Climate

EU member states are to take legal action against the European Commission after it decided to count natural gas and nuclear power as green energy.The European Union’s executive controversially included the two fuels in its “taxonomy” this week – opening the door to more investment in them.The rules spell out what can be classed as “environmentally friendly” for the purposes of investing, an increasingly valuable category when it comes to attracting capital. Critics accused the Commission of “greenwashing” the fuels, which emit carbon and produce long-life radioactive waste respectively.But Commission officials say the two fuels are only included in the plans subject strict conditions: a CO2 emissions limit for gas and for nuclear, a requirement to have a plan and funding for dealing with waste. Now two member states, Austria and Luxembourg, have said they will challenge the policy proposal in the courts.Austrian minister for climate protection Leonore Gewessler, a Green, said the Commission was satisfying the “wishes of the nuclear power lobby” and said his government “will bring a lawsuit to the European Court of Justice”.Meanwhile Luxembourg’s minister for energy Claude Turmes said: “Luxembourg strongly reaffirms its opposition to the inclusion of nuclear and fossil gas in the decision on EU Taxonomy for ‘sustainable’ finance of the EU Commission. We will consider further legal steps together with Austria.”The European Council and Parliament could yet object to the Commission’s move, but blocking it would require the agreement of 20 of the 27 national leaders or a majority in the parliament.The decision highlights the different approaches to green energy in different member states. Germany, which has significant political heft at EU level, relies heavily on gas, while France produces most of it electricity from nuclear energy.Some of the bloc’s eastern states including Poland still rely heavily on coal power. Other countries, like Spain – which is also against the decision – have invested heavily in renewable energy.Energy commissioner Mairead McGuinness said the inclusion of gas and nuclear was important because “we need to use all the tools at our disposal” to reach the climate-neutral target. She said private investment was “key”. More

The government has given the green light for an expansion of Bristol Airport to the dismay of the council which originally rejected the plans.The decision comes just weeks after the UK – which has committed to reaching net zero emissions by 2050 – hosted the global Cop26 climate summit.Bristol Airport’s application to expand was originally rejected by North Somerset Council. But this was overturned by a government agency on Wednesday following an appeal.This means the airport will be able to go ahead with plans that will see capacity increase from 10 million passengers a year to 12 million.The Planning Inspectorate, who made thedecision, looked at how the proposal could impact air quality, the climate crisis and noise.It concluded: “The balance falls in favor of the grant of planning permission.”Local politicians have fiercely criticised the decision.Carla Denyer, a Bristol City councilor and co-leader of the Green Party, said: “Allowing Bristol Airport to expand – more than doubling its capacity – is an outrageous decision that is totally incompatible with the climate emergency.“The government’s intervention on the side of the airport goes against the wishes of local people, councils and elected representatives.”North Somerset Council, which rejected the original application, said it was considering whether there are grounds for appeal.“This simply flies in the face of local democracy and disregards the views of the local communities who fought equally hard to resist the expansion,” council leader Don Davies said.“It completely undermines our vision for a greener North Somerset, our determination to tackle the climate emergency, and the target we have set for the area to be carbon-neutral by 2030.”The Planning Inspectorate said there was no doubt the proposal “would increase CO2 emissions from aircraft”.But considering factors such as national policy and measures already in place, it said: “The conclusion must be that the aviation emissions are not so significant that they would have a material impact on the government’s ability to meet its climate change target and budgets.”Dan Norris, West of England metro mayor, criticised the government’s lack of policy on the expansion of UK airports.“I am dismayed but not at all surprised by this decision. The government is in chaos on UK airport expansion as on pretty much everything else,” he said.North Somerset Conservative MP Liam Fox said he was “hugely disappointed” at the appeal being allowed, and environmental campaigners also criticized the decision.“The local transport infrastructure around Bristol Airport cannot sustain this amount of traffic without substantially impacting the quality of life in many of our towns and villages,” Mr Fox added.Dave Lees, chief executive of Bristol Airport, said: “The decision is excellent news for our region’s economy, allowing us to create thousands of new jobs in the years ahead.“We will now push ahead with our multi million-pound plans for net-zero operations by 2030 and look forward to working with stakeholders and the community to deliver sustainable growth.”The airport said the expansion would add 800 jobs at the site itself and up to 5,000 more across the region.It sai in a statement: “Bristol Airport put sustainability at the heart of their expansion proposals and will now push ahead with its multi-million pound plans for net zero operations by 2030.”The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, to which the Planning Inspectorate for England belongs, has been approached for comment More

Ministers are looking into the environmental impact of all new post-Brexit trade deals, the government has confirmed.They will also explore the possibility of applying a policy of net gain – which aims to leave the natural environment in a better state than before – to trade, according to a response to recommendations from MPs. The Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) made a host of suggestions last year in a report which said there were concerns over the potential impact of UK trade agreements on international levels of biodiversity.The MPs called on ministers to use “sustainability impact assessments” for future deals, after a minister told the committee last January he was in favour of the idea but could not make committments on behalf of the government. The government response – published on Monday – said it carried out impact assessments for post-Brexit trade deals that look at “several aspects of the environment” – including greenhouse gas emissions, air and water quality and biodiversity. “The Secretary of State for International Trade will work closely with other government departments to assess the environmental impacts of new FTAs, and to improve their coverage and approach,” it added. While the government agreed to look into the possibility of embedding environmental net gain into trade decisions, it rejected another EAC suggestion to evaluate all tax changes against environmental goals. The government said it would not be “practical, cost effective or beneficial” to look into the “detailed environmental impacts for every tax change” – such as to personal allowances for income tax.Philip Dunne, the Tory chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, said he was “very pleased” to see the government accepting some of the suggestions made in the report on the UK’s footprint on global biodiversity.“Embedding nature protection in trade agreements not only safeguards biodiversity, but it sends a striking message to trading partners that this must be prioritised,” he said.Katie White from the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) welcomed confirmation the government was “giving greater consideration to the impact of trade on the environment”.But she added: “Vague commitments about environmental assessments won’t be enough – ministers need to go further to use trade to drive the transition to greener farming. “That means establishing core standards, including environmental standards, for all foods sold in the UK, and a new legally-binding target to slash the UK’s global environmental footprint by 2030.” More

Ministers are being slow to act on potentially deadly air pollution because they are “cowards”, an MP has said Geraint Davis, the Labour chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Air Pollution, told The Independent the government had a “duty” to clean up its air for its citizens — and that this was not happening fast enough. He urged ministers to implement a stricter threshold on what constitutes dangerous levels of air pollution. This was also recommended by a coroner last year, who found excessive pollution contributed to the death of nine-year-old Ella Kissi-Debrah in 2013.MPs voted down a proposal to bring the UK’s legal limits in line with the World Health Organisation’s last October. Mr Davis told The Independent more needed to be done to tackle air pollution in the UK. “The UK governments are being so slow to act on such a critical issue because they are fundamentally cowards waiting for the public to catch up on the fact this is so damaging for the families,” he said. The chair of the APPG on air pollution added: “Parents have a duty to protect their children’s right to life. And the government has got a duty to ensure they can by cleaning up all of air.”He suggested there was a reluctance to toughen up legal pollution limits because it would mean “suddenly” having to take significant action, such as by banning wood-burning stoves and restricting the number of cars. “But the truth is, we should ban wood-burning stoves and we should limit the number of diesel-belching cars,” the Labour MP for Swansea West said. “So they should impose the guidelines for the very reasons they haven’t.”Public Health England has previously called air pollution the UK’s “biggest environmental threat to health”, estimating long-term exposure contributes to up to 36,000 deaths a year. Poor air quality has been linked to a host of health problems, including heart and lung disease, lung cancer and making asthma worse. A Department for Food, Environment and Rural Affairs spokesperson said: “Air pollution has reduced significantly since 2010 – at a national level emissions of fine particulate matter have fallen by 11 per cent, while emissions of nitrogen oxides are at their lowest level since records began.!They added: “To continue to drive forward tangible and long-lasting improvements to air quality we are committed to setting stretching and ambitious targets on air quality through our Environment Act.”After rejecing bringing UK air pollution limits in line with the WHO’s last year, the government said it would run a public consultation in 2022 and aim to bring in new legislation by autumn. More

The UK government must go “further and faster” to prepare for the impacts of warmer temperatures caused by the climate crisis, according to its own analysis. The new report said “stronger or different” government action was needed to tackle more than 30 climate-related risks in the next few years, including over coastal flooding, public water supplies and health. The government’s UK Climate Change Risk Assessment also said it would cost billions every year to deal with the impacts of the climate emergency by the mid-century.“We have clear evidence demonstrating the pace of warming in recent decades and the impacts we will face should this continue,” the report – published on Monday – said. “As we redouble our efforts to achieve net zero, we must also continue to raise ambitions on adaptation to ensure the UK is resilient to the challenges of a warming world.”The report laid out how even a small shift in the average climate can lead to “major changes in extreme events”, including increasing the frequency of severe flooding event, and said preparations needed to be made for the possibility of a 4C rise in temperatures. The Climate Change Committee (CCC), which advises the government, identified eight priority areas which require the most urgent action over the next two years.These included the health risk of warmer temperatures in buildings, the impact on people and the economy of a power system failure linked to the climate, and the threat of a supply chain collapse linked to the crisis. More action was needed over the next five years to protect the UK from 34 potential impacts of the climate emergency, such as damage from flooding, threats to wildlife and people taking ill from rising temperatures.The risk assessment was published on the same day Office for National Statistics analysis found the climate crisis was already having a negative impact on health in the UK – and this was expected to get worse over time. The new government report said it recognised the scale of the challenge posed by the climate crisis, but added: “We must go much further and faster to truly prepare for the impacts of a warmer world.”Baroness Brown of Cambridge from the CCC’s adaptation committee said: “Building resilience to a cocktail of climate impacts facing our country, including flooding, drought, heat exposure and extreme weather events, is a mammoth task and we’re falling well behind.”She added: “We look forward to seeing the government’s action plan to shift the dial and deliver a well-adapted UK.”Last year, England’s Environment Agency warned the climate crisis – which leads to heavier rainfall and rising sea levels – was worsening the risk of floods across the UK.Earlier this month, the climate emergency was named as the biggest global risk by the World Economic Forum (WEF). More

The government has been warned it may be acting too slowly to meet its promise to restore nature by 2030 as it unveils a plan to protect national parks, which has been more than two years in the drafting.The environment secretary, George Eustice, has set out proposals to boost nature recovery and safeguard England’s national parks, with a public consultation to seek people’s views.The scheme involves “ambitious changes to increase access to nature and ensure protected landscapes can deliver more for climate, nature, people and places for the next 70 years and beyond”.A new “national landscapes partnership” will enable people in charge of England’s national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty (AONBs) to work together on nature recovery and better public access.The idea is they will carry out campaigns, organise events and offer volunteering opportunities that bring people closer to nature.The 12-week consultation will ask for views on proposals to drive nature recovery within landscapes and support communities that live and work within them.In 2018, Julian Glover, a former government adviser and speechwriter to David Cameron, was asked to review the protection for national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty, and drew up a report the following year. These plans have now been drawn up in response.Ministers said protected landscapes play an essential role in tackling the climate crisis, protecting biodiversity and supporting health and wellbeing.A Natural England survey found that almost half the population say they are spending more time outside since the pandemic started, and most adults surveyed by Forest Research agreed their level of happiness when in nature had increased.However, the RSPB criticised the time taken to devise a response to the review, and urged ministers to do more, and more quickly.The charity director of England, Emma Marsh, said: “Today’s announcement is a step forward. It’s good to see a headline commitment to give England’s protected landscapes a stronger focus on recovering nature and to make other changes so they can deliver this.“But the government will need to go further and faster, and bring forward legislation to achieve these changes.“It must also give these landscapes the resources they need, including doubling AONBs’ woefully inadequate funding.“We’ve waited more than two years for a response that still does not have a clear timetable with commitments to bold action. At this rate, hopes of meeting the government’s promises to restore nature by 2030 will soon evaporate.“These are landscapes for everyone, and we all need to make our voice heard during the consultation to make sure the government backs its rhetoric with action.”Want us to report on an issue that matters to you? Contact us by clicking here. More

Ministers have given the go-ahead for farmers to use a banned bee-harming pesticide in England for the second year running.The government went against the advice of its own scientific advisers, who said they did not see the justification for applying the neonicotinoid to sugar beet this year.A single teaspoon of thiamethoxam is toxic enough to kill 1.25 billion bees, according to biology professor and insect expert Dave Goulson, and wildlife chiefs warned the decision could devastate already-struggling bee populations.Environment officials announced they would permit the use of the pesticide to try to combat a virus transmitted by aphids.They say the UK’s sugar harvest could otherwise be at risk this year and that “its exceptional temporary use will be tightly controlled and only permitted in very specific circumstances when strict requirements are met”.Neonicotinoids are considered so harmful that they were banned by the UK and the EU in 2018, but since then 12 countries, including France, Denmark and Spain, have also granted emergency permits for neonicotinoid treatments to go ahead.This time last year there was an outcry when ministers first gave beet farmers the green light to apply the pesticide, although eventually it was not used because a cold winter killed off the aphids.Wildlife experts warned the decision “sounds a death knell for millions of bees and other insects” and flies in the face of government pledges to halt biodiversity loss.The Pesticide Collaboration, which encompasses environmental organisations the RSPB, Friends of the Earth, Buglife and the Wildlife Trusts, said the would harm of wildlife and that the government should increase protection for bees and other wildlife from the harm caused by pesticides.Minutes from a meeting of the Expert Committee on Pesticides say members agreed that the requirements for emergency authorisation had not been met and that pesticide water pollution caused by the decision would harm river life.Even minute traces of neonicotinoid chemicals in crop pollen or wild flowers “play havoc with bees’ ability to forage and navigate, with catastrophic consequences for the survival of their colony”, according to the RSPB.A recent study showed that even one instance of exposure of a “neonic” insecticide significantly harmed bees’ ability to produce offspring.A third of the UK bee population is thought to have vanished in a decade, yet up to three-quarters of crop species are pollinated by bees, studies show. Thiamethoxam is a seed treatment, taken up by the whole plant, including the flower, pollen and juices from the plant insects forage on, wildlife experts say.Sandra Bell, of Friends of the Earth, said: “Allowing a bee-harming pesticide back into our fields is totally at odds with ministers’ so-called green ambitions.”Joan Edwards, of The Wildlife Trusts, said the decision was “a clear betrayal of promises made to protect the natural world and comes at a time when nature declines are worse than ever”, adding: “Less than two months ago the government adopted a legally binding commitment to halt the decline of wildlife by 2030 within its flagship Environment Act – the authorisation of this neonicotinoid flies in the face of this commitment and sounds a death knell for millions of bees and other insects.”A Defra spokesperson said: “This decision has not been taken lightly and is based on robust scientific assessment. We evaluate the risks very carefully and only grant temporary emergency authorisations for restricted pesticides in special circumstances when strict requirements are met.“Strict criteria remain in place meaning this authorisation will only be used if necessary.”The government also says work on gene editing will help develop crops that are more resistant to aphids.The Independent has asked British Sugar, which made the emergency application, to comment.Have you got a story you would like us to report on? Contact us by clicking here. More

Many rivers in England contain a “chemical cocktail” of pollution which poses a risk to public health, according to a new parliamentary committee report.The Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) raised concerns over sewage, agricultural waste and single-use plastic in the country’s waterways, saying this could harm swimmers and wildlife. It said England’s rivers were “in a mess” – and none had received a clean bill of health for chemical contamination. “Disturbing evidence suggests they are becoming breeding grounds for antimicrobial resistance,” the report said.Experts said it provided a “scathing snapshot” of the water quality of England’s rivers and the risks were being exacerbated by the climate crisis.Agricultural waste was the most common form of pollution stopping rivers from achieving good ecological status, while sewage was having the same effect on over a third of water bodies, the EAC report said.It also found a major source of plastic pollution in rivers were tiny particulates worn away from brakes and tyres that get wased into watercourses from busy roads.Single-use plastics were “clogging up” drains and sewage works, while water companies appeared to be dumping untreated or partially treated sewage in rivers “on a regular basis”, the report – published on Thursday – said.Bacteria found in sewage and animal slurry – that can end up in rivers – can make people ill, the EAC said. “Poor monitoring arrangements mean that river users cannot currently make informed decisions about when it is safe or not to use rivers,” it said.“The prevalence of plastic pollution, the prescence of persistent chemicals and spread of antimicrobial pathogens in rivers in England are all of grave concern.” Surfers Against Sewage told the EAC poor water quality was a public health issue, as it risked exposure to harmful viruses and antimicrobial resistant bacteria that could cause sickness and even long-term health effects.It was important for both public health and wildlife to clean up their waters, the report added.Philip Dunne, the Tory chair of the EAC, said: “Our inquiry has uncovered multiple failures in the monitoring, governance and enforcement on water quality.”“For too long, the government, regulators and the water industry have allowed a Victorian sewerage system to buckle under increasing pressure.”The report said the sewerage system was “overloaded and unable to cope with the increasing pressures of housing development, the impact of heavier rainfall and a profusion of plastic and other non-biodegradable waste clogging up the system”. Professor Rick Stafford, the chair of the British Ecological Society policy committee, said: “Sewage and agricultural waste not only cause disease, but disrupt the nutrient dynamics of rivers, causing excess algae and harming biodiversity.“Poor water quality can also greatly impact many charismatic river species, including salmon and otters, which have only recently recovered in many UK rivers.”The EAC report said the build-up of excess nutrients from animal waste and sewage was reducing oxygen levels in rivers – which can cause fish to die.Professor Hannah Cloke from the University of Reading said the report gave “a scathing snapshot of the state of the water quality in England’s rivers”.The hydrology professor said she was “appalled that we have reached a point where every single river in the country is considered dangerously polluted by chemicals”. Last year, another report said England’s rivers, lakes and streams had some of the lowest water quality in Europe and warned the climate crisis was worsening conditions.In response to the EAC report, Professor Nigel Watson from the Lancaster Environment Centre said: “The risks to public health and to wildlife from poor water quality are exacerbated by the impacts of climate change. “Discharges of untreated sewage have become increasingly commonplace as a result of more frequent intense rainfall and storm events, despite those discharges only being permitted by law in exceptional circumstances.”Rebecca Pow, the environment minister, said the report highlighted “many areas” being tackled by the government, who she claimed was going “further and faster” than any others to protect and enhance the health of rivers.“Our Environment Act puts in place more protections against water pollution than ever before and we are the first government to instruct water companies to take steps to significantly reduce storm overflows, which we have also put into law,” she said, adding the government would take action against water companies failing to reduce pollution. More