John,
Back in May, in my last few months as MP, I secured a parliamentary debate on nature and biodiversity loss.
It was the dying days of Sunak’s government, and amidst the chaos and election fever, I wanted to focus attention on the upcoming nature summit in Colombia.
Because nature is in freefall. In the course of my lifetime, the abundance of species across the UK has fallen on average by almost one fifth, Without urgent action here and internationally, our land, skies and seas will be even emptier and even quieter.
We now have a new Labour Government which is better on nature and climate than the Tories, but that's a stunningly low bar to clear, and nowhere near good enough. While internationally, both the nature and climate summits have failed to deliver the change we need, and Trump has been elected to the White House.
So, what can we do to make progress when nature is in crisis and our political leaders aren’t even doing enough to deliver on pledges they have already signed up to, to protect and restore nature?