Have you ever shattered your mobile phone screen? Or maybe your washing machine has packed up, and the repair costs so much you might as well buy a new one? Yesterday, national governments of the EU’s 28 member states, including the UK, have endorsed your right to repair these goods, by pledging to make manufacturers design more durable and repairable products. Read more
This post is by Bryn Kewley & Peter Clutton-Brock of E3G.
From an unassuming factory in Sunderland, the UK is leading the EU market in electric vehicles. It’s a market which is expected to grow quickly, with Norway already consulting on an outright ban on the sale of fossil fuel cars. Read more
Here in Brussels, the circular economy is dominating conversations in the EU district. To someone living in the UK, this may come as a surprise: industrial policy has fallen out of favour in Britain. But the Circular Economy Action Plan is the subject of two or three events every day here. Brussels is a city which loves to talk, but there is more to it than that. Replacing the linear make-use-dispose model with a new approach based on reuse, repair, remanufacture and recycling is being heralded as the new economic driver for Europe.
So here are five things you should know: Read more
The Prime Minister’s latest intervention in the EU referendum campaign illustrates how the environment is taking its place in the modern political canon. Speaking from the RSPB’s Rainham Marshes nature reserve, Cameron noted how our EU membership underpins crucial environmental protections, and talked about the importance of nurturing Britain’s countryside and wildlife. At the same time, his speech, if not his words, demonstrated that environmentalists are important too.
This post is by Viviane Gravey and Andy Jordan of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at UEA. They recently co-led an expert review of the environmental implications of Brexit funded by the UK in a Changing Europe Initiative.
Although the environment as has not yet become a central focus of debate between the two official campaigns, particular issues, like the state of the UK’s beaches and climate change, are getting an airing. Read more
This blog is by Micol Salmeri, policy assistant in the low carbon energy theme at Green Alliance.
France is tackling climate change at the local level by exploiting people’s natural competitiveness. For the past eight years, the French Environment and Energy Management Agency (ADEME), in collaboration with local energy agencies (such as Prioriterre), has been using energy saving competitions to encourage people to create ‘Positive Energy Families’. It has had a big impact, with nearly 30,000 families or teams, in 81 of the 101 French départements (counties), taking part since 2008, saving an average of £160 per household. Read more
This post is by Sir Crispin Tickell, former diplomat and UK Ambassador to the United Nations. It first appeared on Conservative Home.
With Barack Obama visiting Britain this week, there has been much speculation on what he will or will not say about many of the big issues facing us. Read more
This is an edited version of an article that features in the latest issue of Green Alliance’s journal Inside Track which focuses on the environmental case for staying in the EU.
Lord Deben is chair of the Committee on Climate Change. He was secretary of state for the environment, 1993-97, and minister for agriculture, fisheries and food, 1989-93.
This piece is taken from issue 36 of our journal, Inside Track.
It is summer, at some point around 1987. I and my mum and dad are on holiday in Skegness. We sit on the beach, my dad wheezing slightly from the effort of blowing up my new inflatable dinghy, a bargain purchase. We look nervously out to sea.
A little over five years ago, my daughter was born in central London, in an area where the nearest air quality monitoring station recorded particulates as having reached dangerous levels 55 times that year. When 35 bad days are exceeded, the UK falls foul of European air rules, which means it faces court cases and fines until the problem is rectified. Read more
