Climate change: Rural Climate Change Forum
The Rural Climate Change Forum brings together the key organisations with an interest in the rural sector. The Forum helps to raise awareness of climate change among farmers and land managers, acts as a catalyst and coordinator of work on climate change in the rural sector, advises Defra on rural climate change policies, helps ensure that policies are sufficiently ambitious and will lead to real results, and advises on research priorities to build a stronger evidence base on reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture and managing the impacts of a changing climate. The work of the Forum is central to Defra’s Agriculture and Climate Change Project, under the Farming for the Future Programme.
The Forum was formed in March 2005 and its current term ends in October 2008. The eight Members of the Forum are: the Country Land and Business Association (CLA), the Environment Agency, the Forestry Commission, the Carbon Trust, the National Farmers' Union, the National Trust, Natural England and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Climate change is a top priority for these organisations and the Forum provides a route for them to help shape policy and for us to seek their views and advice.
John Gilliland OBE, a farmer from Northern Ireland and vice-chair of the Sustainable Development Commission, is the Forum’s Chair; formerly it was co-chaired by the Minister of State for the Environment.
The work of the Forum
The Forum’s current activities include working on: reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, communications, emissions trading, anaerobic digestion and adaptation to climate change.
The Forum is the successor to the Rural Climate Change Panel and builds on the experiences of this panel.
Further information
Contact us
If you have any queries or require further information, please contact the Rural Climate Change Forum secretariat
Page last modified:
30 May 2008
Page published: 25 July 2005