Barry Gardiner
MP for Brent West · Labour · United Kingdom
“Sir Desmond, imagine that the top brains in the country’s security and intelligence community produced a report that told you how to save the world. You would want to see it, right? Well, the report we are discussing is not about how to save the world; it is about what happens if we do not.”
“The nuclear threat will rise as clashes between nuclear powers become more frequent. Those are the cold assessments of the Joint Intelligence Committee. The Government were right to think that those assessments might scare people—they scare me—but they were wrong to think that they could hide them from the public.”
“The Minister will know that the grant structure on which UKRI is based gives out grants for a maximum of three to five years. Very few are for five years—most are for three years or under—yet the sort of long-term scientific development that my hon.”
“My hon. Friend is making a superb case for the importance of funding for her deep earth facility. I had the privilege of going to the National Oceanography Centre’s deep oceans facility, and the innovative science there on carbon sequestration is superb.”
“The Prime Minister has spoken powerfully about the devolution of power and giving back control. Will he therefore ensure that the proposals for commonhold and leasehold reform, for which 5 million leaseholders in this country are waiting with bated breath, do give that power and control back to those people, through the right to enfranchi…”
“We know how much land there is in the UK, and we know the extent of our inland waters and seas, so we can know how much we have to do to protect them, as we are required to do by target 3 of the global biodiversity framework.”
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“Friend was suggesting that the Government were not going far enough. It is not a matter of not going far enough with the holiday; it is a matter of the Government’s being fair, equitable and effective. The Government cannot and should not take these decisions in an arbitrary fashion; they should take them on the basis of equity and effectiveness. The Bill does not enable that.”
“Of course I want that effect to be mitigated as far as possible, and for her to intervene on me in that ridiculous way, asking whether I am suggesting we should not try to mitigate the effect of her own policies—the loss of 900,000 jobs —is ludicrous. In contrast to the hon. Lady, the hon. Member for York Outer (Julian Sturdy) was extremely reasoned in responding to my intervention on him. He accepted that there was unfairness in the Bill and that that unfairness was “regrettable”. My point is that although it is regrettable, it is not inevitable. We do not have to cut the cake or make the investments in this way. In a rather partisan speech, the hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon) derided my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson). He said that my right hon.”
“I try to keep debate in this Chamber at a rational and reasonable level. I try not to play silly party politics or create a straw man simply so that I can knock it down. If the hon. Lady wishes to play those games, let her intervene on somebody else. It is really puerile to start talking in those terms; she knows that that is absolutely not my purpose at all. The hon. Lady should consider her policies—not only these, but those that relate to VAT—and the effects that the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development has said they will have. John Philpott, the chief economic adviser to the CIPD, said just a few days ago that: “we are looking at something like 900,000 job cuts in the private sector as a result of both spending cuts and the VAT hike.” That will be the effect of the hon. Lady’s policies.”
“Will my hon. Friend none the less acknowledge that the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) made a pertinent suggestion? She identified the phase of business development that could give maximum benefit to the Treasury—when very small businesses are growing into small to medium-sized businesses, rather than when businesses are growing from zero to micro.”
“I do not think I heard a single speech from either side of the Chamber that suggested in any way that those benefits should not flow to certain businesses. The question that was repeatedly asked and that the Economic Secretary and her colleagues failed to answer is why those businesses are favoured, not only when they are specifically not the ones in the areas that will produce the economic growth that she indicates is required from the policy, but because of the manifest unfairness that will result from their distribution.”
“Mr Chope, I seek your guidance on time. I wonder how we are doing.”
“In contrast, the private sector has shown real interest in REDD credits on the voluntary carbon market, presumably for both marketing and speculative purposes. For instance, the first REDD project is expected to be approved under the voluntary carbon standard this December. In addition, BNP Paribas has set up an option to buy up to $50 million worth of potential forest credits from an African project. If developing countries continue to perceive private sector interest in market mechanisms for their mitigation actions while they are waiting for industrialised Government funding to come through, they may remove barriers to markets in the negotiating text and thus open up the option for business to participate in global emissions reductions through tradeable REDD credits. That is another aim that our Government should pursue at Cancun.”
“Several parties to the REDD discussions have highlighted in their statements the importance of maintaining the environmental integrity of any market mechanism associated with REDD. That shows that they still consider a market mechanism to be a potential outcome. Outside the negotiations, Governments have created infrastructure for REDD finance but will not necessarily come through with their financing pledges—again, something that was alluded to earlier. Donor members of the REDD-plus partnership—a group of more than 60 nations that have either pledged to fund REDD efforts in developing countries or are slated to receive them—are having trouble making good on their financing promises, and some donations constitute rebranding of previously allocated funds. Our own Government should take note of that.”
“That question needs to be resolved in the REDD-plus decision text. Industrialised countries expect a market mechanism for REDD, with the exception of Norway, whose Government, commendably, is donating billions to rainforest protection. Rich countries envisage significant participation of the private sector in REDD financing, through market incentives such as the clean development mechanism. On the other hand, developing countries are wary of markets, preferring direct Government-to-Government funding for REDD. Although the current negotiating text contains proposals in brackets that explicitly forbid the use of markets and the creation of offsets for REDD, it also leaves the key phrase “options to use markets” in brackets.”
“The REDD-plus decision text includes references to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, conservation of forest carbon stocks, sustainable management of forest and enhancement of forest carbon stocks. The accord, however, only mentions the first three goals. To clarify which activities will receive compensation, the definition of what constitutes REDD-plus needs to be made consistent within the UN process. Another uncertainty relates to the mechanisms used to fund REDD-plus activities. The Copenhagen accord, like the Bali action plan, states that there should be positive financial incentives for countries that take action to reduce deforestation and degradation, but how countries would receive that money is still up in the air. It could be through a carbon market, a dedicated fund or something else.”
“What is required at Cancun is a clear decision on how such reporting will take place and possibly some sort of global registry of mitigation actions that can be scrutinised and verified so that funds can begin to flow. At Cancun, a goal for REDD-plus—a development of the United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries—should be written into the preamble of the decision text. That goal could be to reduce emissions from deforestation by 50% by 2020, for example. The type of activities recognised as part of the REDD-plus decision, however, must be nailed down.”
“In addition, negotiating sessions since Copenhagen have produced general agreement on a fund that will channel rich countries’ financial contributions to poorer nations’ mitigation actions, and both developing and developed countries have put forward constructive proposals on how that fund could be operationalised. That means that Cancun could see a COP decision officially creating that fund and procedural rules relating to it. In Europe, we should certainly press for that to happen. With more clarity about the money, developing countries might be willing to agree to let the international community measure, report and verify what that money is used for. MRV of mitigation actions in developing countries is, in my view, the essential key to unlocking those funding flows. We should emphasise that point to everyone in the negotiations.”
“Some parties have suggested referring to the $100 billion that is otherwise mentioned only in the Copenhagen accord, but not all parties have yet agreed to do so. Potentially, a critical bulldozer to remove the roadblocks is the high-level advisory group on climate change financing, which has already been mentioned, which was created by the UN Secretary-General after Copenhagen. Heads of state and Ministers have been studying sources of revenue for the promised $100 billion a year by 2020. That group has completed a report that will be released just before the negotiations in Cancun, and the sight of money on the table might be what is needed to restore the lost trust between the parties.”
“Understandably, we say that we cannot send our taxpayers’ money to pay for mitigation projects without a clear mechanism for MRV to hold people accountable and show that the money is actually achieving the desired outcome of emissions reduction. That has created a chicken-and-egg problem in the negotiations; developed countries are unable to provide clarity on financing until developing countries provide clarity on their mitigation measures, and vice versa. How can we break that stalemate? The proposed wording mentioning the Copenhagen accord’s figure of $100 billion has made it into the negotiating text for Cancun, albeit as one of hundreds of phrases and options that are currently in brackets.”
“However, that created new questions on both the sources of that money and the policies that it is supposed to pay for. Those are fundamental issues of trust between developing and developed countries. The accord did not specify how, from where or under what conditions the funding would be transferred, and developing countries urgently need that clarification before they commit themselves to the way in which they will account for how the funding is used. Developing countries, on the other hand, first seek clarification on how the money they commit will be used. They want a clear system for measurement, reporting and verification—MRV—of the developing country mitigation actions.”
“It would mean that developed countries would have exactly three times the emissions per person of developing countries, which is hardly the basis for a just and sustainable international settlement. To date, the mitigation debate has been locked around a failure to agree on emissions reductions targets that will equate to a rise of no more than 2° C. The reason it has always stalled there is that the Chinese and the Indians are good mathematicians and so refuse to lock themselves into what is a manifestly unjust equation. Let us now turn to finance. At Copenhagen, developed countries under the accord pledged a significant amount of money—$100 billion annually by 2020—as has already been mentioned. There is also fast-start funding approaching $30 billion cumulatively through 2012 for developing country mitigation and adaptation.”
“Global emissions in 1990 were 21 gigatonnes—21 million metric tonnes—so the global reduction of 50% required to sustain a 2° C trajectory would give the world a total of just 10.5 million tonnes of emissions annually to play with. In 1990, the developed countries emitted 15 million of those 21 million tonnes, so an 80% reduction would mean that they should emit no more than 3 million tonnes by 2050, or almost 30% of the world’s total annual emissions. Today, the developed world accounts for just one fifth of the global population, and the proportion is estimated to fall to just one eighth by 2050. Why should we expect China and India to think it fair that one eighth of the world’s people should get 30% of the world’s emissions capacity?”
“The World Resources Institute estimates that the developed country commitments at Copenhagen would reduce those countries’ emissions by no more than between 13% and 19% below 1990 levels. The IPCC has called for between 25% and 40% reductions. Therefore, the commitments from the developed world fall well below the minimum that the IPCC believes is necessary to avoid dangerous climate change of more than 2° C. Among the major countries, the USA has offered to reduce its emissions by 17% by 2020, but only below 2005 levels, which equates to a reduction of just 3% below 1990 levels. Let us now look carefully at our own suggested target of at least 80% reductions from 1990 levels by the developed world. Why has that not been welcomed more fully by China and other G77 nations? Let us cash out the numbers.”
“The total emissions reductions pledged so far under the accord by the US, Japan, Europe and the major developing economies fail to match the scientific calculations on targets for stopping dangerous climate change: the accord agreed on a rise of no more than 2º C. The accord makes no enforceable provision for funding of capacity building in developing countries. It creates no binding obligation on developed countries to finance adaptation, or to effect technology transfer. It creates no structure to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation. I will try to deal with each of those aspects of the matter. First, as to emissions reductions, currently almost 50% of global emissions come from the developed world, which represents just 20% of the global population.”
“More than that: it could be a game changer that market makers in the US would suddenly find extremely threatening. America can resist any opposition to its policies. What it cannot take is being sidelined or ignored. Let us imagine that the biggest pressure on President Obama to sort out climate change came not from the liberal left or even from some “blue dog” Democrats in the Senate, but from American industry and Wall Street itself. What if Wall Street were saying to Obama: “Climate change? It’s all about the economy, stupid!” As we approach Cancun we need to be clear about why the accord is not sufficient and what is required to take the negotiations on a trajectory that may be able to deliver a legally binding agreement.”
“Indeed, those discussions are already going on at a high level. It is time for the UK and Europe to refocus our efforts away from the United States to form a more strategic alliance with China. Last week I participated in a Global Legislators Organisation for a Balanced Environment forum on climate change in Tianjin—I refer hon. Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests—along with 70 legislators from countries ranging from South Africa to Brazil. Sixteen of the G20 countries were represented, including the US. It is clear to me that a radical programme for climate change would mean the EU joining forces with China, ultimately to create common standards in products, and a joint carbon market establishing an international price for carbon around the globe. That would be a game changer.”
“The world’s press fell for it, but we should not. President Obama’s political capital has now been expended on a weak health care Act. The cost is his inability to get a climate change Bill through what was the most amenable Congress in decades. The mid-terms have configured a very different Congress, and we in the UK must now consider where future progress on climate change can best be pressed to advantage. One thing is clear: that place is not America. China’s 12th five-year plan was announced last week. It will be published in detail in the spring, and it makes it clear that China is looking to create an emissions trading scheme. In Europe we have considerable experience, both positive and negative, of the EU ETS and the EU must work with China to help it to learn from the initial mistakes that we made in setting it up.”
“In the mean time the Copenhagen accord created a loose, open-architecture structure, which is very much a coalition of the willing. Under the accord, countries put on the table the national actions that they are prepared to take to reduce their emissions—nationally appropriate mitigation actions. They monitor their success in achieving their own targets. Interestingly, although the western press accused China of spiking an agreement at the time, that is precisely the sort of structure that China had already proposed two months before Copenhagen. It has the benefit of preserving sovereignty while maximising commitment. Obama’s insistence on international monitoring of China’s voluntary actions within the Kyoto process, when the USA had not even ratified the Kyoto protocol, was less informed diplomacy than strategic media grandstanding.”
“They want a second commitment period under the protocol, as that guarantees the important—in their view vital—principle of common but differentiated responsibility, which reflects the greater historic responsibility of the developed nations as well as their greater wealth and capacity to act. Another group of countries, which includes Japan, Australia, Canada and the EU, believes that it is essential to bind in the United States to any future agreement, and wants the major developing nations to take on commitments of their own. The first commitment period of the Kyoto protocol will conclude in 2012, and most parties are conscious that we must establish a post-2012 settlement that is comprehensive and preferably legally binding. Copenhagen failed to do that. So will Cancun.”
“The western media proclaimed COP 15 a failure because it did not deliver a legally binding agreement. Cancun will not deliver a legally binding agreement either. The truth is somewhat more complicated. As the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, the USA is a critical player, but it has refused to ratify the Kyoto protocol because of the concern that it might damage US economic growth. Given the fact that Kyoto places no binding commitment to emission reductions on major developing countries such as China and India, the USA has made it clear that it is unlikely to join any post-2012 framework based on Kyoto. By contrast, developing countries are concerned that annexe 1 countries have failed to live up to the commitment that they took on at Kyoto.”
“To say that EU negotiators played a considerable role in crafting the accord may be true, but in the final frame Europe was not present—never mind the UK. Europe needs to become a player once again. We have certain unique contributions to make to the ongoing debate, but we shall not be able to make them if we cannot agree on a spokesperson who is taken seriously by the leaders of the emerging powers and the USA. The problem may not manifest itself so much at Cancun, because we do not expect the influx of world leaders that went to COP 15. However, the situation is more likely to be a problem in South Africa in 2011 at COP 17, and it certainly will at the Rio plus 20 summit the following year. It needs to be addressed now. There is no common narrative about Copenhagen.”
“Setting out a realistic ambition for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change at Cancun must begin with a clear understanding of what happened at the fifteenth session of the conference of the parties in Copenhagen in December. It also demands humility on the part of the UK and the EU. In the UK we often behave as if we are the acknowledged global leaders on climate change, and as if we believe we punch above our weight. Indeed, that has already been suggested in this debate. It may be worth reminding ourselves that the final negotiations in Denmark took place between the leaders of China, the US, India, Brazil and South Africa. The meeting itself may have been in Europe but Europe was not in the meeting. Europe has no leader, which means, in summit politics, that it has no voice.”
“I believe that we are not looking for a legally binding agreement at Cancun but for small stages of progress that can take us forward to Johannesburg in the following year, and to Rio plus 20 in 2012. However, we need to adopt a much more radical approach in the alliances that we form. We need to look across the globe to China and other BASIC countries—Brazil, South Africa, India and China—to see how we can develop common standards and frighten American business and industry into realising that they are being left behind, and that they need to come into a common framework under the UNFCC.”
“It is clear that Europe is split at the Commission level on European targets. They were offered at 30% if others participated and came in with further commitments before Copenhagen, and repackaged afterwards by Commissioner Hedegaard in such a way as to imply that they were good for our industry anyway, and we should just get on with it. I met both Commissioner Hedegaard and Commissioner Oettinger the other day. In the morning, Commissioner Hedegaard told me that it was absolutely vital that we proceeded to reduce emissions by 30% by 2020. In the afternoon, Commissioner Oettinger told me that it was absolutely impossible to do so. The Commission is irrevocably riven on the subject, and there is clearly no desire to adopt a more robust position at Cancun and going forward.”
“Such commitments could include an economy-wide emissions reduction target and a commitment to provide financial and technological assistance to developing countries, and formalising the actions of the major developing countries—for example, on carbon or energy intensity targets, renewables targets, efficiency targets, sustainable forestry targets and other central policies—with a commitment to increased transparency through national communications under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. We believe that that could be achieved through the recognition of national legislation and the role of Parliaments in monitoring, reporting and verification. Hon. Members have alluded to many other aspects: air and sea bunkers, the EU position and whether we should have a more or less robust position in the negotiations.”
“Based on those discussions over the past two years with more than 100 legislators in different countries, we believe that certain elements could be part of a politically acceptable deal: first, agreement on the overall level of ambition that has already been stated in the Copenhagen Accord to hold the increase in global temperatures below 2 o C; secondly, a decision under the Kyoto track that commits annexe I Kyoto parties—the developed countries—to a second commitment period, 2013-17, and involves quantified, economy-wide emissions reductions targets and the associated commitments of finance and technology, subject to addressing satisfactorily the issues of hot air and the rules for accounting for forestry emissions; and, thirdly, either a new parallel treaty under the convention track or a set of COP decisions under the convention track that place comparable commitments on the US without its having to join the Kyoto protocol.”
“Negotiations under the Bali action plan are currently taking place on two separate tracks. The first is the Kyoto track—those who support Kyoto—whereby Kyoto parties are considering further targets for a second commitment period beyond 2012. There is also the convention track, where long-term co-operative action involving all parties including the US and major developing economies is considering how to strengthen action taken under the convention.”
“The US has contended that all the elements of a global deal should be pursued simultaneously, and it objects to an approach that it says cherry-picks—that takes areas where we think progress may be likely, such as, for example, REDD-plus. However, if negotiators continue to pursue the so-called American balance package, they may spend so much time and effort discussing the form of an agreement after 2012 that they fail to take even relatively easy decisions that could achieve real progress. Over the past two years, GLOBE legislators—legislators participating in the Global Legislators Organisation for a Balanced Environment—in 16 of the G20 countries have been discussing the architecture of a post-2012 deal. They have put forward a proposal that suggests a way forward that might be politically acceptable to the major economies.”
“I am grateful to you, Mr Chope. In that case, I will not pursue my remarks on land use, land-use change and forestry—LULUCF—because I believe that the Department is already familiar with what I would say. I understand that it is looking carefully at ensuring that there will not be half a gigatonne of free credits in any post-2012 LULUCF settlement, the fear that has been expressed by many. Perhaps the most difficult question for this conference of the parties is whether it is possible to move forward on all of the issues without first dealing with the elephant in the room: the stalemate about the overall form of the agreement.”
“Will the Minister clarify whether those funds included any element of the previously announced £750 million for the environmental transformation fund?”
“I congratulate the Secretary of State on his remarks at the millennium development goals summit earlier this year, in which he emphasised the importance of sanitation, but will he explain to the House why, when the United Nations passed an historic resolution on 30 September affirming that access to water and sanitation were human rights and that Governments had a legal responsibility to deliver that access, the United Kingdom voted against it?”
“The Secretary of State has announced his intention significantly to advance the 2020 target for the roll-out of smart meters. The industry, however, is saying that, for each year in advance, there may be trade-offs in efficiency, the interoperability of the kit and the overall functioning of the scheme. Will the Minister ask his officials to investigate that trade-off between efficiency and the acceleration of the scheme, and report back to Parliament?”
“I welcome the Chancellor’s decision to honour the previous Government’s commitment to contribute 0.7% of gross domestic product to international development, but I would like absolute transparency on this. How much of the money that was previously allocated in the Defence and Foreign and Commonwealth Office budgets is now going to be covered by the Department for International Development’s budget?”
“After the row at the International Monetary Fund summit at the weekend, has the Chancellor concluded that the renminbi is undervalued, or that the US is under-focused on consumption-led domestic growth?”
“At the beginning of his statement, the Secretary of State commended my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr Denham) for his integrity in resigning from the previous Administration. Given that the Secretary of State has now told the House that he will not honour his pledge, will he show similar integrity?”
“In classical economics, such free goods are called externalities, but because they are not directly captured by the landowner they do not feature in their decisions on how or whether to dispose of them.”
“We fail to factor in their actual economic value to our policies and decision making, but because most of the other services that they provide are not bought or sold in markets, they are normally not taken into account, so the forests, reefs and rivers are lost or degraded. Another important consideration is that those wider benefits, although immensely valuable, do not accrue to an individual property owner. The benefits are experienced by a community at large. They are regarded as free goods by the wider economy and the wider community, which would no more think of paying for flood protection provided by the local forest than of paying for the air they breathe, which is also provided in part by the local forest.”
“The true value of forests lies in far more than that. They stop soil erosion, prevent flooding by absorbing moisture, and control climate, often regulating local as well as global weather patterns. They are a source of medicines and food, and they have recreational and aesthetic value. All that is before carbon sequestration has been mentioned. In the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 1,360 of the world’s top scientists showed that classical economics captured only one third of the actual value of the services that forests provide. The same is true for rivers, reefs, salt marshes, mangroves and all other natural ecosystems.”
“The irony is that economists and economies have not caught up with the most important capital—natural capital. Natural capital may be defined as the benefits that accrue to human society from the different species of life that inhabit the natural world—the biodiversity that is the subject of our debate. Classical economics values things such as forests by adding the sale price of the timber that can be harvested, and the alternative use to which the land may be put. A pine forest in the mountains will be worth a lot less per hectare than a forest of oak and ash close to good arable land and a river. Soft wood pine sells for pulp or low-grade timber, but oak and ash sell for designer kitchens. The mountain land has few alternative uses, but river land may raise prime beef. So that is how forests are valued. Wrong.”
“With such an assessment at the beginning of the project, it is not very surprising that we reached 2010 to find that even those indicators have not enabled us to say that we have had any real success. Where will we go in Nagoya? Top of the agenda will be natural capital. I welcome the Minister’s comments on the subject, and all that he said about the TEEB report and Pavan Sukhdev’s astonishing work. We must take on board the fact that one of the great advances in the past 100 years in classical economics was acknowledgment that there is such a thing as human, social and intellectual capital. We have come to realise that a well functioning judicial system and an excellent education system are as much a part of the wealth of a nation as its roads, ports and factories.”
“One of the first things I was told in the Department that the Minister now occupies was the wonderful target that had been set to halve the rate of decline in species loss by 2010. That was the UK’s national target. I said that that was wonderful and asked the civil servant what was the rate of loss that we were going to halve. He said that the rate of loss was not known, and I asked how we would halve the rate if we did not know what it was. He replied that we would use indicators. We started without a sufficient baseline. The European Union tried to bail us out, of course, and said that it would substantially reduce the rate of loss. That European target was a bit woollier.”
“I, too, am pleased to speak in this debate under your chairmanship, Mr Crausby. Last year, the UN climate change convention met in Copenhagen. It attracted the most incredible media frenzy, and something of a political frenzy as well, as Prime Ministers, Ministers and politicians from all over the globe made sure that they had a suitable photo opportunity. In a month’s time, its sister convention on biological diversity will meet in Nagoya, Japan, to discuss why whole species are moving into extinction at a rate that, barring the loss of the dinosaurs, is unprecedented in the entirety of the fossil record of life on this planet. So far, the convention has met with total silence from the world’s press—why? How do the world’s most eminent scientists propose that we tackle the problem of extinctions?”
“After all, what would a change in climate matter if species could keep pace with the rate of change? The fact that they cannot, and the demise of the ecosystem services that are lost with them, is the greatest threat to human well-being on this planet. A decade ago, the United Nations set the world the target of reducing the rate of species loss by 2010—the international year of biodiversity. Well, here we are. The UN willed the objective but not the means. The integration of the valuation of natural capital into Government accounting frameworks is that means.”
“The Government have an obligation to their citizens to ensure that no policy, programme or project is adopted without Ministers first having the answer to those questions, and it is not possible to answer them unless the Government unequivocally embrace a transparent system for the valuation of natural capital. In October 2010, I will chair the GLOBE legislators session at the United Nations convention on biodiversity in Nagoya—the conference of the parties. One hundred legislators will press to have natural capital incorporated into national accounts. They will establish legislators’ role as that of providing a vital monitor and audit function, overseeing their respective Executives. Many scientists regard success at the Nagoya convention as even more important than success at the convention on climate change.”
“Ninthly, the National Audit Office should be requested to monitor and report on the effective application of the incorporation of natural capital into the national accounting framework. Tenthly, Parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee should be requested to hold the Treasury and all Departments across the Government to account for their use of natural capital and ecosystem services. Eleventhly, the Treasury should be tasked with preparing and publishing an annual report on the status of the country’s natural capital and ecosystems. Are there better ways to achieve this objective? Are there better uses for these resources?”