Category: Environment

George Eustice – 2013 Comments on Scottish Fishing

The comments made by George Eustice, the then Minister for Farming, Food and Fisheries, on 24 October 2013.

I want to work closely with fishermen so we can achieve our shared goals of a thriving fishing industry, sustainable fish stocks and a healthy marine environment.

I wanted to make a visit to Scotland an early priority. There are some important negotiations in the months ahead, particularly relating to cod quotas.

Reducing quotas at a time when stocks have increased would only lead to increased discards which no one wants.

December 27, 2020
George Eustice – 2020 Comments on the Fisheries Act

The comments made by George Eustice, the Secretary of State for the Environment, on 24 November 2020.

This is a huge moment for the UK fishing industry. This is the first domestic fisheries legislation in nearly 40 years, and we will now take back control of our waters out to 200 nautical miles or the median line.

The Fisheries Act makes clear our intention to continue to operate on the world stage as a leading, responsible, independent coastal State. We will protect our precious marine environment, whilst ensuring a fairer share of fishing opportunities for UK fishermen.

By swiftly responding to the latest scientific advice and needs of our fishing industries we will secure a thriving future for our coastal communities.

December 27, 2020
George Eustice – 2020 Comments on the Appointment of Glenys Stacey

The comments made by George Eustice, the Secretary of State for the Environment, on 23 December 2020.

I am delighted to appoint Dame Glenys to Chair the OEP. She has an outstanding reputation of being an independent voice, establishing regulators and being able to hold government to account.

The Office for Environmental Protection will be a world leader in environmental regulation – setting how government will have to stand up to its pledge to protect and enhance the environment as we build back better and greener.

December 27, 2020
Boris Johnson – 2020 Statement at the Climate Ambition Summit

The statement made by Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, on 12 December 2020.

Thank you very much Zeinab, thank you Secretary-General Antonio, thank you to my fellow leaders, excellences.

Good afternoon from London, where we are coming to the end of an extraordinary and difficult year, I think with a sudden surge of scientific optimism.

Because after barely 12 months of the pandemic, we’re seeing the vaccine going into the arms of the elderly and vulnerable, vaccines that have been products each and every one of them of vast international efforts in laboratories around the world.

And so my message to you all, is that together we can use scientific advances to protect our entire planet, our biosphere against a challenge far worse, far more destructive even than coronavirus.

By the promethean power of our invention we can begin to defend the earth against the disaster of global warming.

And by that I mean that together we can reduce our emissions, we can radically cut our dependence on fossil fuels, we can change our agricultural practices, and in short we can reverse the process by which for centuries, humanity has been quilting our planet in a toxic tea-cosy of greenhouse gases.

And at the same, we can create hundreds of thousands of jobs, millions of jobs across the planet as we collectively recover from coronavirus.

If you doubt our ability to do that, let me tell you that when I was a child of six, this country depended on coal for 70% of our energy needs. That coal dependency is now down to 3% or less and since 1990, the UK has cut our CO2 emissions by 43% – more than any other G20 nation – and yet our economy has grown by 75%.

Today, we’re putting our foot to the accelerator – in a carbon friendly way of course – with a Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution.

We want to turn the UK into the Saudi Arabia of wind power generation, enough wind power by 2030 to supply every single one of our homes with electricity.

We’re going ahead with massive solar programme, even though we can’t hope to emulate the incredible things being done by India, Australia or Morocco for instance. Hydro of course – we’re liberating the awesome potential of hydrogen, whether for homes or all sorts of uses.

On electric vehicles we’re going to ban ICEs, new internal combustion engines by 2030, with a very ambitious programme. We’ll continue to develop new nuclear power.

We want to lengthen the lead of London, the UK, as the natural home of green finance. We want our homes to be emitting progressively less and less CO2 and doing more and more retrofitting of our homes. And wherever the UK may be accused of lagging, we won’t be lagging my friends in lagging.

We want to encourage all modes of green transport, cycling, walking and so on. We want to use the relatively new miracle of carbon capture and storage actually to take carbon from power generation and industrial processes and bury it in under-sea caverns created by the extraction of hydrocarbons.

And we’re now consecrating 30% of our waters, 30% of our land surface, to nature, because we think wild nature is the best way and most effective way of retaining carbon in a natural balance.

We do all these things because they’re right for the world, they’re right for our country – but also because we know that this green industrial revolution will generate as I say hundreds of thousands of high skilled, high paying, good quality jobs for generations to come.

And we’re going to help our friends around the world by moving away from supporting drilling and mining for hydrocarbons, but putting £11.6 billion of our overseas aid to support green technology and decarbonisation across the planet.

We want to work with all of you on this call, on this conference – let’s do it together. Let’s make it our collective commitment, as Antonio has just said, to get to net zero by 2050.

We in the UK, as he says, are going to do our bit, we’re reducing our emissions by 68% at least on 1990 levels over the next decade. And I’m really awed and humbled by the efforts of other countries around the world to set their own targets.

And I just want to repeat that key message. We’re doing this not because we are hair shirt-wearing, tree-hugging, mung bean-munching eco freaks – though I’ve got nothing against any of those categories, mung beans are probably delicious. We’re doing it because we know that scientific advances will allow us collectively as humanity to save our planet and create millions of high skilled jobs as we recover from COVID.

So thank you all very much for joining this conference, this Ambition Summit, thank you to Secretary General Antonio, thank you to my co-host Emmanuel Macron, who I know shares my keen interest in protecting the ecosystems of our seas and oceans, and I look forward to seeing you all in Glasgow face-to-face next year.

December 12, 2020
Boris Johnson – 2020 Comments on the Environment

The comments made by Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, on 12 December 2020.

Today we have seen what can be achieved if nations pull together and demonstrate real leadership and ambition in the fight to save our planet.

The UK has led the way with a commitment to cut emissions by at least 68 percent by 2030 and to end support for the fossil fuel sector overseas as soon as possible, and it’s fantastic to see new pledges from around the world that put us on the path to success ahead of COP26 in Glasgow.

There is no doubt that we are coming to the end of a dark and difficult year, but scientific innovation has proved to be our salvation as the vaccine is rolled out. We must use that same ingenuity and spirit of collective endeavour to tackle the climate crisis, create the jobs of the future and build back better.

December 12, 2020
Alok Sharma – 2020 Speech on Climate Change

The comments made by Alok Sharma, the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, on 11 December 2020.

Thank you very much and good afternoon everyone. And thank you particularly to His Excellency the Honourable Kausea Natano; Dame Meg Taylor; and the Pacific Island Forum Leaders, for inviting me to speak.

The message coming from regions like the Pacific on climate change has a moral urgency and the world cannot ignore it.

I hear what you say. That climate change is the single greatest threat to the livelihoods, security and wellbeing of your people. And I am committed to working with you, throughout my COP Presidency. To make sure that your voices are heard. To address the issues that matter most to you. And to find practical solutions.

I commend the leadership your region has shown on climate change. Which is reflected in the Kainaki II Declaration, the Framework for Resilient Development in the Pacific.

And despite contributing only a fraction of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, many of you are coming forward with updates to your NDCs.

You are setting a powerful example and encouraging countries around the world to raise their ambition. On mitigation, on adaptation and on finance.

Last week, the United Kingdom announced its NDC. Committing to cut our emissions by at least 68% by 2030, which keeps us on the pathway to our 2050 Net Zero commitment.

Soon we will be submitting our first Adaptation Communication.

And more leaders will announce commitments at the Climate Ambition Summit, which the UK is hosting tomorrow, with the UN and France and in partnership with Italy and Chile.

And the Summit builds on events that have taken place across the world.

From the CARICOM Moment of Ambition Roundtable that the UK is co-hosting with Caribbean partners today.

To this “Kainaki II to COP26” Roundtable.

I would like to thank all those of you who are making announcements at the Summit tomorrow.

And also those who have said they will announce new commitments in the coming months.

Such targets are absolutely vital. But alongside them, we must drive practical solutions for reducing emissions. By working together, we can make progress faster.

So our COP26 campaigns are focusing attention on five critical areas: transport; energy; nature-based solutions; adaptation and resilience; and finance.

And we are highlighting adaptation as a priority and encouraging action. We’ve recently appointed a new international champion for adaptation and resilience, Anne-Marie Trevelyan.

Anne-Marie will help to lead our drive forward towards global ambition and action.

And it’s by supporting countries on the frontline of climate change that we will be able to help the adaptation to its impacts and build resilience.

We’re also working to increase public and private finance, urging donor countries to meet the $100 billion commitment. And to go beyond it.

Leading by example, the UK is doubling its international climate finance commitment to £11.6 billion over the next five years.

We’re also working to make public finance more accessible.

And to get more money for adaptation. We’re working with multilateral development banks, investors, and others.

And I know that this approach is shared by Australia and New Zealand., and I’m committed to our working closely together.

I have heard this forum’s call on averting, minimising and addressing loss and damage.

And over the next year I want to increase our understanding of all the issues that matter to you. And how they can be addressed.

And this includes listening to your views on how best the Kainaki II recommendations can be reflected in the outcomes of COP26.

So we will be increasing our engagement with the Pacific.

In the new year, we’ll be holding events to discuss the issues that matter to vulnerable countries.

And we will also ensure that your priorities are heard at the G7 and the G20. And, of course, at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting next year.

Because I am determined to amplify the voices of climate vulnerable countries and put them at the heart of the COP26 process.

So that together, we unleash the full potential of the Paris Agreement in Glasgow. And by doing so build a brighter and more sustainable future for us all.

Thank you.

December 11, 2020
Rebecca Pow – 2020 Comments on Green Recovery Challenge Fund

The comments made by Rebecca Pow, the Environment Minister, on 10 December 2020.

These projects will drive forward work across England to restore and transform our landscapes, boost nature and create green jobs, and will be a vital part of helping us to build back greener from coronavirus.

I look forward to working with environmental organisations as these projects develop and help address the twin challenges of biodiversity loss and climate change, while creating and retaining jobs as part of the green recovery.

December 10, 2020
Alok Sharma – 2020 Speech at UN Climate Change Dialogues

The speech made by Alok Sharma, the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, on 4 December 2020.

Greetings to everyone on this event and thank you so much for dialling in. Many of you will be dialling in from places where it is late in the day or really very early. So, thank you so much for your commitment, we really are incredibly grateful.

At the opening of the Climate Change Dialogues last Monday, I made the point that, despite the great difficulties we have faced this year, it is absolutely vital that we that maintain momentum on climate action.

Over the past months I’ve spoken to very many colleagues across the world and individual governments,

I have spoken at almost 50 events virtually. And whilst we’ve all acknowledged the need to do as much as we can to support our populations, protect jobs, protect livelihoods, in terms of our individual countries, it is also the case that climate change hasn’t taken time off. The clock is still ticking and those two hands on the face of the clock are getting closer to midnight.

So, it is important that we keep encouraging ambition across the world. Archie talked about some of the areas that we are looking for leaders to come forward at the Climate Ambition Summit on 12 December. What we want to do is to encourage that ambition on mitigation, on adaptation and support.

So that we are in prime position to realise the full potential of the Paris Agreement in Glasgow next year. We absolutely owe that not just to our generation but actually generations to come in the future.

All of you are vital, you’re absolutely integral to that. That is how we’re going to make progress at COP26. And I’ve said this before but I want to repeat this point – the UK and our friends in Italy may have the presidency of COP but success at COP is going to belong to each and every one of us as individuals and as countries.

It’s only by working together that we will succeed in tackling climate change.

Whether that’s in Governments, regions, cities, indigenous peoples, business, civil society, and or as individuals, it is going to be vital that we all play our part.

That is why events like this Open Dialogue are so important. Bringing together representatives from a whole range of constituencies.

And it is also why our COP26 campaigns are bringing people together to focus on these five critical areas: clean energy, clean transport, adaption and resilience, nature based solutions, and finance, which ties the whole thing together.

I’d like to speak for one moment directly to all our representatives from observer organisations.

The reality is reaching net zero and building our resilience will only be achieved through this joint effort.

And for this, you are absolutely vital. You are vital for helping to raise awareness, for generating support, and asking us to do more.

And very rightly you encourage us to go further.

And help to create the conditions for the Parties to raise their ambition around the negotiating table.

We saw this in Paris in 2015.

And we continue to see this drive for us to go further today as well.

For me what is really important is that you are working on the ground. You are building that resilience you are helping us reduce emissions.

You are creating the changes we need.

Whether that is indigenous leaders applying their knowledge to protect our biodiversity and ecosystems.

Or indeed, International Trade Union Confederation’s campaign to climate-proof work and jobs.

Or the advocacy we have seen from YOUNGO members around the world.

Your role within the official UNFCCC process is equally important. It really matters, and it really matters to me on a personal level.

And I want to thank the nine UNFCCC constituency groups for the leadership they have shown.

As you know, we are committed to a comprehensive agreement in Glasgow.

One that covers each of the key issues.

And, really importantly, any agreement has to be informed by the voices that have too often been marginalised. I make this point again and again in public and private.

By representing those voices. And by contributing your expertise and support. You strengthen our work.

Whether that’s the Women’s Environment and Development Organisation. Supporting equal participation in UN climate negotiations. Through the Women Delegates Fund.

Or indeed, the expertise of the Women and Gender Constituency. Which, at COP25, informed the renewed Gender Action Plan, placing gender equality at the heart of climate action.

This is again a really important thing we need to keep pressing on.

The UK has committed to implementing the Plan. And I urge all Parties to do the same.

I am very much committed to working with observers to make COP26 a success.

I’ve had quite a few engagements over the past few months and will absolutely be ramping up the engagement in the year coming up to COP26.

That is why I spoke at the Local Governments for Sustainability’s event in October. And it was about encouraging climate ambition among city leaders.

And supported Indigenous People’s Day in August. To emphasise how important Indigenous People’s knowledge and experiences are in tackling the climate crisis that we all face.

I know our Italian partners are working closely with YOUNGO too. Preparing for Youth COP, and hosting the Youth4Climate series. And I was very pleased to join one other their webinars recently.

It’s also really good to see the Research and Independent NGOs working closely with our COP26 universities network. Ensuring the academic sector, which is so important, and universities play a role in delivering a successful COP.

And of course, universities are part of the Race to Zero campaign as well.

So I am really looking forward to hearing from you in today’s discussion on the vital issue of the green recovery.

Urging countries to build back better in response to the coronavirus pandemic is absolutely central to the UK’s COP26 presidency.

But we really have to do this in a way that involves the whole of society. We have to excite everyone across the world and ensure that COP26 really has meaning for them.

Just as our work to reduce emissions and build resilience, we must take all interests into account.

That means bringing in the voices of civil society, young people, Indigenous Peoples, businesses and others in government decision-making.

And here, non-state actors can help.

So I urge all parties to look at how you can work more closely with observer groups and non-state actors. To increase ambition in your countries in a way that is fair to all.

And I am keen to hear examples of successful initiatives from both Parties and Observers today.

By listening to each other, learning from each other, and working together, we can boost ambition, take action, and strengthen this process. All of this will help pave the way for a successful COP26.

Thank you so much for being with us today.

December 4, 2020
Rebecca Pow – 2020 Comments on Solway Firth and Seabirds

The comments made by Rebecca Pow, the Environment Minister, on 3 December 2020.

The UK seabird population is of global importance with the UK holding more than a quarter of Europe’s breeding seabirds. This addition to England’s vital MPA network is a significant step forward in our ongoing commitment to protect and improve the resilience of our marine environment and its precious wildlife.

Together with the development of our Seabird Conservation Strategy, we will help the coastal environment to recover and thrive for future generations to enjoy.

December 3, 2020
George Eustice – 2020 Speech to the Oxford Farming Conference

The speech made by George Eustice, the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, on 30 November 2020.

It is a real privilege to be here today to launch our Agricultural Transition Plan.

I’d like to begin by thanking the Oxford Farming Conference for hosting this event. Of course, we all look forward to the time to when we will have turned the corner of this pandemic and can return to meeting again properly, but for now let me start by taking this opportunity to thank all those of you who working in our food supply chain to keep the nation fed. The response of the sector has been phenomenal and has been a timely reminder of the critical importance of domestic food production to our food security as a nation.

My family have farmed in West Cornwall for six generations. The names of fields were passed from one generation to the next. Like all farmers, we knew our land and so I understand the responsibility that farmers feel to the hard work of previous generations and also their commitment to the future.

So as we contemplate the biggest change in agricultural policy in half a century, we need to design a policy that is not only right for those who are the custodians of our countryside today but which is also right for those who follow in their footsteps tomorrow. Those who we’ve yet to meet. Those perhaps who yearn to go into farming but cannot currently get access to land; the farm managers who want to set out on their own; maybe those who left the family farm twenty years ago but wish they could find a way to return.

So, today we are publishing further details of our approach to changing the way we reward and incentivise farmers.

We will remove the arbitrary area-based subsidies on land ownership or tenure and replace them with new payments and new incentives to reward farmers for farming more sustainably, creating space for nature on their land, enhancing animal welfare and delivering, of course, the other objectives set out in the Agriculture Act 2020.

We will remove the old style, top down rules and draconian penalties of the EU era starting with important changes next year that will substantially reduce guidance that farmers need to follow.

This of course is a moment of great change, where, for the first time in fifty years, we have a chance to do things differently. So, we should not waste that opportunity. We should think through from first principles what a coherent policy actually looks like, and then chart an orderly course towards it.

There is no doubt that the intensification of agriculture since the 1960s has taken its toll on wildlife and on nature. So, to address this, we need to rediscover some of the agronomic techniques that my Great Grandfather might have deployed, but then fuse these with the best precision technology and the best plant science available to us today.

The centre piece of our future policy will be made up of three component parts.

Firstly, the Sustainable Farming Incentive will pay farmers who are in receipt of BPS for actions that they take to manage their land in an environmentally sustainable way.

Secondly, the Local Nature Recovery will pay for actions that support local nature recovery and deliver local environmental priorities. This scheme will also encourage collaboration, helping farmers work together to improve their local environment.

Finally, Landscape Recovery will support the delivery of landscape and ecosystem recovery through long-term, land use change projects. They will help us to meet our targets; to plant 30,000 hectares of new woodland each year by 2025, to create and restore some of our peatlands, to protect 30% of land by 2030, to reach net zero by 2050.

We know that this marks a significant change and I’m also very conscious of the fact that for many farm enterprises, they are dependent on the area subsidy payments to generate a profit. And that without it some might assume they would not be profitable, but that is why we have created a seven-year transition period. We want this to be an evolution, not an overnight revolution. That means making year-on-year progressive reductions to the legacy direct payment scheme, while simultaneously making year-on-year increases to the money available to support the replacement.

Between 2021 and 2024, we will help farmers prepare to take part in our Environmental Land Management offer.

This will include expanding the Countryside Stewardship scheme and opening a new Sustainable Farming Incentive, which will be open to every farmer from 2022 onwards.

We will also continue to develop pilots for Environmental Land Management.

We will also increase the amount of funding available for environmental and animal welfare improvements in each year of the early transition, using funding released from Direct Payments as we move towards the roll out of the three components under Environmental Land Management, which will then take effect in full from 2024.

We recognise that there is a problem with poor profitability in agriculture, but the premise behind our new policy is to tackle the causes of that poor profitability, rather than masking it with a subsidy payment.

So our new financial incentives for sustainable farming and nature recovery will be set at a rate to incentivise widespread participation and will give consideration to natural capital principles so that in some areas we will go beyond the income foregone methodology of the past.

To support farmers in reducing their costs and improving their profitability, there will be new grants to invest in new equipment to reduce costs.

There will be exit schemes to help those who want to retire or leave the industry to do so with dignity, and there will be grants to create new opportunities and support for new entrants coming into the industry.

We will also provide grants for farmer-led Research and Development, and for the use of innovative new techniques led by farmers and growers.

I would like to say a bit more about what the early part of the transition is going to look like.

Next year, we will begin to reduce Direct Payments, improve how existing schemes and regulations operate, and offer grants to help farmers invest in environmental and productivity improvements.

Reductions in Direct Payments will begin at 5% for most farmers.

Enforcement will be more proportionate – with written communications rather than financial penalties and the approach taken to inspections will be overhauled.

We will continue our programme of tests and trials and start a new National Pilot for Environmental Land Management.

And our future agricultural policy will be designed with farmers, for farmers, so that it works in fields and on farms, not just on paper. I know that we haven’t always got it right in the past. I know that administrative processes have caused problems. I want farmers to trust our reforms. And we want to work with you all to get this right.

In 2022 and 2023, we will reduce spend on Direct Payments by around 15% in each of those years.

We will start to roll out some of the core elements of the Environmental Land Management. The Sustainable Farming Incentive will support sustainable approaches to farm husbandry that help the environment that might include, promoting integrated pest management, actions to improve soil health or catchment sensitive farming.

We will make more funding available within the legacy Countryside Stewardship Scheme. We will offer a slurry investment scheme, to help reduce pollution, take us close to net zero and help us leave the environment in a better state than we found it.

There will be standalone projects to support tree planting, peatland restoration and nature recovery.

We will be launching a new-industry-led R&D scheme to invest in innovation and to benefit farmers.

We will also, as I said, offer an exit support scheme – to help farmers who want to retire to do so with dignity and to help new entrants into the industry. We will be consulting further on these scheme designs in the new year.

We will begin rolling out of the full three components of our Environmental Land Management in late 2024. By the end of 2024, the legacy Basic Payment Scheme probably will have been reduced by about 50%.

We then intend to delink Direct Payments, and the bureaucracy of the cross-compliance regime will be a thing of the past.

By 2027, we want to see a reformed agriculture sector. We want farmers to manage their whole business in a way that delivers profitable food production and the recovery of nature, combining the best modern technology with the rediscovery of the traditional art of good farm husbandry.

We want farmers to be able to access public money to help them tackle climate change and support the environment and animal welfare on the land they manage and to help their businesses become more productive and sustainable.

We want to support confidence in UK food internationally, prevent environmental harm and protect biosecurity and animal welfare.

In conclusion, rather than the prescriptive, top down rules of the EU era, we want to support the choices that farmers and land managers take on their holdings, and we will work with them to refine and develop the schemes we bring forward. If we all work together to get this right, then I believe a decade from now the rest of the world will be coming here to see how it’s done.

November 30, 2020