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What does the election mean for the environment?

Posted on 19 June, 2017 by Shaun Spiers 2 comments

Following the election, Brexit, hard or soft, looks much more difficult. Among many other complications, the hung parliament will make it harder to agree the Great Repeal Bill. The purpose of the election (for the Daily Mail, at least) was to “crush the saboteurs”, ie anyone raising objections to the hardest of hard Brexits. Now the bill will be subject to intense scrutiny and possible amendment. Party political calculation and intra-party factionalism will have full rein. Read more

Political leadership

Agriculture at a crossroads… again

Posted on 21 February, 2017 by Green Alliance blog Leave a comment

This post is by Tom Lancaster, senior land use policy officer at RSPB.

If you do a Google search for ‘agriculture at a crossroads’ you’ll see that it’s a well used term. But when considering the implications of Brexit for farming and land use, it feels more relevant now than ever before.

Leaving the European Union will be one of the most defining events for farming and the environment in living memory. Whilst there are many potential pitfalls, the UK’s exit from the EU also presents an opportunity to rethink how the country can secure more sustainable farming and land use for people and the environment in the years and decades ahead.

As we leave the EU we must plan for nature’s recovery

Posted on 20 February, 2017 by Green Alliance blog Leave a comment

This post is by Ali Plummer, wildlife law campaigner at The Wildlife Trusts.

Over the coming months and years, as the UK government begins the task of negotiating exit from the European Union, we have a rare and historical moment to ask ourselves – what kind of country do we want to live in? As the negotiations continue, there is the risk that these questions become lost in the seemingly abstract and inaccessible language of trade and commerce, and the moment is lost. But there is a way to recapture the moment: through considering our natural environment, whose fate – and by extension ours – is very much entwined with the future of our relationship with the EU. Read more

We need to find common ground on sustainable fisheries

Posted on 15 February, 2017 by Green Alliance blog One comment

This post is by Lyndsey Dodds, head of UK and EU marine policy at WWF.

Since the EU referendum, there has been much talk of the ‘sea of opportunity’ for fisheries but little detail on what it will look like in practice and how we can go further than the status quo, to become world leaders on sustainable fisheries management.

How to keep up UK leadership on clean energy and climate after Brexit

Posted on 13 February, 2017 by Green Alliance blog 2 comments

This post is by Jonathan Gaventa, director of E3G.

The UK has made significant progress in clean energy and emissions reductions in recent years, with greenhouse gas emissions now 38 per cent below 1990 levels. But Brexit raises questions about how this progress will be continued.

In principle, it should be both possible and desirable for the UK to emerge from the Brexit process with just as strong a position on climate and clean energy as before.

Is the Supreme Court decision good for the environment?

Posted on 24 January, 2017 by Green Alliance blog Leave a comment

This post is by Viviane Gravey, lecturer in European Politics at Queen’s University Belfast. She recently co-led an expert review of the environmental implications of Brexit, funded by the UK in a Changing Europe Initiative.

The result is in: the Supreme Court has ruled that the government needs parliamentary approval, through legislation, to trigger Article 50 and start the Brexit negotiations. The Supreme Court’s judgement further found that the government need not consult the devolved administrations. The judgement is thus the least surprising of all options: in the end, the Supreme Court simply confirmed the two November rulings: the government’s loss regarding parliamentary approval in front of the High Court in London and its win regarding devolution in front of the High Court in Belfast.

Brexit

Why is the environment missing from the Brexit plan?

Posted on 19 January, 2017 by Amy Mount Leave a comment

The prime minister has laid out her “comprehensive and carefully considered” Brexit plan pledging to bring as much certainty and clarity to each stage of the Brexit process as possible. It was perplexing, then, that the environment was not mentioned once during her 45 minute speech. Significant questions remain about the future of the UK’s environmental protections and how we will work with allies abroad to build a healthier and safer world. Today, most of the UK’s environmental law and policy is based on EU law, so its absence from Theresa May’s speech leaves the Brexit plan falling short of its comprehensive objective.

Brexit

Prospects for a green Brexit, six months on from the referendum

Posted on 23 December, 2016 by Amy Mount 3 comments

Uncertainty filled the air like thick fog on 24 June, 2016 as the result of the EU referendum began to sink in. Green Alliance, along with other environmental organisations, had done its homework, scoping out the likely implications of different scenarios: an overwhelming vote to leave or remain, or a close call either way. That day, we found ourselves dealing with the scenario that would leave us with the greatest deal of work to do: the country had voted to leave, putting the estimated four-fifths of the UK’s environmental protections that stem from EU law into question. Read more

Brexit

In parliament, environmentalists still seem like a minority

Posted on 21 December, 2016 by Green Alliance blog 6 comments

This post is by Richard Benwell, head of government affairs at the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust.

In his blog for Green Alliance last week, Lord Deben argued that environmentalists must mature into the mainstream, set aside fringe tactics and speak with a constructive voice. He is surely right that we need to offer credible solutions to the threats of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. Read more

Political leadership

A new opportunity to protect our environment as we leave the EU

Posted on 14 December, 2016 by Green Alliance blog One comment

This post is by Kit Malthouse MP. It first appeared on Conservative Home.

“Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed; if we permit the last virgin forests to be turned into comic books and plastic cigarette cases; if we drive the few remaining members of the wild species into zoos or to extinction; if we pollute the last clear air and dirty the last clean streams and push our paved roads through the last of the silence…” Wallace Stegner Read more

Brexit

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