A record-breaking ocean rower has unveiled a draft law to combat species extinction, as she voiced fears over the “devastation” caused to the Great Barrier Reef.
Liberal Democrat MP Roz Savage will revive the Climate and Nature Bill, which she described as “visionary in its scope”, after securing guaranteed time in the Commons to debate her own legislative proposal.
If agreed by both Houses of Parliament, the Bill would compel the Government to help achieve climate and nature targets, including “limiting the global mean temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared with pre-industrial levels”.
Ministers would also need to draw up a strategy with yearly targets, in a bid to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, halt oil and gas exploration and imports, and reverse nature decline in a way which is “visibly and measurably on the path to recovery”.
Former Green Party leader Caroline Lucas and Labour MPs Olivia Blake (Sheffield Hallam) and Alex Sobel (Leeds Central and Headingley) had tabled near-identical bills before the general election, but none became law.
“I’m really, really feeling that groundswell,” Ms Savage (South Cotswolds) told the PA news agency, adding she had already spoken with Labour MPs who have indicated their support.
“Every day really does count and it feels like since this Bill was first tabled, there’s been such a growing awareness of these twin crises of climate and nature that … its time has come.
“There’s such public demand, if my mailbag is anything at all to go by, I have had so much correspondence from people urging me to pick up the Climate and Nature Bill.”
Ms Savage learned to dive in Australia in 1996.
She holds Guinness World Records as the first female to row two oceans solo – the Atlantic and Pacific – and the first female to row three different oceans – including the Indian – achieved between 2005 and 2011.
Ms Savage said: “I first learned to dive on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia back in the 1990s and I actually don’t think that I could bear to go back to the Barrier Reef now.
“I’ve read the reports that coral bleaching and the extinction events going on there, and I think it would just be too heartbreaking to witness that that devastation.
“We need to include the oceans in our vision of what the restoration of nature looks like going forwards because we have to remember they do cover 70% of the planet, and if we don’t have healthy oceans, then we don’t have a healthy planet.”
In 2024, 75% of reefs surveyed had experienced heat stress capable of causing coral bleaching, according to an Australian government report, while 29% of reefs were exposed to heat stress described as “intense”, enough to potentially kill the coral.
Ms Savage also said that in the UK, “you sometimes used to have to stop and clean all the dead insects off the windscreen”, which has now become a “really exceptional” event.
Asked if she expected a Labour challenge to the proposal, the Liberal Democrat MP replied: “I think it would be difficult for them not to take action on it.
“I think there is a moral imperative on them to take brave and bold action.”
Amy McDonnell, of the campaign group Zero Hour, said: “Passing a Climate and Nature Act is the best way for the Government to demonstrate true global leadership and ‘walk the walk’ as the UK heads to the UN climate and nature summits – Cop29 and Cop16 – this year.”
MPs will introduce their private members’ bills to the Commons for the current parliamentary session from October 16.
