Charities invite Government to make New Year's resolutions on the environment

It’s that time when we decide which New Year's resolutions we are going to make and probably break, with most destined to end up in the recycling bin, joining last year’s Christmas tree.

But this week some of the UK’s largest conservation charities have joined forces in taking the opportunity to highlight the 'huge gulf between rhetoric and reality' in the Government’s approach to tackling climate change, in an effort not to lose the momentum gained in November’s COP26 talks in Glasgow.

The leaders of the National Trust, the RSPB, the Woodland Trust and the Wildlife Trusts have written to the Prime Minister to ask the Government to make seven promises:

• Restore peatlands more quickly and ban burning of upland peat
• Urgently bring forward the long-promised ban on the use of peat for horticultural purposes
• Embed climate and nature objectives in agricultural support schemes
• Ensure that the UK’s protected sites network is big enough and managed so that it protects habitats, species, environments and the carbon stored in them
• Increase protection for the marine environment to harness its carbon-storing potential
• Raise targets for tree cover in line with the recommendations of the Climate Change Committee
• Make it obligatory for climate risks and hazards to be taken into account in all public decision-making.

If the Government will make these promises then surely they would need to be maintained, rather than buried under the torn tinsel

And while charities can seek to hold government to account with their campaigning work, all of us can play our part, no matter how small, in addressing the climate emergency: I look out at my colourless back yard, bereft of plants at this time of year, and make a mental note to pay a visit to the garden centre for compost. While under a current open consultation the Government plans to ban the sale of peat for gardens by 2024, I can make my own decision to buy peat-free compost now…