Special Envoy on Climate Change and the Environment
In April 2011 Mr. Gardiner was appointed as the Special Envoy on Climate Change and the Environment to the Leader of the Opposition, the Rt. Hon. Ed Miliband MP.
In this capacity he works with other senior legislators around the world to provide innovative thinking on the current debates within the UNFCCC, UNCBD, UNEP, GEF and other environmental bodies.
Reporting directly to Ed Miliband, Mr. Gardiner provides regular assessments of the national priorities and positions of other countries on environmental issues. He suggests areas for further development and policy cooperation in order to achieve international consensus around issues of climate change, natural wealth accounting, desertification, biodiversity and sustainable development.
Read the Press release from the Leader of the Opposition, Ed Miliband.
Member of the ECC and EFRA Select Committees
In November 2010 Mr Gardiner was appointed to the House of Commons' Energy and Climate Change Select Committee where he has played a leading role scrutinising government energy and climate change policy.
Mr Gardiner has made a vital contribution to the Committee's work in a wide range of areas, including: the government's proposals to reform the electricity market; energy security; marine renewable energy; and the future of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme.
Mr Gardiner has quickly established a reputation as a highly influential member of the Committee. Recently, as part of an inquiry into Ofgem's Retail Market Review, Mr Gardiner challenged the Big Six energy companies to end the practice of doorstop selling. This was shortly followed by an announcement that Scottish and Southern Energy, British Gas/Centrica and EDF Energy would end the discredited practice of doorstep selling.
In addition to his role on the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee, Mr Gardiner is also a member of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee. Mr Gardiner was appointed to the Committee in December 2010.
As a former Minister at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Mr Gardiner brings to the Committee extensive experience and expertise in environmental policy. He has played a leading role in the work of the Committee, including its recent inquiries into reform of the Common Fisheries Policy; the future of the EU dairy industry and Farming Regulation.
The Chair of Committee, Anne McIntosh MP, recently acknowledged Mr Gardiner's experience and the valuable contribution he makes to the Committee when she said that he would be able to "guide [Members] through the inquiry" into the Natural Environment White Paper.
A 'Green' Ministerial Career
In 2004, PM Tony Blair appointed Barry Gardiner as a Direct Rule Minister in the Northern Ireland Office. Trusted on both sides of the political divide, Mr. Gardiner pushed through the unification of the All Ireland Energy Market to achieve major efficiencies and savings to business, whose energy costs were substantially higher than in the rest of the UK. Under his guidance Northern Ireland also put in place a Broadband infrastructure that was the first of its kind in the UK.
He led trade missions to the United States and also to India and oversaw the inward investment by one Indian Company to establish the first call centre to locate into the UK from India, reversing the prevailing trend.
In 2005, Mr. Gardiner became the Minister for Competitiveness in the Department of Trade and Industry. Here he was in charge of the Government's Share Portfolio which included companies such as Royal Mail, British Waterways, British Energy and the Nuclear Decommissioning Agency. He pushed through the sale of Westinghouse to Toshiba for an eventual sale price of US$ 5.4billion against the advice of British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. who had advised Treasury that it would achieve no more than US$ 1billion.
In 2006, Mr. Gardiner was appointed to the Deptment of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to work alongside David Miliband as the country's first Minister for Biodiversity. He developed a strong international profile working with his counterparts in China, India, Brazil, Japan, Malaysia, South Africa, Mexico, Canada, DRC, Republic of Congo, Ghana, Cameroon, the USA and the EU on issues of Climate Change, Sustainable Forest Management and Wildlife Trafficking.
Barry represented the UK at the Ministerial Indaba on Climate Change in South Africa in 2006 and was the UK's head of delegation for the politically sensitive negotiations at the International Whaling Conference in Anchorage in 2007.
Vice President of Globe International
In 2011 Mr. Gardiner was elected as the Vice President of GLOBE, the international Legislators' Organisation. Mr. Gardiner started to work with GLOBE in 2007 when he chaired the GLOBE International Commission on Land Use Change and Ecosystems. He has established commissions to create a Global Oceans Recovery Strategy, to Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and to establish the principle of Natural Capital in government accounting frameworks. As a result of his work, he was asked to chair the 2-day session of world parliamentarians at the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity Conference of the Parties at Nagoya, Japan in 2010 and in this capacity he produced a consensus set of recommendations to heads of government on Natural Capital that was accepted as part of the Nagoya Declaration.
The APPG on Biodiversity
In July 2011, Barry Gardiner MP launched the new All Party Parliamentary Group on Biodiversity to help promote the protection of biodiversity to Parliament, in business and across the wider community.
The purpose of the All Party Group is to provide a forum for cross party Parliamentarians, senior policy makers, academics, leading industry figures, and other interested parties to have an informed discussion on all aspects of protecting biodiversity in the UK and abroad.
Over the next 12 months the Group has a busy work programme planned including a research report into biodiversity and planning, which will look at the contribution the planning system can make to protecting and conserving biodiversity in the UK. It is also planning to make recommendations to Parliament in the run to the UN Conference on Sustainable Development and the 11th meeting of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, both of which take place next year.
The Group also has a busy schedule of meetings planned with high level speakers including Ministers and international experts such as Sir Bob Watson and Pavan Sukhdev, author of the influential report ‘The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity.’
Chaired by Mr Gardiner the Group has over 120 members, including 60 individual experts and leading organisations from outside Parliament and over 60 MPs.
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