Terrestrial and Freshwater Protected Sites

Baroness Blackstone Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con) [V]]

The noble Lord asks whether we will bring the target forward. The Environment Bill framework requires us to set targets by October 2022 for a minimum of 15 years, so a target set in 2022 would run until at least 2037. One of the targets we propose is on the condition of protected sites. Any targets, when agreed, would be set out in law through an SI by October. A goal of 75% is ambitious. Some cases, such as peat bog restoration, can take many years of hard conservation work before sites even come close to reaching a favourable condition.

[Baroness Blackstone (Ind Lab)]

My Lords, the Government recently said that nature-based solutions will be central to the negotiations at COP 26. What progress can the Minister report? What emphasis will there be on a global response in which other nations also restore soils and grasslands to act as carbon sinks?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con) [V]]

Our nature strategy, which transcends the climate COP and has direct implications on the biodiversity COP being hosted in Kunming shortly before, is three things. The first is that we want more finance for nature. We are taking a lead in this country, having doubled our international climate finance to £11.6 billion. We have committed to spending a big proportion of that new money on nature-based solutions. We want other countries to do similarly and to mobilise private finance. A second area is targets. The Aichi targets are impressive, but they are ignored by pretty much every country. We want to include a means to hold individual countries to account on those targets. Thirdly, we want to tackle the drivers of environmental destruction, such as dodgy land-use subsidies that incentivise environmental destruction and by cleaning up our supply chains. The UK is showing real leadership in both those areas.