A Trojan horse?
The Climate and Nature Bill
Dear Church Leaders (and everyone else)
The Climate and Nature Bill is due for its second reading on 24th January — next Friday:
Some context for the Bill
Zero Hour
Like the recent so-called Assisted Dying Bill featured in this post…
…the Climate and Nature Bill is a Private Members’ Bill, but with a seemingly well-organised campaign behind it.
The rather slick-looking Zero Hour website claims to have approaching 70,000 supporters, including around 190 MPs…
…and not a few Faith Leaders:
Though I wonder how many of them have actually asked questions about the climate narrative such as those raised in this post:
Or this one:
A 2019 Parliamentary Statutory Instrument
Part of the context here is this Statutory Instrument which was passed in the dying days of Theresa May’s government:
May resigned on 24th May 2019.
And while the country was distracted with — among other things — the leadership contest to determine the next Prime Minister, legislation was passed…
…requiring that the minimum percentage by which the net UK carbon account for the year 2050 must be lower than the 1990 baseline is increased from 80% to 100%.
As the Minister of State in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy noted at the time, a full impact assessment was not produced.
Coincidentally, Theresa May did strikingly well on the after dinner speech circuit after she left office, as noted in this short article:
Here is a timeline outlining some key events:
Hmm.
A 2019 University of Cambridge report from UK Fires
I am reminded of this diagram from p6-7 of a UK government-funded University of Cambridge report from UK Fires, coincidentally also dated 2019:
The proposals for travel and fossil fuels are particularly striking:
“All airports except Heathrow, Glasgow and Belfast” to close by 2030
Shipping to decline to zero by 2050
A rapid reduction in supply and use of all fossil fuels between 2020 and 2029, except for oil for plastic production; and fossil fuels completely phased out by 2050
The content of the Bill
The Climate and Nature Bill itself is relative short, and can be found here:
An unelected Climate and Nature Assembly
It includes the establishment of an unelected Climate and Nature Assembly “to advise the Secretary of State in creating a strategy to achieve climate and nature targets”:
The end of the exploration, extraction, export and import of fossil fuels
The Bill aims to bring into law “a strategy ensuring the end of the exploration, extraction, export and import of fossil fuels by the United Kingdom as rapidly as possible”:
I wonder how much thought has been given to what would happen to energy prices, and how that will impact families already struggling to pay fuel bills, and businesses finding it difficult enough to make ends meet as it is.
And what the impact would be on travel and transport.
Rewilding the countryside
The Bill also proposes something that looks like a form of rewilding — “increasing the health, abundance, diversity and resilience of species, populations, habitats and ecosystems so that by 2030, and measured against a baseline of 2020, nature is visibly and measurably on the path of recovery”:
And includes “fulfilling obligations under the UNCBD (UN Convention on Biological Diversity)…
…and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework”:
“For living well in balance and in harmony with Mother Earth.”
It is surely reasonable to wonder what would actually happen in practice if this Bill were to be enacted, and how this would impact farmers, food production and rural communities.
What happens next?
It might reasonably be thought that the Climate and Nature Bill looks so certain to exacerbate the country’s already-not-insignificant economic problems that it is unlikely to become law.
But if the bill really does have 190 MPs who have publicly committed to supporting it… and if most of those MPs are sufficiently motivated to stay in Westminster on a Friday to vote for it… how likely is it that there will actually be enough MPs to defeat the Climate and Nature Bill at its second reading?
Related:
Dear Church Leaders most-read articles
Some posts, including a version of this one, can also be found on Unexpected Turns
The Big Reveal: Christianity carefully considered as the solution to a problem