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1343872

registered interest
date	05/07/2021
answering body	Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
answering dept id	13
answering dept short name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
answering dept sort name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
hansard heading	Climate Change
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department plans to take to support the UK to meet its climate change targets in response to the recent finding by the Climate Change Committee that the UK is not keeping pace with other countries in meeting its climate change targets.
tabling member constituency	Stockport
tabling member printed	Navendu Mishra
uin	27354
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 13/07/2021 answer text <p>Tackling climate change and delivering our world-leading Net Zero target is a key priority for the Government. As the CCC recognise, we have made huge progress in cutting our emissions while growing the economy and we will continue this work.</p><p> </p><p>Defra are considering a wide range of measures for how to reduce emissions from our sectors and increase the amount of carbon captured by the land. For example, our future Environmental Land Management schemes will play an important role in achieving net zero, including through supporting large scale tree planting, paying for actions that can help to reduce emissions from farming, and by encouraging the adoption of sustainable soil management practices that will enable soils to sequester more carbon.</p><p> </p><p>In addition, on 18th May we launched our England Tree and Peat Action Plans, supported by the £640m Nature for Climate Fund. This fund will expand and enhance woodland cover and ensure that more peatland is restored, protected and better managed.</p><p> </p><p>Further to this, we are seeking to make the UK a world leader in using resources efficiently and reducing the amount of waste we create as a society. We want to prolong the lives of the materials and goods that we use and move society away from the inefficient linear economic model of 'take, make, use, throw' to a more circular one.</p><p> </p><p>A more detailed overview of our departmental plans to help the UK meet its climate targets will be set out in the Net Zero strategy, to be published ahead of COP26.</p> answering member constituency Taunton Deane answering member printed Rebecca Pow question first answered 13/07/2021 13:25:17 answering member 4522 label Biography information for Rebecca Pow
tabling member	4811 label Biography information for Navendu Mishra

1342645

registered interest
date	30/06/2021
answering body	Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
answering dept id	13
answering dept short name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
answering dept sort name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
hansard heading	Climate Change
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that the UK is prepared for sustained periods of unusually high temperatures.
tabling member printed	Lord Roberts of Llandudno
uin	HL1614
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 14/07/2021 answer text <p>Adapting to current and predicted changes to our climate is vital across the economy, including preparing for extremes. There are a range of activities we are taking across government to manage and prepare for the impacts of high temperatures, including in the health and built environment sectors. These include adapting our health systems to protect people against the impacts of overheating, such as ensuring all clinical areas in NHS Trusts have appropriate thermal monitoring.</p><p> </p><p>The Heatwave Plan for England aims to protect public health from heat-related harms and is supported by the Heat-Health Alert Early Warning System. This is run by Public Health England (PHE) in collaboration with the Met Office. These form part of the Heatwave and Summer preparedness programme, led by PHE, which became operational on 1 June 2021. Heat-Health Alerts are cascaded through the health and care system, including National Health Service providers and commissioners, social care and local government.</p><p> </p><p>The Extreme Heat National Severe Weather Warning Service (NSWWS) was also launched on 1 June 2021 to warn the public and emergency responders whenever a severe or prolonged hot weather episode is forecast.</p><p> </p><p>Overheating in buildings has been highlighted as a key risk for the health and productivity of people in the United Kingdom. Through the Future Buildings Standard consultation, the Government, led by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, has proposed a new overheating mitigation requirement to reduce the risk of overheating in new residential buildings. The Future Buildings Standard consultation was launched on 19 January 2021 and closed on 13 April 2021. We plan to regulate later this year.</p><p> </p><p>Defra, its agencies and partners are also preparing for the impacts of climate change on the natural environment, including from high temperatures. For example, Natural England and the RSPB’s updated Adaptation Manual (2020) addresses issues associated with high temperatures for freshwater species and habitats, and the role of riparian trees in keeping rivers cool.</p> answering member printed Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park question first answered 14/07/2021 12:49:46 answering member 4062 label Biography information for Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
tabling member	3691 label Biography information for Lord Roberts of Llandudno

1289375

registered interest
date	24/02/2021
answering body	Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
answering dept id	13
answering dept short name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
answering dept sort name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
hansard heading	Climate Change
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to publish the findings which informed the Environment Agency’s “reasonable worst case scenario for climate", referred to by the Agency's Chief Executive Sir James Bevan on 23 February.
tabling member printed	Lord Lilley
uin	HL13678
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 10/03/2021 answer text <p>Sir James Bevan’s speech was underpinned by published evidence from a variety of national and international reports that includes the UK Climate Projections 2018 announced by the Secretary of State for Defra in November 2018. The Environment Agency has recently published research showing an upward trend in extreme floods at two-thirds of their river level monitoring stations and that this trend is 90% certain at over a fifth of locations.</p> answering member printed Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park question first answered 10/03/2021 16:02:43 answering member 4062 label Biography information for Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
tabling member	68 label Biography information for Lord Lilley

1273955

registered interest
date	06/01/2021
answering body	Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
answering dept id	13
answering dept short name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
answering dept sort name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
hansard heading	Climate Change
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to tackle climate change.
tabling member constituency	Newport West
tabling member printed	Ruth Jones
uin	134135
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 15/01/2021 answer text <p>The UK is committed to taking ambitious, far-reaching action to tackle climate change and meet net zero; this legally binding target requires the UK to bring all greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050. Defra is playing its part in contributing to this.</p><p>The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy leads across Government on climate change mitigation and net zero and Defra is the Government lead for climate change adaptation. Defra is responsible for efforts to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the following sectors: agriculture, waste, land-use and fluorinated gases (F-gases). It also has responsibility for promoting forestry in order to capture carbon.</p><p>The ambitious 25 Year Environment Plan (25 YEP) committed to leave the environment in a better state than we found it. Mitigating and adapting to climate change is one of the ten goals in the 25 YEP. Actions include:</p><ul><li>The Clean Growth Strategy and 25 YEP set out a range of specific commitments to reduce emissions from agriculture. Defra is also looking at going further; considering ways to reduce agricultural emissions controlled directly within the farm boundary and looking at a broad range of measures including improvements in on-farm efficiency.</li><li>Our manifesto set a high ambition for trees, to increase planting across the UK to 30,000 hectares per year by 2025, aligning with the Committee on Climate Change’s recommendation to increase planting to reach net zero. In last year’s budget we announced £640 million of funding for tree planting and peatland restoration to support these ambitions.</li><li>Peatland restoration is a key component of the Government's Nature for Climate Fund that will lead to the restoration of 35,000 ha of peatland over the next five years.</li><li>We are delivering on our 2018 Resources and Waste Strategy, including plans to reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill and the GHG emissions associated with the breakdown of biodegradable waste.</li><li>We have committed to an 85% cut in the use of the main type of F-gas by 2036. We have continued to cut F-gas consumption in the UK at a faster pace than required under our international commitments, reducing levels by over 37% since 2015.</li></ul><p>However, adapting to the inevitable changes in our climate is also vital. Whilst we continue to reduce our contribution to climate change, we are also taking robust action to improve the resilience of our people, economy and environment, this includes:</p><ul><li>The second National Adaptation Programme (NAP). This was published in 2018 and sets out how we will address priority climate risks, as identified in the 2017 Climate Change Risk Assessment.</li><li>Adaptation is rightly integrated throughout the policies and programmes of government. The NAP includes actions in a broad range of areas, including the natural environment, infrastructure, people and the built environment, business and industry, and local government.</li><li>We engage with key national stakeholders on climate resilience, supporting organisations reporting under the Climate Change Act's Adaptation Reporting Power. Over 90 organisations have committed to report by the end of 2021 on actions they are taking to strengthen preparedness for climate risks.</li><li>In November 2018 we published, with the Met Office, a new set of UK Climate Projections 2018 (UKCP18), which include global and regional scenarios. In September 2019 local projections were launched, which provide locally relevant climate change information on a similar resolution to that of weather forecast models (2.2km). The Government will make use of UKCP18 to inform its planning and decision-making, and the Projections will also help businesses and individuals to take action to improve resilience.</li></ul> answering member constituency Taunton Deane answering member printed Rebecca Pow question first answered 15/01/2021 14:04:26 answering member 4522 label Biography information for Rebecca Pow
tabling member	4716 label Biography information for Ruth Jones

1259311

registered interest
date	08/12/2020
answering body	Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
answering dept id	13
answering dept short name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
answering dept sort name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
hansard heading	Climate Change
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, how much money from the public purse has been spent on nature based solutions to climate change in each of the last five years.
tabling member constituency	Nottingham East
tabling member printed	Nadia Whittome
uin	127038
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 16/12/2020 answer text <p>Nature-based solutions can play a key role in tackling climate change and managing its impacts. Over the last 5 years government has introduced new funding that specifically invests in nature-based solutions in England where climate change mitigation and adaptation is the primary purpose. Details of these specific funding streams are given below.</p><ul><li>£10 million Peatland Capital grants scheme 2018-21 to restore peatland.</li><li>£19.5 million Woodland Carbon Fund announced in 2018 to support large scale woodland creation.</li><li>£50 million Woodland Carbon Guarantee announced in 2018 to accelerate woodland planting rates and develop the domestic market for woodland carbon, to be spent over 35 years.</li><li>£640 million Nature for Climate Fund will provide significant funding for the creation, restoration and management of woodland and peatland habitats in England 2020-2025.</li><li>£15 million Natural Flood Management programme 2017-21, which supports 25 large catchment scale projects and 33 smaller community projects to further develop the evidence base on working with natural processes to reduce flood risk.</li></ul><p>The UK Government also has a range of existing and funding streams such as Countryside Stewardship and the Green Recovery Challenge Fund that support the restoration of nature in England, and provide multiple benefits for wildlife, climate and people: we have not specifically assessed what proportion of these funding streams has provided nature-based solutions to climate change.</p> answering member constituency Taunton Deane answering member printed Rebecca Pow question first answered 16/12/2020 15:28:33 answering member 4522 label Biography information for Rebecca Pow
tabling member	4869 label Biography information for Nadia Whittome

1182924

registered interest
date	04/03/2020
answering body	Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
answering dept id	13
answering dept short name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
answering dept sort name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
hansard heading	Climate Change
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of whether the Gulf Stream is slowing; and whether any such slowing is having an effect on (1) the UK's climate, and (2) any increase in extreme weather events, including flooding.
tabling member printed	Lord Truscott
uin	HL2247
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 17/03/2020 answer text <p>The Gulf Stream is a small part of a large, global-scale ocean ‘conveyor belt’ of circulation, driven by winds and by differences in temperature and salinity, known as the ‘Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation’ (AMOC). The AMOC has been measured since 2004 by an international observation system called RAPID, in which the UK plays a leading role. These measurements have shown a slowing over the last decade, however much of this may be from natural variability.</p><p> </p><p>A recent assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), published in the Special Report on Oceans and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate, found some evidence to indicate the AMOC has already weakened relative to the pre-industrial period (1850 – 1900), and finds it very likely that the AMOC will continue weakening over the rest of the 21<sup>st</sup> Century.</p><p> </p><p>A large slowing of the AMOC would be expected to cause more winter storms over northern Europe, a decrease in marine biological productivity in the North Atlantic and changes in sea level. These effects would be superimposed on the effects of climate warming due to greenhouse gases, and they are included in the climate model projections used by the IPCC. At this stage we do not have evidence that the observed weakening of the AMOC has had a detectable impact on the UK climate.</p><p> </p><p>The second Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA) published in 2017 identifies risks to flooding and coastal change as one of the UK’s top six risks from climate change. The second National Adaptation Programme (NAP) published in 2018, sets out a plan of actions across Government to address these risks (amongst others identified in the CCRA) over the following 5 years. In addition, updated UK Climate Projections (UKCP18) are a key tool to help the Government, businesses and the public understand the future climate and enable them to make climate-resilient decisions.</p> answering member printed Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park question first answered 17/03/2020 17:55:06 answering member 4062 label Biography information for Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
tabling member	3682 label Biography information for Lord Truscott

1148046

registered interest
date	02/10/2019
answering body	Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
answering dept id	13
answering dept short name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
answering dept sort name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
hansard heading	Climate Change
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to Reducing UK emissions - 2019 Progress Report to Parliament, published by the Committee on Climate Change on 10 July 2010, for what reasons 21 of the 56 risks and opportunities identified in the UK’s Climate Change Risk Assessment have no formal actions in the National Adaptation Programme.
tabling member constituency	Brighton, Pavilion
tabling member printed	Caroline Lucas
uin	293517
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 08/10/2019 answer text <p>The Government welcomes the Committee on Climate Change’s progress report to Parliament. As required, we will respond formally by the deadline of 15 October.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Taunton Deane answering member printed Rebecca Pow question first answered 08/10/2019 10:01:49 answering member 4522 label Biography information for Rebecca Pow
tabling member	3930 label Biography information for Caroline Lucas

1141967

registered interest
date	25/07/2019
answering body	Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
answering dept id	13
answering dept short name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
answering dept sort name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
hansard heading	Climate Change
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	What steps the Government is taking to ensure that domestic climate change adaptation policy does not disproportionately affect low-income households.
tabling member constituency	Harlow
tabling member printed	Robert Halfon
uin	912194
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 25/07/2019 answer text <p>The Government considers the distributional impact of its interventions on different groups, including low income households, and our National Adaptation Programme sets out the steps the Government will be taking, until the next five year plan in 2023, to further adapt to climate change. Its central aim is to build resilience across the economy, and draws from across a large body of cross-Government work. To take just one example, the Government’s capital investment programme in flooding and coastal erosion is expected to provide over a ten-fold economic return on the initial outlay.</p> answering member constituency Macclesfield answering member printed David Rutley question first answered 25/07/2019 15:47:59 answering member 4033 label Biography information for David Rutley
tabling member	3985 label Biography information for Robert Halfon

1142393

registered interest
date	25/07/2019
answering body	Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
answering dept id	13
answering dept short name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
answering dept sort name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
hansard heading	Climate Change
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the tenth special report of the Environmental Audit Committee, published on 24 October 2018 on Heatwaves: adapting to climate change: Government Response to the Committee's ninth report, HC 826, whether the Government plans to reinstate the regional climate change partnerships.
tabling member constituency	Wakefield
tabling member printed	Mary Creagh
uin	282258
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 06/09/2019 answer text <p>The Government works closely with an extensive set of stakeholders to build resilience to climate change risks across the whole country, including with the Local Adaptation Advisory Panel (LAAP), the Local Government Association, the Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning and Transport, and Core Cities. In particular we support the LAAP, the forum on climate change adaptation at a local level, which brings together central and local government and agencies to promote and deliver adaptation in the local government sector.</p><p> </p><p>In November last year we launched a new set of UK Climate Projections 2018 (UKCP18), commissioned from the Met Office. UKCP18 is the first major update to the UK’s national climate change projections for nearly ten years, and this time it includes global and regional scenarios. The Government will use UKCP18 to inform its adaptation and mitigation planning and decision making, and the projections will also help local authorities, businesses and communities to take action to improve resilience.</p><p> </p><p>This year we will be releasing a new addition to UKCP18 in the form of local projections on a similar resolution to that of operational weather forecast models (i.e. 2.2km). This will provide locally relevant information to inform decision making on future climate change to enhance resilience.</p><p><em> </em></p><p> </p> answering member constituency Suffolk Coastal answering member printed Dr Thérèse Coffey question first answered 06/09/2019 14:13:53 answering member 4098 label Biography information for Dr Thérèse Coffey
tabling member	1579 label Biography information for Mary Creagh

1140950

registered interest
date	22/07/2019
answering body	Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
answering dept id	13
answering dept short name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
answering dept sort name	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
hansard heading	Climate Change
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the July 2019 Progress Report to Parliament published by the Committee on Climate Change, for what reasons 21 of the 56 risks and opportunities identified in the UK’s Climate Change Risk Assessment have no formal actions in the National Adaptation Programme.
tabling member constituency	Brighton, Pavilion
tabling member printed	Caroline Lucas
uin	280287
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 09/09/2019 answer text <p>It has not proved possible to respond to the hon. Member in the time available before Prorogation.</p> answering member constituency Camborne and Redruth answering member printed George Eustice question first answered 09/09/2019 16:34:01 answering member 3934 label Biography information for George Eustice
tabling member	3930 label Biography information for Caroline Lucas