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Carbon Emissions: Public and Private Sector

Asked by Martin WrigleyLiberal DemocratDepartment for Environment, Food and Rural AffairsTabled Answered 4 June 2025UIN 54116

The question

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps he is taking to balance (a) public and (b) private sector responsibilities in achieving net-zero targets.

Answered by Emma Hardy

Both the public and private sector will play a key role in achieving net zero targets.

Private investment will be crucial to delivering net zero, building climate resilience and supporting nature’s recovery.This government is committed to building a robust and stable policy framework so that all parties – from farmers and land managers delivering improvements on the ground, to businesses and investors financing high quality projects – can do so with confidence.

We are working at pace with the private sector to help farmers transition to greener practices, establish a taskforce to plant millions of trees to help remove carbon from the air and move towards a circular economy to reduce our demand for raw materials that destroy the environment. To take this forward, a Taskforce has been established comprising members from industry, academia, and civil society, to lead the development of a Circular Economy Strategy

At the last budget in 2024, the Government secured the largest budget for sustainable food production in our country’s history, with £5 billion committed in the farming budget over a two-year period. The Environmental Land management schemes (ELM) are critical to supporting farming and landowners in their low-carbon practices. There is now a record 50,000 farm businesses in ELM schemes and more than half of all farmed land is now managed under schemes.

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