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<p>Defra is committed to take action to mitigate climate change and to adapt to its
impact. As the cornerstone of our future agriculture policy, the new Environmental
Land Management (ELM) system will pay public money for the provision of environmental
public goods, including mitigation and adaption to climate change. Our Clean Growth
Strategy (CGS) and 25 Year Environment Plan also set out a range of specific commitments
to reduce emissions from agriculture.</p><p>This year we have started to develop a
new emissions reduction plan for agriculture, which will set out our long-term vision
for a more productive, low-carbon farming sector. This policy development will be
informed by research, modelling, stakeholder engagement and feasibility studies. We
are establishing a Lowland Agricultural Peat Taskforce to identify how to protect
our peat carbon stores and prevent further emissions. In addition we are making progress
towards our target to plant 11 million new trees in this parliament and continuing
to phase down fluorinated gases.</p><p>For waste, the majority of our emissions are
in the form of methane generated by biodegradable waste breaking down anaerobically
in landfill. We have made significant improvements in this area, with emissions from
the waste sector falling by 70% since 1990. This is mostly due to the implementation
of methane recovery systems at UK landfill sites, as well as policies such as the
landfill tax reducing the amount of waste disposed of here.</p><p> </p><p>Further
improvements will come from policies announced in the recent Resources and Waste Strategy,
which are currently being consulted on. For example, we want to introduce a consistent
set of materials to be collected across local authorities and municipal businesses,
which would include food waste being collected separately. This is expected to divert
a significant amount of biodegradable waste away from landfill and therefore lead
to a reduction in the associated emissions.</p><p> </p>
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