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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps the Government is taking to progress implementation of nature-based climate solutions with the (a) speed and (b) ambition needed to deliver the UK’s nationally determined contribution under the Paris Agreement.

The UK is committed to taking ambitious, far-reaching action to tackle climate change and meet our commitments under the Paris agreement. We have announced a series of ambitious plans since committing to net zero emissions in law, including through our target to reduce emissions by at least 68% by 2030 compared to 1990 levels - the highest reduction target made by a major economy to date. Ahead of COP26, we will set out plans across key sectors of the economy through our Net Zero Strategy, to meet our carbon budgets and net zero commitment, and nature-based solutions will be a part of these plans.

We are exploring a range of potential Nature-Based Solutions (NbS) including; restoring degraded peatlands; appropriately establishing multi-purpose woodlands and protecting them; and restoring or recreating wetland and coastal habitats. We have already published our England Peat and Trees Action Plans this May which provide an ambitious framework to improve the management of peatlands, and our planting and management of woodlands and trees. This is underpinned by our £640 million Nature for Climate Fund over the course of this Parliament which will support a trebling of tree planting across England by the end of this Parliament and help to restore 35,000ha of peatland over the next 5 years.

We are also exploring options for incentivising private investment to further develop the nascent market in NbS. This includes enabling this market to scale up by developing robust, long term policy and regulatory frameworks to facilitate high quality investment.

By making nature, including NbS to climate change, a key focus of COP26, we hope to demonstrate that NbS can deliver multiple benefits for climate, biodiversity, and people, and can therefore play a critical role in tackling these interrelated crises in an integrated way.