Council backs call to enshrine nature recovery in law

The council is backing a Bill seeking to inscribe nature’s recovery in legislation that has its second reading in parliament on Friday.

Liberal Democrat Sarah Classick, councillor for Hengrove and Whitchurch Park, brought a Motion to support the Climate and Nature (CAN) Bill which was approved by Full Council in December 2024.

The CAN Bill is designed to reverse the damage to the natural world by 2030. It demands the government delivers a strategy for the UK to achieve climate and nature targets in line with the Paris Agreement – the legally binding international climate change treaty – and seeks to establish a climate and nature citizens assembly to advise the government on developing the strategy.

In supporting the bill, Bristol City Council joins 374 others across the UK that have already backed it. 191 MPs, including Carla Denyer, MP for Bristol Central, and Claire Young, MP for Thornbury and Yate, have publicly supported it but Bristol Labour MPs are not backing the bill.

 

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70 MPs gathered in parliament on January 7 in a show of solidarity for the bill organised by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Bristol climate campaigner Dominique Palmer.

“This can’t wait again for another election cycle, or for another year to pass by and for global temperatures to rise even higher. Now is the time,” said Palmer. “I love that this Bill also includes so many aspects of justice and community as well as people and nature-focused—we are nature defending itself.”

Endorsing the Motion, Bristol City Council environment and sustainability committee chair Martin Fodor commended then-Green MP Caroline Lucas for initiating a cross-party campaign in 2020 for the CAN Bill which “is designed to ensure more statutory protection for climate and the environment”.

The Bill gained cross-party support but failed at House of Commons stage. It was reintroduced to parliament by Liberal Democrat MP Dr Roz Savage in October 2024.

“Our city council Alder and local Green MP for Bristol Central, Carla Denyer, has co-proposed this,” said Fodor, of the call for Bristol City Council support. “As initiator of the influential, first Climate Emergency Motion in Europe, she knows that a council alone cannot tackle these global problems.”

Urging councillors to call for MP support of the Bill ahead of its second parliamentary reading on January 24, councillor Fodor flagged the “wide range of influential organisations and businesses” in support, including Friends of the Earth, the Wildlife Trusts, Ecotricity, the Co-operative Bank, the Women’s Institute, Thrive Renewables, Quakers and Watershed. The campaign has been coordinated by Zero Hour UK.

“We need this Bill to pass in order to achieve various climate and nature targets for the United Kingdom, in line with international obligations… I’d like to see the whole chamber support this in line with the support in parliament from representatives of all our parties,” he concluded.

In its official statement on passing the Bill, the council recognised the role of wider systemic change in mitigating the environmental crisis, saying:

“Full Council believes that whilst this council rightfully has a role to play in combatting the climate and ecological emergency, it is the responsibility of the government to establish more rigorous support and frameworks to help transition communities towards a zero-carbon future.”

It stated the CAN Bill is necessary because “the current framework to ensure the United Kingdom fulfils its obligations under the Paris Climate Accords is not robust enough and risks the UK failing to meet its objectives if it is not strengthened.”

Main image: Martin Booth

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