Britain sets out new legally binding environmental targets

LONDON (Reuters) -The British government on Friday announced a set of new legally-binding environmental targets to protect air quality, green spaces and to clean up rivers.

"These targets are ambitious and will be challenging to achieve – but they will drive our efforts to restore our natural environment, protect our much-loved landscapes and green spaces and marine environment," environment minister Thérèse Coffey said in a statement first delivered at a U.N. biodiversity conference in Montreal.

The announcement said an Environmental Improvement Plan would be published in January setting out in detail how it would meet the new targets.

The targets set out by the government were to:

- Halt the decline in species populations by 2030, and then increase populations by at least 10% to exceed current levels by 2042

- Restore precious water bodies to their natural state by cracking down on harmful pollution from sewers and abandoned mines and improving water usage in households

- Deliver net zero ambitions and boost nature recovery by increasing tree and woodland cover to 16.5% of total land area in England by 2050

- Halve the waste per person that is sent to residual treatment by 2042

- Cut exposure to the most harmful air pollutant to human health - PM2.5

- Restore 70% of designated features in our Marine Protected Areas to a favourable condition by 2042, with the rest in a recovering condition.

(Reporting by William James and Farouq Suleiman, Editing by Angus MacSwan)