 for how we protect land. I know that he has already had conversations with DEFRA and Natural England about national park status, and I look forward to engaging in conversations to support that.
Bob Seely
It is kind of the Minister to say that. I am talking about island park designation, not a national park—some of my farmers would be very concerned if they thought I am planning a national park behind their back. It is some kind of designation under the new planning system. I would love a national park, but I think that ship has sailed.
Trudy Harrison
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that clarification—island park designation, indeed—and I look forward to meeting him to discuss that in more detail.
This is an intergovernmental science programme, and the key point is that we use our biosphere reserves to test our approaches for sustainable development in the real world. That is critical to inform initiatives such as local nature recovery strategies, which are a key tool to meet many of our environmental targets under the Environment Act 2021. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon said, a foundation of our new approach to sustainable development will be working with farmers and environmental land management.
Those schemes will pay for more sustainable farming practices, and improve animal health and welfare. They will also bring environmental benefits, including landscape-scale environmental changes, which will be a crucial step towards achieving our 25-year environment plan and subsequent environmental commitments, and our net zero goals. That is why we are working extremely closely with farmers and other agricultural and environmental stakeholders to help shape the new schemes through our tests and trials, including the North Devon landscape pioneer, which took place in the North Devon biosphere reserve.
One of the three main functions of biosphere reserves is the conservation of biodiversity. Under the Environment Act, we have committed to halting the decline in species abundance in England by 2030, and to setting at least one other long-term target for biodiversity. Those targets will drive wide-ranging actions to deliver nature recovery. Our three-pillar approach to restoring and improving biodiversity includes: restoring and creating habitat that is greater, bigger, better, and more joined-up; tackling pressures on species and their habitats, for example by addressing pollution—something I know my hon. Friend cares deeply about—and improving water quality; and taking further targeted action for specific, threatened species.
We are already taking action through, for example, our nature for climate fund, which provides £750 million for the creation, restoration and management of woodland and peatland habitats, and our green recovery challenge fund, which is estimated to deliver 600,000 hectares of habitat creation and restoration within and outside protected sites.
On the international front, the UK is committed to securing an ambitious outcome at COP15 to halt and reverse biodiversity loss globally by 2030. We will continue to champion the protection of at least 30% of land and sea globally and recognise that significantly increasing finance from all sources is absolutely needed to halt nature loss.
At least £3 billion of the UK’s international climate finance will go towards solutions that protect and restore nature and biodiversity. We have launched a £500 million blue planet fund to support developing countries to protect the marine environment and develop sustainable marine economies.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon once again for securing the debate, and for raising the profile of our biosphere reserves in facilitating sustainable development at the local, national and international scale, and thus their contribution to a wide range of Government objectives.
The speech made by Bob Seely, the Conservative MP for the Isle of Wight, in the House of Commons on 3 November 2022.
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for letting me take part briefly in the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) is in competition with me and a relatively select few to deliver more for her wonderful patch than we do for our respective patches. I hear nothing but amazing reports of the work that she is doing. Similarly, I try to deliver as much as I can for my folks on the Isle of Wight. We both care so much for our wonderful parts of the UK. I thank her and the Minister for letting me contribute to the debate.
I agree with much of what my hon. Friend has said and I will stress two points. Before I do, our Island biosphere designation came quite late—we got it a few years ago after a campaign led by our area of outstanding natural beauty organisation—but I thank Joel Bateman, Councillor Jonathan Bacon and, more recently, Holly Jones and Natasha Dix for their impressive work in delivering that successful bid to UNESCO and since. There are 17 UNESCO sustainable development goals that we are trying to work into the Isle of Wight Council’s planning. We have lots of exciting projects, such as regenerative farming, carbon sequestration in soil and local agricultural, net zero homes, active travel and smart renewable grids that we are trying to do off the back of getting biosphere status.
The first valuable point that my hon. Friend made that I want to stress is that there is no similar designation in British law that achieves the same effect. I am keen for the Government to take it on board that we have this valuable designation that combines the human world, the natural world and the maritime world. That is actually quite unique; there is nothing like it in UK law, but should there be? For example, 75% of the Isle of Wight comes under some form of UK designation: there are eight separate designations and 13 distinct areas. For an island of our size—it is only 15 miles by 30 miles —that is highly fragmented and somewhat over-complex, and creates a needless bureaucracy when it comes to nature protection and planning. I would love to know how the Government could incorporate and recognise biospheres within UK law. At the moment, we have a tapestry on the Island, but we need a blanket, which is the idea that the biosphere gives.
My second pitch, in the brief time that I have, is that if the Government are going to bring in a Bill about protected landscapes, such as national parks and AONBs, which I hope they do, and if they are going to slightly fudge the difference between them and perhaps bring in new designations, one of the new designations could be a biosphere designation, which would give biospheres a status within UK law, or an island designation. If we are going to have city parks, why can we not have island parks? It is not a national park on an island but an island park that looks at human habitation, maritime protection and landscape protection as a single whole.
I would argue that an island park designation for the Isle of Wight would have AONB status throughout. We have only a finite amount of land and we cannot keep giving it up endlessly to low-density, car-dependent, un-environmentally friendly greenfield developments; we need to use land better. We could have maritime and landscape protection, as highlighted by my hon. Friend, and we could use the island park designation to attract tourism and help with our identity, as the biosphere potentially does. We could perhaps get some targeted support for agriculture, because we do not have an abattoir on the Island, so all the livestock goes to the mainland for slaughter, which adds cost and inhibits the circular economy that we need. Those are some of the ideas that an island designation or a biosphere designation could provide.
The biosphere is about human habitation, so we could also do a great deal with culture. The Isle of Wight was one of the most celebrated places in Victorian England with Tennyson, Keats and many others coming down to enjoy it and paint it. People fell in love with the place and sometimes used it as an escape from mainland Britain. Other people based themselves there, such as the Bonchurch school of artists and the Freshwater set with Julia Margaret Cameron. We also had—who wrote “Alice in Wonderland”?—Lewis Carroll, who used to hang around there back in the day hoping to catch a glimpse of Tennyson. We have had a phenomenal cultural input. Given the Island’s culture, together with its unique species and unique dinosaurs—we have more dinosaur finds than anywhere else in Europe, and in fact it is one of the leading dinosaur places in the world—and our landscape, there has to be a better way of recognising and protecting that. We could do so either by making biospheres part of UK law or, for the Island as a separate issue, having an island designation, which other islands—the Isles of Scilly, Arran in Scotland—could eventually share. It could be a very good idea to have some kind of island designation in UK law. I thank my hon. Friend so much for bringing forward this debate, and I look forward to what the Minister has to say.
The speech made by Selaine Saxby, the Conservative MP for North Devon, in the House of Commons on 3 November 2022.
Today is World Biosphere Day, and as UNESCO has said:
“With each passing year, the urgency of tackling environmental issues becomes clearer: we only have one planet, and it is in danger. Our relationship with nature and with other living beings needs a radical rethink in order to address these issues—we need to design and create a truly shared world.
Biosphere reserves have shown that it is possible to live in this world while also establishing a sustainable and harmonious relationship with nature.
The International Day for Biosphere Reserves is an invitation to take inspiration from the solutions already implemented in these spaces to build genuinely sustainable development everywhere, with full respect for nature and for the living world.”
The UNESCO Man and the Biosphere programme was launched 50 years ago as an intergovernmental and interdisciplinary science programme to research and address the conflicts between humankind and the natural environment. Under the programme, living laboratories called biosphere reserves are designated by UNESCO at the request of member states, with the designations tending to be managed by local partnerships.
There are 738 UNESCO biosphere reserves in the world, in 134 countries, and only seven of them are in the UK: Wester Ross, Galloway and Southern Ayrshire, the Dyfi valley, Brighton and Lewes Downs, Isle of Wight, Isle of Man and North Devon. We were lucky in North Devon to be home to the UK’s first ever biosphere reserve, launched in 1976—one of the first in the world—covering 5,000 sq km of land and sea and integrating land and marine management.
Redefined in 2002, North Devon’s biosphere is this year celebrating its 20th birthday alongside this first International Day for Biosphere Reserves. Birthday congratulations are also due to south-west Scotland, on the 10th birthday of its two biospheres this year.
North Devon’s biosphere is centred on Braunton Burrows, the largest sand dune system in England, which stretches into neighbouring constituencies. The Braunton Burrows core area consists of fixed and mobile sand dune systems; I feel most privileged to have been able to walk the area with a local warden and see the water germander in one of the only two locations it still survives in the UK.
The boundaries of the reserve follow the edges of the conjoined catchment basin of the Rivers Taw and Torridge and stretch out to sea to include the island of Lundy. The biosphere reserve is primarily lowland farmland and comprises many protected sites, including 63 sites of special scientific interest, which protect habitats such as culm grassland and broad-leaved woodlands. It also includes Barnstaple and Ilfracombe in my North Devon constituency and stretches into neighbouring Bideford, Northam, and Okehampton.
The biosphere links designations such as Dartmoor, Exmoor, North Devon area of outstanding natural beauty and Lundy and the land, sea and rivers between them. It is managed by a partnership of 34 organisations from national agencies, local government, non-governmental organisations and community groups. I would like to take this opportunity to thank them all for their work and commitment. I am truly lucky to be able to call the biosphere home.
UNESCO sets out three functions of a biosphere reserve: conservation, learning and research, and sustainable development. Biosphere reserves aim to create and maintain sustainable communities where people can live and work in an area of high environmental quality. These areas can then provide a blueprint for other areas to learn from. The reserve must be environmentally, economically and socially sustainable. To achieve that, the reserve oversees management of natural resources, initiatives to develop the local economy and an effort to reduce inequalities between people.
The biosphere programme delivers policy testing for Government of integrated approaches to tackling environmental, economic and social issues. These living laboratories research the conflict between human activity and our natural environment. The programme’s remit includes several large-scale projects that have been developed through the partnership. A £1.8 million improvement project along the River Taw, funded by the Environment Agency, is designed to decrease polluted surface run-off from fields and urban areas into the river. The project will restore habitats and remove obstacles such as weirs that prevent animals from freely moving between sections of the river. It is hoped that the decrease in pollution will also increase beach quality in places such as Instow, which failed water quality tests in 2012—one of only 16 beaches in the south-west to fail.
A nature improvement area proposed to protect and enhance the catchment of the River Torridge—home of Tarka the otter in Henry Williamson’s book of the same name—was chosen by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs as one of 12 nationally important landscapes that will receive funding to restore and recreate ecosystems in the area. Other large projects work to use the natural environment to offset the negative impacts of human activities within the biosphere.
The success of the last 46 years’ work shows that on land and sea, biospheres have driven a local nature recovery plan, and in our marine environments they have improved the levels of phosphates. This was the first work of its kind in the country. They have pioneered projects in the 25-year environmental plan, and as part of that they have developed natural capital strategies for the region, which are now in operation with the community renewal fund. Alongside new environmental land management scheme trials, this drive for nature encourages others. Today the National Trust has announced the largest grassland project, stretching from Woolacombe to Exmoor.
The work of our North Devon biosphere also extends abroad, with partnerships in Kenya supporting biospheres there to deliver projects and working with European biospheres to co-ordinate a network of forests. In south-east Asia, work is being done on marine planning and conservation alongside community health. As UNESCO’s oldest intergovernmental scientific programme, our global biospheres are a testament to what we as a world can achieve when we work together. Working together is the only way we are going to combat the global climate crisis, and as we pass on the presidency for COP, 3 November should stand as a reminder of the importance of international collaboration.
The path that biospheres have carved for the last 50 years shows that we can live in a sustainable way. It is not a choice between modern life or saving our planet; both can be achieved. It is up to us all to make it a reality. I thank Andy Bell for his tireless work for the biosphere and his help with the detail behind my speech. The Minister knows from her visit to my constituency how stunning our environment is, and I hope she will therefore support my battle against the disruption to our sand dunes caused by cabling from development projects for floating offshore wind that is too small to go to the main connection point. I also hope she will consider strengthening the protections for our biospheres and perhaps, as a special first birthday present for the International Day for Biosphere Reserves, give them formal status here in the UK.