The European Court of Human Rights ‘ECHR’ delivered a landmark ruling on 9 April 2024 in a climate case brought by 2,000 Swiss women, mostly in their 70s
Three key components of a credible UK approach to chemicals regulation are, as at April 2024, currently missing.
On 6 February 2024, in the face of strong opposition from farmers in the EU and their trade bodies such as COPA COGECA, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the abandonment of the proposed Sustainable Use of Plant Protection Products Regulation, which contained the Commission’s aim to halve pesticide use. This had been an important part of the Commission’s ‘Farm to Fork’ strategy and its Green Deal.
On 30 January 2024 the Welsh Government issued a White Paper setting out its proposals for new legislation for the Senedd on Environmental Principles, Governance and Biodiversity Targets. The consultation will run until 30 April 2024.
The re-establishment of devolved government in Northern Ireland was the subject of intense negotiations for months before conclusions were announced by the UK government and the leadership of the Democratic Unionist Party ‘DUP’, and with the publication on 31 January 2024 of the Command Paper ‘Safeguarding the Union’ (CP 1021).
In December 2022, chaired by China and hosted by Canada, the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity reached agreement on the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework an ambitious set of commitments aimed at halting and reversing biodiversity loss and the accelerating rate of species extinctions now thought to threaten 1 million species.
I recently had the opportunity to join a guided walk across chalk grassland at the National Trust’s site at Devil’s Dyke and Saddlescombe Farm, near Brighton in Sussex, led by the Trust’s Lead Ranger Dan Fagan. It was a reminder of how much more you can see and learn about in the company of an expert guide. As well as enjoying spectacular countryside and views, we learned about the huge pressures on England’s chalk grassland, 80% of which has been lost since the 1940s, and the real value of this critical habitat.
Reading long government policy documents sometimes resembles the feeding patterns of the Whale Shark. You need to swallow oceans of print to find the fragments of policy plankton that suggest what is really going on. These are some initial reflections on the UK government’s Plan for Water announced on [ ] April 2023, and their implications in particular for England.
In June 2022 the European Commission proposed a major Nature Restoration Law for the European Union. It has still to be debated and agreed across the Member States and the European Parliament, but it represents a very important initiative. The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework in December 2022 concluded negotiations at COP15 of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Biodiversity internationally is in crisis, with a million species at risk of extinction.
On 25 October 2022, the same day that Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister, the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill was given its Second Reading in the House of Commons, and will now go for consideration in a Public Bill Committee. The Bill contains a sunset date of 31 December 2022 for 2,400 pieces of “retained EU law”, including 570 pieces of environmental law. By this date these laws will be revoked, unless they are re-enacted or replaced by whatever alternative Ministers or the Devolved Administrations consider appropriate.
On 29 October 2022 the new Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Therese Coffey, announced that the UK government was unable to meet its own statutory deadline of 31 October 2022, set in its own Environment Act 2021, for setting the minimum number of key environmental targets required by that legislation. It is apparently still working through the 180,000 responses from the public about its earlier consultation on environmental targets.
UK government proposals to dispense with all remaining EU “retained law” carried over from Brexit include plans to revoke 570 pieces of environmental legislation by the end of 2023. Every aspect of environmental legislation (water, air quality, waste, chemicals, pesticides), and laws on agriculture, fisheries and much else will be affected.
