Mary Creagh MP: Climate Timeline

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Mary Creagh's Climate-related Tweets, Speeches & Votes

We've found the following climate-related tweets, speeches & votes by Mary Creagh in the last 90 days

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• 3 Apr 2025: Parliamentary Speech

  The right hon. Member for Islington North asked why we cannot just landfill waste plastics, but there are wider environmental impacts from landfilling plastics than simply carbon emissions, including the issue of microplastics. We do not yet fully understand how plastics degrade in landfill in the long term. Emerging research is exploring the potential of plastic-degrading bacteria in landfills, which could break down plastics and in turn impact greenhouse gas emissions. However, I gently say that we cannot solve today’s problems by storing them up for future generations.

  We have also set up the circular economy taskforce, bringing together experts from the Government, industry, academia and civil society. It will work with businesses on what they want to see to create the best possible conditions for investment. We are developing a new circular economy strategy for England, which will mean an economy-wide transformation in our relationship with our precious materials. It will kick-start the Government’s missions to have economic growth, to make us a clean energy superpower and to accelerate the transition to net zero. Through our efforts to tackle waste crime, of which there is a great deal in the waste sector, we will take back our streets.

  On our capacity announcement, we know there is a need to minimise waste incineration, but it is still a better option than throwing rubbish into landfill. Energy-from-waste facilities provide around 3% of the UK’s total energy generation. They can support the decarbonisation of heating our homes and businesses, helping to cut customers’ bills. Energy from waste can both maximise the value of resources that have reached the true end of life and avoid the greater environmental impact of landfill, which creates its own problems.

  Full debate: Waste Incinerators

• 5 Mar 2025: Parliamentary Speech

  This Government are committed to ending poverty on a liveable planet. The climate and nature crises define our times and it is the most vulnerable who bear the brunt. Over half of global GDP is moderately or highly dependent on nature. Loss of biodiversity poses a serious risk to global food security by undermining the resilience of many agricultural systems to threats such as pests, pathogens and climate change.

  We are grateful to the Colombian presidency for its tireless efforts in reaching agreement in Rome. We are committed to working with international partners to continue building global nature ambition and delivering successful outcomes at both the UN framework convention on climate change COP30 in Brazil later this year and CBD COP17 in Armenia in 2026. We also look forward to hosting IPBES-12, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, in England early next year.

  Full debate: Outcomes from Resumed UN Biodiversity Summit COP16, Rome

• 24 Jan 2025: Parliamentary Speech

  For more than two decades, the hon. Lady has been a fearless environmental campaigner. Rowing the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans, she understands better than any of us our planet’s beauty, strength and vulnerability to climate change, ocean acidification and global warming—as Storm Éowyn rages across the country, with the island of Ireland under a red alert, it is certainly not a day for anybody to be out on the Irish sea.

  I am grateful for the opportunity to discuss the twin issues of climate and nature with the hon. Lady today. As a former Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, I share her passion for measurable, specific, time-bound targets with clear Government plans to underpin them in order to achieve progress. What we can say, and what the Climate Change Committee has said, is that the previous Government were strong on long-term targets but very short on interim targets to get us to those places. We cannot will the ends without willing the means.

  I also pay tribute to a late, great friend of mine, Lord John Prescott. We have heard talk about Kyoto; he showed that a seafarer from Hull could be the person who got climate agreement when the talks were gridlocked. He showed that the nature and climate emergencies are not elite preoccupations; it is the preoccupation not just of landowners or protestors, but of every working person in this country, and every citizen of this planet. I pay tribute to him and share my deepest condolences to his family and friends on their loss. Do go and see “Kyoto” at the Soho Place theatre, and get the extra-special climate lanyard on the way in.

  Does the Minister agree that it is vital that we embrace the Bill in order to protect those everyday constituents such as mine in Shrewsbury, for whom flooding has moved from a once-in-100-years event to a regular misery each year, as they pay the human cost of climate change?

  From the Valencia floods to the Florida hurricanes, from typhoons in the Philippines to droughts and wildfires in the Amazon, and of course the devastating wildfires that have left thousands under mandatory evacuation orders in Los Angeles, we saw extreme weather exacerbated by climate change last year. Dr Friederike Otto of Imperial College London called 2024 a “reality check” and said that it

  This is not somebody else’s problem; this is not our children’s problem—this is our problem. As our Prime Minister has said, climate change knows no borders. It threatens national security and economic stability. Our mission is to end poverty on a liveable planet, so the days of sticking our head in the sand and betraying future generations are over. We are changing course.

  Let me say what this mission-driven Government are all about. We know one of our missions is to make the UK a clean energy superpower, including accelerating to net zero emissions while seizing the economic opportunities that come with that. We are back in the business of climate leadership and will restore the UK’s position as a global leader on climate action, delivering at home and working abroad with our international partners.

  Let me talk about what we have done so far. In COP29 in Baku, our mission was clear. In just six months, we have lifted the de facto ban on onshore wind in England, consented 2 GW of solar power, delivered a record-breaking renewables auction after the previous auction under the last Government had no takers, established Great British Energy—If the shadow Minister wants to intervene, I would be happy to stand corrected.

  On flooding—the greatest risk our country faces from climate change—we have invested £2.5 billion over two years. It is not just about building the defences, because once built, they have to be looked after. Maintenance under the previous Government fell behind, leaving 80,000 properties at risk. In York, the Foss flood defence barrier gave way; it is just not acceptable to have flood defences that can be overtopped in a severe weather event. We have set up a flood resilience taskforce to deal with the increasing challenge of flood defence problems.

  Is this not about the future of our children and our grandchildren, and about the kind of world we grow up in? Let me take her back to her remarks about farming, as the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is present. We will not save our agriculture if we smother our fields in so-called solar farms and things such as the converter station that the National Grid wants to build on farmland in east Kent. We must strike a balance between the need to get to net zero and protecting our natural environment. It is quite clear that the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs are not talking to each other properly.

  Having had an outbreak of consensus, I am afraid I have to gently disagree with the right hon. Gentleman. Across Government we are in the process of putting together a land use framework—something long promised by his Government, but sadly not delivered. According to the most ambitious estimates of solar energy, less than 1% of current farmland would be used for electricity. Of course, for many farmers who are suffering the effects of climate change, solar farms are an important alternative income stream. The land use framework will set out our approach and be part of a national consultation on how we measure the competing pressures on our land and environment.

  I attended the COP16 conference on biodiversity in Colombia and the climate COP29 in Azerbaijan. There, we set out a range of new commitments, including £45 million for the global biodiversity framework fund. We set up the Cali fund, a new international fund for nature, which will give businesses using online genetic sequence data from plants and animals the opportunity to contribute to global nature recovery. I encourage people to work with businesses in their constituencies and to spread the word on that.

  We are looking at innovative funding mechanisms for nature, such as the independent advisory panel on biodiversity credits, co-sponsored by the UK and France, which wants to scale up high-integrity credit markets and generate more finance for nature. At COP29, the Prime Minister confirmed that our nationally determined contribution would be an 81% reduction on 1990 carbon emissions by 2035. That excludes international aviation and shipping, but, following the advice of the Climate Change Committee, I believe that those two areas will be introduced into our sixth carbon budget from 2033. We confirmed at the conference that at least £3 billion between 2020-21 and 2025-26 will be spent on nature.

  I am also pleased to inform the House that the UK has been selected to host the next meeting of IPBES, the intergovernmental science-policy platform on biodiversity and ecosystem services. This is the science panel for nature—the IPCC for nature. IPBES 12, in early 2026, will focus on the agreement and publication of a business and biodiversity assessment. We will maximise that moment in our calendar to have a national conversation about the UK’s leadership on the science in this area. It is a real joy for me and my hon. Friend the Climate Minister to work alongside our special international representatives for nature, Ruth Davis, and for climate, Rachel Kyte, who are driving leadership, ambition and delivery on nature and climate internationally as we move towards COP30 in Brazil this year.

  We are proud to have set legally binding targets through the Climate Change Act to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. We are committed to 13 legally binding environmental targets under the Environment Act, and halting the decline in species by 2030 is certainly very ambitious.

  We agree that engagement with bodies such as the Climate Change Committee, the Office for Environmental Protection and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee is key to our achievement of these targets. We also agree that non-governmental partners have a huge role to play in monitoring, advising, and scrutinising progress and plans. I look forward to meeting with the Minister for Climate, my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East, and the hon. Member for South Cotswolds next week to discuss further how to take this work forward.

  It is often said that this is the decade to clean up our planet. We have a Prime Minister who is determined to make the UK a clean energy superpower and reclaim our status as global climate leaders, a Foreign Secretary who knows that international climate and nature action is fundamental to global security and prosperity, an Energy Secretary who is working in overdrive to achieve clean power by 2030, and an Environment Secretary who has wasted no time in taking bold steps to restore our natural environment. We have a Government who recognise the need for collaboration across the House and wider society, and recognise the foundation that nature and climate provide for reaching our national clean growth mission.

  Full debate: Climate and Nature Bill

• 21 Jan 2025: Parliamentary Speech

  The Minister has been most generous in giving way to Members. She mentioned that the scheme will apply to plastic and metal drinks containers. What discussions has she had, or what information have her officials gathered, about the potential for manufacturers to switch their containers to glass and the impact that might have on use of resource and climate change?

  Full debate: Environmental Protection

  On local authorities, there will be new burdens funding for trading standards, and the DRS will collect at least 90% of containers by year 3. This will have a varying impact on local authorities: they will miss out on the sales of materials, but will make savings of around £30 million from having to collect less litter, so I think we will see a positive impact there. On incinerators, the residual waste capacity note that we published on 30 December shows that there are certain areas in England where significant volumes of household waste are still sent to landfill, and we landfill far too much non-household waste. Disposing of waste in landfill has a greater negative environmental impact than recovering energy through incineration, but this does not take away from our commitment to minimise residual waste. The new conditions we have set out will support economic growth and will drive our push to net zero and our plan for change.

  Full debate: Environmental Protection