By Dave Penney, Pendle Climate Action Group
Can this report from the Zero Hour team, ‘Creating a Nature-Rich UK’, provide Nature-based solutions (NBS) to restore nature – and harnessing their full potential – to drive forward natural solutions to the climate and ecological emergency? Could some of its recommendations for action be incorporated into Pendle’s Climate Emergency Action Plan?
The report and its recommendations states that freeing up land and restoring habitats including woodlands, peatlands, wetlands and seas, to enable the implementation of nature-based solutions will:
- Remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere much more cheaply than the (unproven and eye-wateringly expensive) engineered options
- Help us better adapt to climate change
- Bring back wildlife, and all the free services (pollination, water and air purification, pest and disease control) that nature gifts us with
- Create an abundance of new, green jobs and skills
- Safeguard the UK’s food security; and in so doing
- Give a much-needed boost to local communities and the economy
It’s time for the UK Government and the devolved administrations to unleash the potential of nature-based solutions, now—for people, for climate, and for Nature.
This report demonstrates how:
1. A nature-rich UK will create a thriving and resilient economy, unlocking green prosperity for communities across the UK;
2. Nature-based solutions (NBS) remove carbon at a far lower cost than expensive, unproven and unworkable technologies, whilst protecting against climate impacts; and
3. Transforming the food system is essential in order to free up land for NBS, as well as safeguarding the UK’s food security, and creating green jobs.