It was great to celebrate the birthday of the Climate Change Act last week, much admired and copied round the world since its inception ten years ago. The UK climate community deserves a moment of satisfaction that we brought about, and have sustained for a decade, a brilliant piece of legislation. Read more
This post is written by Gwen Buck, policy adviser at Green Alliance.
Ten years ago something happened in parliament that needs to be celebrated. Something that showed the UK as truly innovative and a global leader. Read more
This post is by Hywel Lloyd, Green Alliance associate and author of A framework for action: next steps for regulatory and policy powers over energy in Wales Read more
This post is by Stephen Hinchley, principal policy officer, external affairs, RSPB.
On Wednesday 14 November, after almost two years of negotiations and a marathon five hour cabinet meeting, the government published the much awaited draft Withdrawal Agreement. Today the accompanying Political Declaration on the UK’s future relationship with the EU was circulated. Read more
This blog was first published by Business Green.
On 6 November, the Environmental Audit Committee published the government’s response to its report into the 25 year environment plan and Defra’s consultation from earlier this year on environmental principles and governance. Read more
This post is by Mike Walker, Brexit advisor to the Irish Environmental Pillar and Donal McCarthy, senior policy officer at the RSPB and member of Greener UK’s ‘EU-UK negotiations group’.
The past few days have seen a frenzy of activity in Brussels as negotiators have burrowed deep in the ‘tunnel’ (the term used to describe intense negotiations without third party disclosure) to seek agreement on the controversial Ireland/Northern Ireland backstop, seen by the EU27 as essential to preventing the re-emergence of a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland post Brexit in the absence of other solutions. Read more
This post is by Michael Jacobs, director of the IPPR Commission on Economic Justice and former Downing St adviser (2007-10) on environment and climate change.
Crunch time is coming. Over the next few months the government is likely to publish a draft Environment Bill to replace the core principles and institutions of EU environmental policy making which will be lost after Brexit. Though such a bill is unlikely to be passed into law until 2020, most observers expect its core content to be agreed in draft form before next year’s 29 March departure day. Read more
This blog is by Nigel Haigh, founder member and former chair of Green Alliance, and honorary fellow at IEEP. It is taken from a speech he gave recently at the Environment Ireland 2018 Conference.
Before I look forward, I want to take stock of the EU’s environmental achievements in the past 40 years. Read more
This post is by Chaitanya Kumar and Chris Friedler of Green Alliance.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) long awaited report is another strong and, some say, final warning on the deep cuts in carbon emissions necessary to leave a habitable planet for the coming generations. While its messages are not all gloomy, it consistently emphasises the significantly higher negative impacts of a two degree rise in global temperature, urging policy makers to plan now for early action. Read more
What a difference two years makes. The Labour party conference in Liverpool in 2016 saw a party at war with itself: division between the majority of members and the majority of parliamentarians, and a front bench at odds with the mainstream media. Liverpool in 2018 still had these issues, but the party looked like it was doing a much better job of dealing with them. This year’s conference saw Jeremy Corbyn and, by association, the Labour Party, much more at ease. The leader’s speech on the final day was reported as “his best address to date”. Read more
