Nature-based solutions for climate change: land managers and public delivery bodies
The House of Lords Science and Technology Committee will hold its fourth evidence session for its inquiry into nature-based solutions for climate change. The Committee will aim to understand what factors influence landowners and land managers when it comes to engaging with nature-based solutions. The Committee will look at the public delivery bodies that encourage the uptake of nature-based solutions, and whether the mechanisms they use could improve.
On the first panel, the Committee will hear from organisations representing different types of landowners. The Committee will ask about their net zero ambitions and the role planned for nature-based solutions. The Committee will ask about the feasibility of Government targets for changing land use as part of the effort to achieve net-zero by 2050, and the trade-offs this may entail. The Committee will seek to understand the mechanisms that exist to support and encourage the adoption of nature-based solutions by landowners. The Committee will try to understand whether there is landholder resistance to the adoption of nature-based solutions and ask where this comes from.
On the second panel, the Committee will hear from the public bodies responsible for encouraging the uptake of nature-based solutions. The Committee will seek to understand how nature-based solutions are supported, and whether the schemes to support them need to be improved. The Committee will look at how policies to support nature-based solutions integrate with other objectives such as flood prevention and biodiversity restoration, and ask whether these co-benefits are sufficiently considered when assessing the merits of individual nature-based solution schemes. The Committee will ask what scientific uncertainties remain with regards to carbon sequestration, and how public bodies are trying to address these uncertainties.
Meeting details
Possible questions
- What role are nature-based solutions intended to play within the net zero plans of different landholding organisations, and how will they be implemented at the required scale?
- Are the ambitions in the Government’s net zero and nature recovery policies for land use change realistic?
- What are the major barriers or concerns that are preventing land managers and other stakeholders from deploying nature-based solutions, and how could these be addressed?
- Which government plans, policies and strategies are most relevant to supporting nature-based solution, and could they be better coordinated?
- What major uncertainties remain about carbon sequestration and storage by nature-based solutions in England, and what work is being done to address these uncertainties?
- Some nature-based solutions projects may not be viable unless co-benefits are suitably captured in their valuation. How should future projects and funding schemes take these co-benefits into account?