Response from MPs re the CAN bill

 
Thank you to the 23 folk who wrote letters to their MPs in support of the Climate and Nature Bill after the morning service a few weeks ago. Replies have been coming in.

See below for the response from Olivia Blake and Abtisam Mohamed MP. 

Coming up: Read more about the mass lobby of MPs being planned by the Climate Coalition for July 9th https://www.theclimatecoalition.org/act-now-change-forever.
The Bill is scheduled for debate in Parliament on July 11th. Lets keep letting our MPs know our concern for God's creation.

Dear Michael Miller, Thank you for contacting me about the Climate and Nature Bill. In the last Parliament, I introduced the precursor bill, the Climate and Ecology Bill, and have been working with campaigners to improve legislation concerning our climate ambitions and targets. I was proud to be one of the co-sponsors of the Climate and Nature Bill and I have been working hard and cross-party with the lead member of the bill Roz Savage. We know we are facing a joint climate and nature crisis, and it is time that government works harder to look at both crisis in tandem. We know decisions about one massively impact the other for better and for worse. With last year was the hottest on record, the first to pass 1.5°C above the pre-industrial average, and the huge decline in nature we are seeing year on year, with one million species facing extinction and wildlife populations having fallen 69% since 1970. It has never been more important to debate these issues in parliament and work to get the action we need to halt and reverse the decline in nature and work to prevent the temperatures hitting unliveable excesses. Report after report keeps telling us we must do more to avoid climate and nature catastrophe. I therefore support the aims of the Climate and Nature Bill and pay tribute to Zero Hour and those who have campaigned for the Bill. It is important that we integrate climate and nature objectives. It is important to recognise the legally binding targets we already have in place under the Climate Change and Environment Acts and to focus on delivering these. I welcome that since coming to office, the current Government has already introduced a world-leading agenda on climate and nature action, making rapid progress and overturning the legacy of the previous Government, which left the country, as the Climate Change Committee confirmed last July, off track to meet our climate goals. I welcome, for example, the Government’s ambitious mission to make Britain a clean energy superpower – delivering clean power by 2030 and accelerating to net zero across the economy. I was proud to sit on the Energy Bill Committee which bought GB Energy into being. I also support the commitments it has made on our natural environment, including halting the decline of British species by 2030 and developing a new, statutory plan to protect and restore our natural environment with delivery to meet each of our Environment Act targets. Despite media headlines to the contrary, the Climate and Nature Bill was not pushed to a vote on 24th January due to the complexities of parliamentary procedure. Instead, a motion to adjourn the debate was made. This is a common procedure used when the Government and a Bill's sponsors agree to continue working together. In fact, the same procedure was used the previous week on another Private Members' Bill where the Government wanted to collaborate with the proposer. This means that the bill did not fall and is scheduled for discussion on 7th July. Had the motion to adjourn failed, there would not have been enough time for a closure motion, which would have resulted in the bill falling. Due to this, only one co-sponsor took part in the vote, while the proposer of the Bill abstained. I am pleased that the Government and the bill's sponsors reached an agreement to advance the spirit and substance of the bill. This includes strengthening action on nature, presenting an annual climate and nature statement to Parliament and the country, and increasing public

participation on these issues, particularly involving young people. As a co-sponsor I can very much confirm that we will continue to campaign and work with Government to bring about the ambitions of the bill. I welcome that government has agreed to engage with us, and the campaigners so we can make a real and meaningful difference to climate and nature in this country. Thank you once again for contacting me about this crucial issue.
Kind regards, Olivia Blake MP