Oxfordshire MPs, councillors and health experts are backing a private member’s bill on climate and nature.

It follows the editors of 200 health journals,worldwide, including the British Medical Journal and The Lancet publishing a collective call for emergency action to limit global temperature increase to 1.5C, restore biodiversity, and protect health.

The Bill – which the government is yet to back – provides a legislative framework for 'decarbonising' the UK economy, with linked measures for protecting nature and enhancing biodiversity.

It would make it a legal requirement for the UK Government to commit to policy and measures that limit temperature increase to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. Current pledges and commitments are consistent with three degrees warming.

Oxfordshire West and Abingdon MP Layla Moran said: “I and the Lib Dems are backing the CEE Bill because we need to be doing much more to tackle the climate emergency. The joint statement from more than 200 health journals across the globe shows us just how serious a threat climate change is to public health.

“The Government isn’t doing enough – we urgently need an action plan backed by a public investment programme. The Lib Dems back the CEE Bill because it would go a long way to fixing this and taking the emergency seriously.”

Dr Philip Unwin, Henley GP said: “The link between climate change and global health is apparent and has been so for some time. This ground-breaking health editorial highlights that heat-related mortality, destructive weather events, and widespread degradation of ecosystems essential to human health are a few of the impacts from climate change. Inevitably these events are linked to people’s health and well-being, very often affecting the health of the most vulnerable in our society.

"There is no doubt that if the current climate trend continues, we will see increasing disease patterns and health conditions directly linked to the climate and ecological emergency with resulting pressures to our health system here in Oxfordshire.”

The CEE Bill is a private members' bill that is yet to have its second hearing and that the Government is yet to back despite its growing support from MPs across all parties, businesses, organisations. The long-awaited second parliamentary reading of the bill on September 10 has been pushed back to October 29.

Zero Hour Oxfordshire, the campaign in support of the CEE Bill, is calling for Oxfordshire councils and MPs to back the bill to drum up public support and send a message to Parliament that the Bill needs to be heard.