How the environmental audit committee is leading the charge to address the climate crisis
3 min read
As climate change impacts communities across the UK, the newly elected chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, Toby Perkins MP, shares his commitment to driving bold environmental action, holding the government ac-countable, and restoring the UK’s leadership on the global stage
Climate change is one of the great challenges of our time. It is not some far-off problem for some future generation to solve. We are not heading towards a climate crisis: we live in one today.
Pressing the government to tackle this emergency while bringing public opinion with them is a serious challenge. It’s this challenge that prompted me to run for election as chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, and I was delighted to be elected last month.
This is no abstract issue for me; my constituency of Chesterfield is on the very front line of climate change. Storm Babet swept through Derbyshire with a vengeance last October. Around 1,600 homes were flooded − most of them the very same properties affected in the last floods in 2007 − and tragically one of my constituents lost her life. Many businesses lost thousands of pounds in revenue. Flooding destroys cherished homes and endangers countless livelihoods.
Across the UK, communities like mine are feeling the effect of a rapidly changing climate, whether they live in a town or village whose riverbanks routinely overflow, or in a city where summer temperatures reach record highs year after year.
We all have a stake in seeing bold action to tackle the climate change happening at our front door. Yet the climate and nature crises are global. I have recently attended COP16 in Colombia, focused on biodiversity, where I had the invaluable experience of speaking to leaders and communities from all over the world who are passionate about reversing species decline. This is an area in which the UK can and should act with vision and bravery and reclaim its position of genuine global leadership.
“We all have a stake in seeing bold action to tackle the climate change happening at our front door”
The introduction of the Environment Act, with its legally binding targets on the environment and its provision for the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP), was a genuinely innovative step by the previous government. Targets, however, are only as good as their implementation. The OEP has been clear that England is currently off track to meet the majority of its environmental ambitions.
Globally and locally, there is much to be getting on with. For example, the committee will be keen to examine whether the government’s position and achievements at COP16 matched the promising noises made in advance.
Similarly, on issues like water, nature, preserving our peat bogs and chalk streams, advancing renewable energy, and supporting nations that are custodians of globally significant environmental resources like rainforests, the government will be expected to deliver on the upbeat mood music of the summer.
I am really excited that so many passionate and knowledgeable Members have been appointed to the committee, and I know that there is a thirst to get going. The Environmental Audit Committee is widely respected within the sector because it acts to ensure that those who don’t always consider themselves to be involved in environmental policy are still held to account for their impact on the environment.
Though there are many demands on the new Labour administration, our committee will seek to ensure that the environment remains central to every decision and action the government takes, while continuing to build on the respect the committee’s work has built across the sector.
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