CEE Bill
The Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill is a Private Member's Bill first presented in the UK Parliament in September 2020 by Caroline Lucas MP, along with supporting MPs from seven political parties. Over the last year, it's gathered the backing of over 140 MPs and Peers from all major parties – as well as from hundreds of organisations, businesses and local councils. In June 2021, it was updated and strengthened.
The main elements of the proposed bill are to tackle both the climate and ecological crises synergistically, including calls for cuts in emissions’ sources caused by human activity as far and as rapidly as is possible, implementing a legally binding nature target to halt and reverse the degradation and loss of nature.
This is the type of enabling legislation that can set the context for how all other decisions should be made in the most appropriate manner going forwards.
No Dorset MP currently supports the Bill.
The Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill is a Private Member's Bill first presented in the UK Parliament in September 2020 by Caroline Lucas MP, along with supporting MPs from seven political parties. Over the last year, it's gathered the backing of over 140 MPs and Peers from all major parties – as well as from hundreds of organisations, businesses and local councils. In June 2021, it was updated and strengthened.
The main elements of the proposed bill are to tackle both the climate and ecological crises synergistically, including calls for cuts in emissions’ sources caused by human activity as far and as rapidly as is possible, implementing a legally binding nature target to halt and reverse the degradation and loss of nature.
This is the type of enabling legislation that can set the context for how all other decisions should be made in the most appropriate manner going forwards.
No Dorset MP currently supports the Bill.
Green New Deal
The Green New Deal is currently set out in two Early Day Motions EDM 1 and EDM 58, and is based around the concept of the New Deal implemented in the USA in the 1930’s to stablise the economy and provide jobs and assistance to those suffering the worst economic depression in living memory. Most of the expenditure was targeted towards infrastructure. The idea for a Green New Deal also arose in the US and recognised how an updated but similar state sponsored economic policy could be used to both address the climate crisis and address issues of unemployment and inequality.
EDM 1 calls on the Government to “invest in a transformative Green New Deal to create over one million well-paid, good quality green jobs where everyone has a role to play from insulating homes to delivering first class public services; notes that this would replace jobs lost as a result of the covid-19 outbreak and level up the UK; considers green jobs to include low carbon jobs in care, education and health as well as in nature conservation, industry and infrastructure” and to “guarantee a just transition for workers in high carbon sectors including oil, gas, steel and aviation; further urges the Government to ensure the remits of the UK Infrastructure Bank and Green Savings Bonds advance a green economy and do not support fossil fuel extraction; and calls on the Government to move towards a wellbeing economy where the number and quality of good green jobs and the wellbeing of people and nature are the primary measures of the health of the nations.”
EDM 58 focuses on how this could be paid for calling for raising taxes on “on the richest 5 per cent of earners and large corporations, while introducing a windfall tax on corporations who have made excessive profits during the covid-19 pandemic and a crackdown on tax avoidance and evasion.”
While both EDMs are focused on the UK the global application of such a policy is essential (as set out in Justice), with many calling for a Global Green New Deal No Dorset MP currently supports either EDM.
Onshore Wind Planning
Power for the People have also noted how the UK’s cheapest source of energy generation is being blocked because the government has placed a moratorium on new onshore wind projects in England.
Planning regulations need to be changed to remove the onshore wind moratorium in England, so that local communities and their economies can benefit from new onshore wind projects. They have organised an open, cross-party letter from MPs to the government calling for the changes needed. The block on state financing was removed in March 2020, but the planning block remains.
No Dorset MPs were signatories to the open letter.
The Local Electricity Bill
This bill recognises that the potential for community renewable energy to benefit local economies is being blocked by unfair regulations and hugely disproportionate costs. A team based at Power for the People have drafted the Local Electricity Bill and are campaigning for it to be made law. This would give electricity generators the right to become local suppliers. A cross-party group of 278 MPs have already registered their support.
Chris Loder and Richard Drax are recorded as supporting this Bill. The remainder of Dorset’s MP are not.
Frequent Flyer Levy
Calls are growing for legislation which addresses the complex issues around reducing the number of flights taken (the impact of which was discussed in Travel Better). While multiple options are available many believe placing a levy on frequent flyers is the fairest way to manage constrained capacity. At a simple level this ‘polluter pays’ principle ensures the greatest burden falls on those who fly the most, with each additional flight per year carrying a higher levy. We are not aware of specific legislation being proposed to support this at present.
Local Research
Green New Deal and NBS
In 2020, research by Bournemouth University, Cardiff University, University College London and the British Ecological Society evaluated the effectiveness of solutions in limiting climate change, reducing biodiversity loss, reducing pollution and therefore addressing overall environmental breakdown. They found that two different solutions emerged from the models:
Green New Deal
The research identified the need for changes in national economic strategies, such as full implementation of the Green New Deal for Europe to include not just a focus on insulation and renewable energy (as some weaker proposals for Green New Deals have) but also removal of fossil fuel subsidies, increases in carbon tax and removing the focus on economic growth. Policies which promote and provide money directly to local businesses, especially in relation to Green New Deal policies such as localised energy and house insulation will maintain the focus on community as well as providing opportunities for high quality employment at a local level.
Nature-based solutions
Nature has enormous potential to fight climate change and biodiversity loss in the UK. More than 100 ecologists examined how all kinds of landscapes – from urban to agricultural to coastal – could be enhanced to maximise carbon retention, biodiversity and human wellbeing. These nature-based solutions (NbS) must be implemented at scale to reap benefits. The Nature-based Solutions report offers a real basis for setting effective policies and incentives that will maximise the benefits of nature-based solutions in the UK for the climate and biodiversity.
Regenerating native woodland, restoring grassland and rewetting peatland must be priorities when tackling the “two defining crises of our age”, according to the first complete assessment of how UK nature-based solutions can combat the climate and biodiversity crises.
Are these two solutions enough to tackle the crises?
Research shows that the proposed methods to prevent climate change don’t stack up with the need to limit warming to 1.5 degrees, mainly because economic growth (as measured by GDP) means producing more, using more natural resources, and contributing to emissions (as well as pollution and biodiversity loss), counteracting any benefits. Further research by Bournemouth University (Rick Stafford, Ellie Jones and James Sokolnicki, 2021) shows that investment in local jobs in key areas such as renewable energy, retrofitting housing insulation and energy and nature conservation, as long as conducted alongside economic measures such as reducing fossil fuel subsidies and carbon taxation, can both drive the necessary changes for improved environmental conditions, including climate change, and greatly reduce socio-economic inequality (i.e. provide economic benefits to those who need them most).
The Economics of Biodiversity led by Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta, University of Cambridge, explores the relationship between biodiversity and economics, argues that natural capital has long been ignored by economic thought, an omission that has enabled the destruction of natural resources on a monumental scale. The world needs to fundamentally overhaul how society measures economic success if it is to stem the rapid decline of biodiversity that threatens civilization itself. The central conclusion is that our demands on nature far exceed its capacity to supply them, putting biodiversity under huge pressure and society at "extreme risk".
The review sets out how this fundamental reshaping of the global economy could come about and in so doing proposes a raft of rapid, transformative changes that could rejig finance, education, production, consumption and institutions to protect biodiversity and future human prosperity. Policy makers, business leaders, financial sectors and communities all have a part to play in this sweeping vision.
Truly sustainable economic growth and development means recognising that our long-term prosperity relies on rebalancing our demand of Nature’s goods and services with its capacity to supply them. It also means accounting fully for the impact of our interactions with Nature across all levels of society.
The Environment Plan recognises the importance of restoring the quality of soils because of its vital underpinning role for farming and forestry. The quality and type of the soil, in part determined by underpinning geology, also influences the distribution of plant species and provides a habitat for a wide range of organisms. UK soils currently store about 10 billion tonnes of carbon, roughly equal to 80 years of annual UK greenhouse gas emissions. Intensive agriculture has caused arable soils to lose about 40 to 60% of their organic carbon. But there is insufficient data on the health of our soils and investment is needed in soil monitoring.
The Plan includes a commitment to improve soil health and restore and protect peatlands – this will include developing a soil health index and ending the use of peat in horticulture. By 2030, the aim is for all of England’s soils to be managed sustainably, and through natural capital thinking develop appropriate soil metrics and management approaches.
The Green New Deal is currently set out in two Early Day Motions EDM 1 and EDM 58, and is based around the concept of the New Deal implemented in the USA in the 1930’s to stablise the economy and provide jobs and assistance to those suffering the worst economic depression in living memory. Most of the expenditure was targeted towards infrastructure. The idea for a Green New Deal also arose in the US and recognised how an updated but similar state sponsored economic policy could be used to both address the climate crisis and address issues of unemployment and inequality.
EDM 1 calls on the Government to “invest in a transformative Green New Deal to create over one million well-paid, good quality green jobs where everyone has a role to play from insulating homes to delivering first class public services; notes that this would replace jobs lost as a result of the covid-19 outbreak and level up the UK; considers green jobs to include low carbon jobs in care, education and health as well as in nature conservation, industry and infrastructure” and to “guarantee a just transition for workers in high carbon sectors including oil, gas, steel and aviation; further urges the Government to ensure the remits of the UK Infrastructure Bank and Green Savings Bonds advance a green economy and do not support fossil fuel extraction; and calls on the Government to move towards a wellbeing economy where the number and quality of good green jobs and the wellbeing of people and nature are the primary measures of the health of the nations.”
EDM 58 focuses on how this could be paid for calling for raising taxes on “on the richest 5 per cent of earners and large corporations, while introducing a windfall tax on corporations who have made excessive profits during the covid-19 pandemic and a crackdown on tax avoidance and evasion.”
While both EDMs are focused on the UK the global application of such a policy is essential (as set out in Justice), with many calling for a Global Green New Deal No Dorset MP currently supports either EDM.
Onshore Wind Planning
Power for the People have also noted how the UK’s cheapest source of energy generation is being blocked because the government has placed a moratorium on new onshore wind projects in England.
Planning regulations need to be changed to remove the onshore wind moratorium in England, so that local communities and their economies can benefit from new onshore wind projects. They have organised an open, cross-party letter from MPs to the government calling for the changes needed. The block on state financing was removed in March 2020, but the planning block remains.
No Dorset MPs were signatories to the open letter.
The Local Electricity Bill
This bill recognises that the potential for community renewable energy to benefit local economies is being blocked by unfair regulations and hugely disproportionate costs. A team based at Power for the People have drafted the Local Electricity Bill and are campaigning for it to be made law. This would give electricity generators the right to become local suppliers. A cross-party group of 278 MPs have already registered their support.
Chris Loder and Richard Drax are recorded as supporting this Bill. The remainder of Dorset’s MP are not.
Frequent Flyer Levy
Calls are growing for legislation which addresses the complex issues around reducing the number of flights taken (the impact of which was discussed in Travel Better). While multiple options are available many believe placing a levy on frequent flyers is the fairest way to manage constrained capacity. At a simple level this ‘polluter pays’ principle ensures the greatest burden falls on those who fly the most, with each additional flight per year carrying a higher levy. We are not aware of specific legislation being proposed to support this at present.
Local Research
Green New Deal and NBS
In 2020, research by Bournemouth University, Cardiff University, University College London and the British Ecological Society evaluated the effectiveness of solutions in limiting climate change, reducing biodiversity loss, reducing pollution and therefore addressing overall environmental breakdown. They found that two different solutions emerged from the models:
- Comprehensive ‘Green New Deal’ scenarios, which create green jobs, while removing fossil fuel subsidies, increasing taxation on polluting products, and reducing intensive food production.
- Nature-based solutions, which involve creating new habitats, such as forests, as well as improving management of existing areas.
Green New Deal
The research identified the need for changes in national economic strategies, such as full implementation of the Green New Deal for Europe to include not just a focus on insulation and renewable energy (as some weaker proposals for Green New Deals have) but also removal of fossil fuel subsidies, increases in carbon tax and removing the focus on economic growth. Policies which promote and provide money directly to local businesses, especially in relation to Green New Deal policies such as localised energy and house insulation will maintain the focus on community as well as providing opportunities for high quality employment at a local level.
Nature-based solutions
Nature has enormous potential to fight climate change and biodiversity loss in the UK. More than 100 ecologists examined how all kinds of landscapes – from urban to agricultural to coastal – could be enhanced to maximise carbon retention, biodiversity and human wellbeing. These nature-based solutions (NbS) must be implemented at scale to reap benefits. The Nature-based Solutions report offers a real basis for setting effective policies and incentives that will maximise the benefits of nature-based solutions in the UK for the climate and biodiversity.
Regenerating native woodland, restoring grassland and rewetting peatland must be priorities when tackling the “two defining crises of our age”, according to the first complete assessment of how UK nature-based solutions can combat the climate and biodiversity crises.
Are these two solutions enough to tackle the crises?
Research shows that the proposed methods to prevent climate change don’t stack up with the need to limit warming to 1.5 degrees, mainly because economic growth (as measured by GDP) means producing more, using more natural resources, and contributing to emissions (as well as pollution and biodiversity loss), counteracting any benefits. Further research by Bournemouth University (Rick Stafford, Ellie Jones and James Sokolnicki, 2021) shows that investment in local jobs in key areas such as renewable energy, retrofitting housing insulation and energy and nature conservation, as long as conducted alongside economic measures such as reducing fossil fuel subsidies and carbon taxation, can both drive the necessary changes for improved environmental conditions, including climate change, and greatly reduce socio-economic inequality (i.e. provide economic benefits to those who need them most).
The Economics of Biodiversity led by Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta, University of Cambridge, explores the relationship between biodiversity and economics, argues that natural capital has long been ignored by economic thought, an omission that has enabled the destruction of natural resources on a monumental scale. The world needs to fundamentally overhaul how society measures economic success if it is to stem the rapid decline of biodiversity that threatens civilization itself. The central conclusion is that our demands on nature far exceed its capacity to supply them, putting biodiversity under huge pressure and society at "extreme risk".
The review sets out how this fundamental reshaping of the global economy could come about and in so doing proposes a raft of rapid, transformative changes that could rejig finance, education, production, consumption and institutions to protect biodiversity and future human prosperity. Policy makers, business leaders, financial sectors and communities all have a part to play in this sweeping vision.
Truly sustainable economic growth and development means recognising that our long-term prosperity relies on rebalancing our demand of Nature’s goods and services with its capacity to supply them. It also means accounting fully for the impact of our interactions with Nature across all levels of society.
The Environment Plan recognises the importance of restoring the quality of soils because of its vital underpinning role for farming and forestry. The quality and type of the soil, in part determined by underpinning geology, also influences the distribution of plant species and provides a habitat for a wide range of organisms. UK soils currently store about 10 billion tonnes of carbon, roughly equal to 80 years of annual UK greenhouse gas emissions. Intensive agriculture has caused arable soils to lose about 40 to 60% of their organic carbon. But there is insufficient data on the health of our soils and investment is needed in soil monitoring.
The Plan includes a commitment to improve soil health and restore and protect peatlands – this will include developing a soil health index and ending the use of peat in horticulture. By 2030, the aim is for all of England’s soils to be managed sustainably, and through natural capital thinking develop appropriate soil metrics and management approaches.