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This blog post was published under the 2015-2024 Conservative Administration

https://deframedia.blog.gov.uk/2019/12/30/natural-england-and-environment-agency-chairs-look-ahead-to-2020/

Natural England and Environment Agency chairs look ahead to 2020

Posted by: , Posted on: - Categories: Weekly stories

A silver-studded blue butterfly

There is widespread coverage this morning (30 December) including in Daily Mirror, the i, the Independent, the Daily Star and the Western Morning News of a joint blog written by Tony Juniper and Emma Howard Boyd – the respective chairs of Natural England and the Environment Agency - looking ahead to climate and nature recovery efforts in 2020.

BBC News Online carries the story as part of wider coverage of the Bank of England Governor, Mark Carney’s, message to fund managers that they should curb investment in fossil fuels.

The article looks at key global events such as COP26 as the last chance to take decisive action on climate change. It calls for bold leadership from our country and others and says it will be vital to make substantial investments into environmental recovery.

The Today Programme has covered the story as part of its climate change special, hosted today by climate Greta Thunberg, and centres on the joint call for urgent action to be taken next year in order to avoid potentially irreversible consequences for the environment. Tony Juniper was also interviewed on LBC this morning.

Natural England Chair Tony Juniper and Environment Agency Chair Emma Howard Boyd said:

As we start the New Year, it’s clear that 2020 is our last chance to bring the world together to take decisive action on climate change in order to protect our communities and reverse the alarming loss of wildlife we have witnessed in recent years.

When world leaders gather at global events, including the UN General Assembly in September, the global biodiversity summit in China in October and the climate summit in Glasgow next November, bold leadership from our own country and others will be needed, if we are to turn the tide over the next decade and beyond.

You can read the full op-ed on the Green Alliance website here.

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3 comments

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  2. Comment by Jacqueline Wall posted on

    But these 'CHAIR' statements are just rhetoric?!! They don't mean anything. The government right hand clearly doesn't EVER communicate with their left hand. No action will occur because of these press releases!!!

    In Cornwall, where I live, the destruction of virgin land continues AT ANY COST. Our village recently lost a four-year battle to save a central-to-the-village virgin Glebe Field - now being trashed for 33 dwellings... Wildlife is being compromised YET again.... We have/had : deer, hedgehogs, bats, woodpeckers, slow worms (which were caught and removed) foxes, badgers, and all sorts of other wildlife using that field, but 'we' have raped it anyway and stolen it for another unsociable ugly housing estate. Shockingly and desperately sad. The green corridor has been eroded so wildlife cannot easily move from one habitat to another. We are no better in the UK than the Brazilian Prime Minister authorising the clearance of the tropical rain forest for his farmers to reap financial reward from. The irreversible damage is the same.

    The infrastructure is not here to support all these new houses in Cornwall... And yet they KEEP being passed and developed... EVERYWHERE you go down here development does not slow..... So these public blogs/statements made today are worthless I am afraid. We need action. Not words. And already we have been seeing terrible environmental consequences of human land destruction globally over the last year or so.... Governments didn't listen. Greed has been at the top of the agenda. I think you will find it's too late now.

  3. Comment by William Hughes-Games posted on

    One of the most significant measures that could be taken all over the UK is the introduction of Beavers in the head waters of every possible stream. Not only do beavers lead to the sequestering of carbon and the massive diversification of the environment to the benefit of all wild life but they decrease flood peaks and increase low water flows and they do it all for free.
    https://mtkass.blogspot.com/2007/07/canadian-beaver-pest-or-benefactor.html