The Climate Change Committee’s 7th Carbon Budget: A Positive Step, but More to Do for Nature’s Role in Climate Resilience
Sarah Brownlie Programme Director
The Climate Change Committee’s (CCC) 7th Carbon Budget marks a significant milestone in the UK’s journey to net zero. It provides a crucial roadmap for deep emissions cuts and highlights the increasing role that nature-based solutions must play in securing long-term climate stability. The inclusion of natural climate solutions such as afforestation, peatland restoration, and habitat creation is a welcome recognition of the critical role ecosystems play in carbon sequestration. However, while this budget demonstrates progress, it lacks the nuance needed to fully harness nature’s power by reinstating natural processes, re-animating carbon cycles, and making carbon storage more resilient in the face of inevitable climate change.
A central shortcoming of the budget is its focus on nature as a tool for carbon sequestration, rather than as a dynamic system that, when restored, can lock away carbon more durably. Simply planting trees or restoring peatlands without prioritising the full reinstatement of natural ecological processes risks missing out on the full potential of these landscapes.
For example, dynamic ecosystems where natural hydrology, grazing patterns, and soil microbiology are restored build resilience against climate extremes while enhancing carbon lock up. By failing to explicitly advocate for this more holistic approach, the budget risks implementing nature-based solutions in a way that is less adaptive and more vulnerable to future climate stressors.
One key area where this distinction matters is the re-animation of carbon cycles. Traditional land-use practices have disrupted natural carbon flows, weakening ecosystems' ability to regulate atmospheric carbon over the long term. A stronger focus on restoring ecosystem function such as by re-introducing lost species like beavers to manage water systems or allowing natural succession in woodlands using large mammals can create self-sustaining landscapes that continue to store carbon effectively with minimal human intervention. This approach doesn’t just lock up carbon but ensures it remains sequestered even in a changing climate.
The budget also overlooks the role of strategic landscape connectivity. Nature-based climate solutions will be most effective when they are embedded within a wider network that allows species to migrate, ecosystems to shift, and processes to adapt. This means investing in the defragmentation of the landscape linking up woodlands, wetlands, and grasslands to ensure that carbon is stored across a resilient, functioning mosaic rather than isolated patches vulnerable to climate shocks.
A more ambitious vision is needed, one that recognises nature not as a static tool for carbon offsetting but as a living, self-sustaining infrastructure that, when set up correctly, enhances both carbon sequestration and long-term climate resilience. The 7th Carbon Budget is a step in the right direction, but to maximise its impact, it must acknowledge the full potential of nature by prioritising natural process restoration. By doing so, the UK can create not just carbon sinks, but resilient landscapes capable of sustaining both people and wildlife in the face of a rapidly changing climate.
The opportunity is clear: if we allow nature to do what it does best, we don’t just store carbon we future-proof the planet.
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