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
Greener UK’s aim has always been to get the best possible environmental outcome from Brexit. We have not taken sides on how the UK should leave the EU or whether it should do so, but have focused instead on the things we can clearly influence. Read more
This post is by Dr Ajay Gambhir, senior research fellow at Imperial College London’s Grantham Institute – Climate Change and the Environment.
This year marks the tenth anniversary of the UK Climate Change Act, the first of a kind legislation to hold a country to a long term greenhouse gas emissions reduction goal. One of its central components, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), is actually a year older than the act itself, having been established in a non-legislated ‘shadow’ form in 2007, to prepare advice on what the act’s long term emissions goal should be and how it could be achieved. Read more
The long awaited agriculture bill has had a pretty resounding thumbs up from environmentalists. Greener UK described it as “a huge step in the right direction”. Wildlife and Countryside Link called it “an important step forward for farming and wildlife”. WWF’s Tony Juniper tweeted: “For all of the 35 years I’ve been in conservation, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has been one of the biggest threats to our wildlife & environment. Today I hope that the tanker begins to turn.” Others heralded “a landmark day” or said that Michael Gove had “fired the starting pistol for change”, or viewed it as “a welcome statement of intent about this Government’s future policy ambitions”. Read more
This post is by Lord Howard, the former leader of the Conservative Party and former secretary of state for the environment.
The British people have voted to take back control of their money, their borders and their laws. This huge transfer of power back to the British people gives us the opportunity to fulfil the government’s ambition to be the first ever British government to leave our environment in a better state than we found it.
This post is by Tom West, ClientEarth’s law and policy advisor.
A major lesson from ClientEarth’s air quality challenges is that we cannot always rely on the government’s promises to meet its legal obligations.
It wasn’t that long ago that the UK was known as the ‘dirty man of Europe’ for causing acid rain across the continent, dumping sewage straight into the sea and failing to control pollution from large power stations, cars and industry.
This post is by Andrew Adonis and is based on his book Saving Britain: how we must change to prosper in Europe, co-authored with Will Hutton.
Brexit is the antithesis of the Conservative Party’s pro-European tradition, exemplified by Churchill’s post-war commitment to a united Europe, Heath’s passion for taking Britain into the Common Market and, indeed, Mrs Thatcher’s early enthusiasm for the single market. Brexiters pretend that once outside the EU, the world becomes an economic Eden raining down free fruit. There are no hard decisions or trade-offs. Britain, long thwarted by its dalliance with the EU, can freely gorge. This is cynical dishonesty based on willful ignorance. It is time to get real. Read more
This post is by Ciara Brennan, Mary Dobbs, Viviane Gravey and Attracta Uí Bhroin, authors of a recent report on what Brexit means for Northern Ireland environmental governance.
The influence of EU membership on environmental governance in Northern Ireland has been profound. Now Brexit raises the very real possibility of major environmental governance gaps right across the UK. A risk which is exacerbated in Northern Ireland where environmental decision making and the implementation of environmental law is notoriously problematic.
This post is by Lord Teverson, chair of the House of Lords EU Energy and Environment Sub-Committee
Virtually every product we use in our day-to-day lives is made from chemicals, so it’s vital that they’re made in a way that protects both environmental and human health. At the moment that process is managed by the EU chemical regulation, REACH, which combines legislation with an EU database, an EU regulator and the EU single market to create a system that keeps us all safe.
This post is by Andy Jordan and Brendan Moore, who are respectively the co-chair and manager of the Brexit&Environment academic network.
The EU Withdrawal Bill has finally received Royal Assent. Around 200 hours were spent debating it. These discussions clarified some aspects of governance post-Brexit, but left many others open, chiefly those around the enforcement powers of the proposed green watchdog.
