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OEP warns several legally-binding nature restoration goals proposed by government 'lack sufficient urgency'
The UK's environmental watchdog has urged the government to set comprehensive and ambitious nature restoration targets, as it today warned that its current draft goals for species recovery, habitats, and air pollution are "unambitious or lack sufficient urgency to reflect the scale of change needed".
Setting out its assessment of the 13 legally-binding nature targets proposed by the government, the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) today commended the ambition of several of the government's goals, but also warned that a lack of clarity, urgency, and progress in many areas, particularly with regards to agriculture, was undermining efforts to reverse the decline of biodiversity and accelerate the net zero transition.
It also said immediate action was needed to ensure legally-binding targets were all set in stone by the government's October 2022 deadline in order to assemble the necessary resources and coordinate delivery against the goals, pointing out that many of the target dates have to be met during the current decade. The government's overarching target, which was praised by the OEP, requires a halt to the decline in species abundance by 2030.
"There is an urgent need to make significant progress over the next few years, in protecting, restoring and improving the environment," said the OEP's chair Dame Glenys Stacey. "The statutory targets finally agreed will be an important stimulus and should so far as possible promote immediate as well as sustained action."
The targets proposed by the government include increasing species abundance by at least 10 per cent between 2030 and 2042, and creating or restoring more than 500,000 hectares of a range of wildlife-rich habitat outside protected sites between 2022 and 2042. It has also proposed reducing exposure to fine particle air pollution - PM2.5 - by 35 per cent between 2018 and 2040.
However, the OEP singled out all three of these targets for lacking ambition and failing to reflect the scale and pace of improvement that is needed.
"We urge government to set statutory targets that are sufficiently comprehensive and that demonstrate the level of ambition needed to significantly improve the natural environment, as required under the Environment Act," said Stacey.
The OEP, which was legally established under last year's Environment Act in the wake of Britain's exit from the European Union (EU), is tasked with holding the government and other public authorities to account on environmental matters.
Among its most high-profile responsibilities is to scrutinise and make recommendations to the government over the 13 legally-binding targets it is obligated to establish and meet under the Environment Act.
Proposed by the government back in March, this suite of targets cover periods of 15 to 20 years and aim to halt and reverse nature's decline across water, land, sea, and air, with progress against the goals again overseen by the OEP.
Shorter-term, interim goals to support some of the targets are also expected to be confirmed later this year, although the government has not proposed interim goals for all 13 of its main targets.
As such, the OEP today urged the government to set interim 'apex' goals for all 13 of its proposed targets, and deliver clarity over whether it planned to set further goals to accompany the next iteration of its 25 Year Environment Plan.
The OEP also pointed to a lack of policy detail from the government across all goals, warning that "many targets to rely on significant policy instruments that are currently under development", highlighting in particular policy gaps relating to agriculture and land management.
The OEP said, for example, that it was "concerned at the slow progress" of the planned Environmental Land Management scheme, the government's flagship subsidy framework aimed at paying farmers to provide nature-restoration services.
The criticism echoes that of the Climate Change Committee (CCC), which last week reiterated its long-standing concerns at the lack of policy levers set out by the government to address the environmental and climate impacts of agriculture and land-use in the UK.
The government was considering a request for comment at the time of going to press.
Stacey congratulated the government "on progress so far", but said she hoped it would follow the OEP's advice in strengthening the proposed targets and quickly delivering policies that can ensure they are met.
"We will assess progress against the targets through our next monitoring report, and going forward we will also evaluate and report on whether the targets will significantly improve the natural environment in England," she said.
