NCI’s Daija Angeli summarises Dieter Helm’s progress report today to the Environmental Audit Committee on the work of the Natural Capital Committee.
Advising the Government on climate change proves to be much more straightforward than making recommendations on maintaining our natural capital, said Professor Dieter Helm today to the Environmental Audit Committee.
The Chair of the Natural Capital Committee (NCC) shared progress made to date, as well as his perspective on the future of the advisory body. So far, the NCC has summarised the state of knowledge on natural capital (1st report) and suggested an accounting framework and risk register (2nd report). The third and final report will summarise all findings and provide Government with a 25 year plan and is expected to be published in early 2015. Despite the difficulties in measuring biodiversity and the complexity of ecosystems supporting it, the NCC has developed concrete suggestions for green infrastructure projects to protect our natural capital. The upcoming report will provide the government with priorities for action but Helm emphasised it will then be up to Government to take these suggestions forward and enable a delivery body to do the “on the ground” work in order to achieve the ambitions objectives of the Natural Environment White Paper.
Update 2.12.2014: The transcript of the session is now available on the Parliament’s website.
In case you missed it you can view the debate here
Read more about the evidence session on the Parliament’s website here
Visit the NCC website