Brexit dividend could help fight climate change

Britain could use its Brexit dividend as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take major steps in the fight against climate change, a report published today by environmental group Rewilding Britain claims.

Reallocating £1.9 billion of the £3 billion that is currently spent on the Common Agricultural Policy to supporting the re-establishment of native woodland could take up to 47 million tonnes of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

This is equivalent to more than a tenth of the country’s current greenhouse gas emissions - and also almost exactly the amount of emissions created by the agricultural sector (46.5 million tonnes in 2016).

Rewilding is the restoration of a region’s original ecosystems and the reinstatement of natural processes, and is seen by many as a cost-effective reaction to climate change.

The report states that if Britain was to restore some of the 80% of peatlands that have disappeared in recent years it could see stop the release of 3.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide - equivalent to the emissions of 660,000 households.

Rewilding Britain proposes that farmers be paid through subsidies to return land to its previous ecosystem, before it was developed into agricultural land.

Different ecosystems would attract varying rates of subsidy: woodland and peatlands being the most valuable to restore, respectively at £512 and £300 per hectare.

Rebecca Wrigley, the chief executive of Rewilding Britain, said that “farmers will certainly not be worse off” under the proposals. “”t is about diversifying and providing alternatives. No one is going to be required to do anything on their land that they do not choose to do.”

She claimed the move would also bring back flora and fauna. “The beauty of rewilding is that it could also benefit biodiversity. People have forgotten what native habitats [such as forests] really look like, and how abundant they once were.”