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UK risks ‘major embarrassment on global stage’ at UN biodiversity summit over Brexit law fiasco

Campaigners warn government plans to scrap environmental protections are ‘setting a dismal example to the rest of the world’ ahead of Cop15

Harry Cockburn
Environment Correspondent
Wednesday 30 November 2022 17:01 GMT
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<p>Farmland in Wales – agricultural sprawl has robbed the UK of its natural habitats, leaving the country one of the world’s most nature depleted places</p>

Farmland in Wales – agricultural sprawl has robbed the UK of its natural habitats, leaving the country one of the world’s most nature depleted places

The government is risking “major embarrassment on the world stage” at the UN’s forthcoming biodiversity summit when it kicks off in Montreal, Canada, next week, campaigners have warned.

The summit, the fifteenth Conference of the Parties (Cop15) of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, comes as the world grapples with a “biological annihilation” of species around the world, amounting to a sixth mass extinction event, scientists have warned.

Despite being one of the world’s most ecologically bereft countries, the UK government is risking scrapping “over a thousand” laws that protect the environment, including those which protect wild places and wildlife, and ensure minimum standards for water quality and pollution.

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