Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

moved Amendment No. 48:"Page 2, line 9, at end insert—" ““(   )   action in the countryside to assist the containment of global warming,”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Bill is clear that the purposes of Natural England are all to do with conservation, protection and preservation. That is absolutely fine, so far as it goes. It means that Natural England, with the Bill as presently drafted, is concerned with the past. My amendment seeks to make part of its functions"““to assist the containment of global warming””." Global warming is the present; its more pernicious effects are the future. So, in a sense this little amendment—so simple and plain—brings the past and future together for once. It is here and now that they meet. If we consider global warming, the news is consistently bad. We have just heard that global atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased to its highest level ever. Well, we knew that it was going up, so every year will be the highest; more disconcerting is that it is now also rising at its most rapid annual rate ever. The polar ice-caps are breaking up and melting; they are not reforming in winter as they used to. In countries like Switzerland, the glaciers are retreating. At the weekend, I spoke to someone who lives in Switzerland, I asked how the glaciers were being affected. He said that a track that he used to go up 25 years ago to visit a bar that used to be on the edge of the ice is now 40 feet above it. The track itself is dangerous as a result. If you miss your footing there is a 40-foot fall. We have recently had reports of increasing acidification in the oceans due to carbon dioxide absorption. That will damage the reproduction of shellfish, plankton and corals; more importantly, if they are unable to make their shells—which lock up carbon in the form of calcium carbonate—then we restrict the sea’s capacity to absorb carbon dioxide. As I have said, the problem of global warming is consistently worsening. Many things can be done. When I last introduced this amendment, I suggested the word ““development”” to assist the containment of global warming in the countryside. That did not find favour, so this time I have used the word ““action””, which describes nothing in particular yet could be vital in one particular respect. An interesting research paper was published in Science in 2004, entitled Stabilization Wedges: Solving the Climate Problem for the Next 50 Years with Current Technologies. One of the writers’ options was forest management; they suggested the planting of large areas of forests in temperate areas. Another was agricultural soils management. Those are both existing technologies; as things which occur in the countryside, they are actions which Natural England could perfectly well participate in and promote. I make no apology for bringing forward this amendment. It is important that we get global warming under control for, if we do not, we have no certainty of being able to preserve anything in our present countryside. Two possibilities are being talked about. One is that the Gulf Stream—which produces the equivalent energy around our islands of 30,000 power stations providing heat for us—will cease to flow. If it does, ours becomes more akin to a Nordic climate. The alternative is that warming continues without that effect; if that happens, then we go to a more Mediterranean kind of climate. In both eventualities the continuation of the countryside, as we know it, will not be happening. Natural England will then have an impossible task. So, I make no apology for bringing back the amendment. As I said initially, the past and future have to meet somewhere. They are meeting here and now. I beg to move.