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The St Martin-In-the-Fields Seminar on the Rio+20 Agenda

Author : Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Environmental Audit Committee

Publisher : The Stationery Office

Page : 44 pages

File Size : 37,17 MB

Release : 2012

Category : Science

ISBN : 9780215045546

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Book Description

This report is on the recent public debate on the Rio Earth Summit agenda, which took place at St Martin-in-the-Fields, London. The Secretary General of the UN has labelled the Rio+20 Conference as one of the most important conferences in the history of the United Nations. In not attending the Rio Earth Summit, the Prime Minister is sending out a powerful signal that the UK Government does not see sustainability as a priority. Public attention is understandably focused on the financial crisis, but we risk sleep walking into an even worse environmental crisis if world leaders cannot find a greener and cleaner way of developing our economies in future. It is down to us to find these solutions and to insist that our governments do so too. The Committee have produced a previous report on the Rio+20 agenda (HC 1026, session 2010-12, ISBN 9780215561954), and since then there has been a debate in the House of Commons on that report and the Government's response to it. The Committee intends to examine the outcomes of the Rio+20 Summit, and the action the UK will need to take, later in the year. That will provide an opportunity to review the way the Government approached the Summit and its role there. Key issues to be examined will be the extent to which the Government shows leadership at the Summit on the green economy agenda, and subsequently whether the Government revisits its 'Enabling the Transition strategy' to reflect the outcomes of the Summit.



Outcomes of the UN Rio+20 Earth Summit

Author : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee

Publisher : Stationery Office

Page : 88 pages

File Size : 35,11 MB

Release : 2013-06-14

Category : Science

ISBN : 9780215058898

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Book Description

This report highlights the commitments for the UK from the conclusions agreed in the 'Rio+20' Summit. It was regretted that the Deputy Prime Minister declined to give evidence. It was also regretted that the Prime Minister did not attend the Rio+20 Summit. His absence undermined the Government's attempts to demonstrate its commitment to the sustainable development agenda, not just internationally but also at home in the UK. The conclusions of the Summit itself disappointed many with a lack of concrete agreement on key areas. On the other hand, many welcomed the firm commitment to develop new Sustainable Development Goals. The development of the SDGs and the Post-2015 Development Goals should be carried out jointly. The Prime Minister should take advantage of his position as co-chair of that High Level Panel to continue to push for integration of sustainable development targets with poverty eradication and climate change targets. Permanent mechanisms should be established to continue engagement with a wider range of NGOs and businesses and examine the scope for introducing wider-ranging 'sustainability reporting' for the private sector. New Sustainable Development Indicators which will complement such Government reporting, will reflect our call for emissions Indicators to be on a consumption (rather than just a production) basis. The Summit included commitments on education and the Government should remind schools of the scope for addressing sustainable development in their learning plans. Alongside this report, the Committee's scrutiny of the Government's progress in embedding sustainable development in its own policies and programmes is also being published (HC 202, session 2013-14, ISBN 9780215058911)



HC 885 - A 2010-15 Progress Report

Author : Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Environmental Audit Committee

Publisher : The Stationery Office

Page : 53 pages

File Size : 46,47 MB

Release : 2015

Category : Law

ISBN : 0215084160

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Measuring Well-being and Sustainable Development

Author : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee

Publisher : The Stationery Office

Page : 56 pages

File Size : 26,20 MB

Release : 2012-11-29

Category : Science

ISBN : 9780215050830

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Book Description

The new Sustainable Development Indicators don't do enough to hold the Government to account for inequalities in the environment and in our communities, as well as the economic inequalities that have long been obvious. The Government should reconsider its proposal to drop the 'environmental equality' Sustainable Development Indicator and review each of the other proposed SDIs to see how they might capture the range of values for how they affect people's lives, not just the average. This report also criticises the lack of targets in the new indicator set, despite there already being binding targets elsewhere in some areas covered by the SDIs - for emissions, air pollution and renewable energy. The Government should instead use an indicator which reflects the extent to which public sector debt will be a burden rather than a boon for the next generation, such as Government bond rates. The 'natural resource use' indicator is also of concern because it would monitor both finite and renewable resources taken together, and potentially treat fossil fuels the same as other resources which need to be preserved for future generations to use. The revision of the SDIs is running in parallel with the 'Measuring National Well-being' initiative, set up by the Prime Minister in 2010 and being run by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The Committee identified some overlap between the two indicator frameworks which is likely to be unclear for the public and possibly also for policy-makers. A single framework is recommended



Wildlife Crime

Author : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee

Publisher : The Stationery Office

Page : 226 pages

File Size : 23,23 MB

Release : 2012-10-18

Category : Science

ISBN : 9780215049469

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Book Description

Wildlife legislation has become so complex that prosecutions fail and even specialist enforcement professionals struggle to implement it effectively. Hundreds of birds of prey have been deliberately poisoned with substances such as carbofuran that have no legal use and the Government could easily make possession an offence. The lack of sentencing guidelines on wildlife offences means that some offenders are being neither punished nor deterred in the courts. The CPS is also failing to train its prosecutors to handle complex wildlife cases. Furthermore, the inflexible implementation in UK law of international agreements covering the trafficking of endangered species squanders limited resources. The Government has maintained funding for specialist wildlife crime investigation and enforcement, but this is provided on an ad hoc basis, reducing operational effectiveness. Funding provided to monitor wildlife crime on the internet was too short-term to attract a suitably qualified individual to fill the post. In 2004, the Committee called for a new database to record all wildlife crime but this has still not been introduced. Internationally, this report also examines how the rhino, tiger and elephant are being driven to extinction by growing demand for illegal wildlife products in south-east Asia and China. The Government needs to exert robust diplomatic pressure in favour of the development and enforcement of wildlife law at the next CITES meeting in March 2013. In particular, the Government should focus attention on the damaging effect of 'one-off' sales of impounded ivory, which has been found to actually fuel demand for ivory products, and seek an unequivocal international ban on all forms of ivory trade.



Autumn Statement 2012

Author : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee

Publisher : The Stationery Office

Page : 80 pages

File Size : 50,2 MB

Release : 2012-11-20

Category : Science

ISBN : 9780215050724

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A Treasury led 'dash for gas' could make the UK's carbon targets under the Climate Change Act unachievable. The Committee is calling on the Government to restore investor confidence in the future direction of energy policy by setting a clear decarbonisation objective in the forthcoming Energy Bill to clean up the power sector by 2030. Ongoing policy uncertainty could mean that the UK loses out on millions of pounds of green investment. Global competition for green growth is fierce and the UK is competing with other countries to secure renewables investment. The Committee heard a variety of suggestions to boost take-up of energy efficiency measures in its inquiry on the Autumn Statement and received suggestions for new environmental taxes that could be implemented to help deliver the Coalition Agreement commitment to increase the proportion of tax revenues accounted for by environmental taxes



House of Commons - Environmental Audit Committee: Sustainability - HC 613

Author : Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Environmental Audit Committee

Publisher : The Stationery Office

Page : 32 pages

File Size : 39,5 MB

Release : 2013

Category : Science

ISBN : 9780215064516

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Book Description

This report examines how well new processes and systems for embedding sustainable development are working in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. This is the first report of its kind - examining an individual department in this way - by the Committee. It examines BIS performance against sustainable operations targets, the role of a 'Sustainability Champion' and a Sustainability Committee in BIS, and how well sustainability considerations are taken into account in policy-making case studies. These case studies included the Regional Growth Fund and the Industrial Strategies initiative. They found that overall the Department was delivering on their sustainable operations targets, although that was in part the result of reductions in staffing and the size of the BIS estate. On policy-making, however, analysis of specific case studies indicates that environmental and social aspects of sustainability are not getting the same attention as economic factors. The assessment process needs to be reformed to do so. Defra and the Cabinet Office should challenge other government departments which have similar grant schemes to do the same. They are also disconnected from the BIS Business Plan process, weakening the main vehicle by which Defra and the Cabinet Office challenge the sustainability-proofing of BIS policy-making. BIS, including its agencies and NDPBs, should produce sustainable development strategies, to provide a reference point for sustainability initiatives by senior management and the sustainability champion, and to allow all staff to readily understand the wider sustainable development imperatives



HS2 and the Environment - HC 1076

Author : Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Environmental Audit Committee

Publisher : The Stationery Office

Page : 56 pages

File Size : 36,77 MB

Release : 2014

Category : Business & Economics

ISBN : 0215070739

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Book Description

The Government needs to show real commitment to dealing with the impact that HS2 will have on our countryside and wildlife. It is imperative that an infrastructure project on such a large scale implements proper environmental safeguards and ensures that impacts are minimised. That won't happen if HS2 Ltd can avoid implementing safeguards if they consider them to be 'impracticable' or 'unreasonable'. There needs to be a separate ring-fenced budget for these safeguards and for compensation, separate from the rest of the HS2 budget, to prevent the environment being squeezed if HS2 costs grow. The Government's aim of 'no net biodiversity loss' on HS2 is not good enough - it should aim for environmental gains that the Government promised in its white paper on the Natural Environment. In any case, the Government can't demonstrate it will cause no net harm because it has still not surveyed 40% of the land to be used. Ancient woodland should be treated with particular care. HS2 will damage some woodlands, and where that happens, compensation measures should be much higher than the level indicated in the calculation that HS2 Ltd will use. The HS2 Hybrid Bill will be given its second reading on 28 April, after which it will be referred to a dedicated select committee to examine 'petitions' against it. The Committee criticises the procedure's failure to fully address the requirements of EU and national directives on environmental assessments, which it wants to be at least partly rectified in the forthcoming Parliamentary proceedings



House of Commons - Environmental Audit Committee: Biodiversity Ofsetting - HC 750

Author : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee

Publisher : The Stationery Office

Page : 36 pages

File Size : 26,14 MB

Release : 2013-11-12

Category : Architecture

ISBN : 9780215064509

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Book Description

The Environmental Audit Committee reports that Government plans to introduce a system of 'biodiversity offsetting' for new building developments could enhance the way the planning system accounts for the damage done to valuable natural habitats, but the proposals must be improved to properly protect Britain's wildlife and woodlands. The Green Paper does not provide an evidence based analysis of how offsetting would deliver "biodiversity gain". The twenty minute assessment for calculating biodiversity losses at a site, proposed by Ministers, is also overly simplistic. It should include particular species, local habitat significance, ecosystem services provided - such as pollination and flood prevention - and 'ecosystem network' connectivity to reflect the full complexity of habitats. Sites of special scientific interest and ancient woodlands should be even more rigorously protected. A mandatory, rather than voluntary, offsetting system would allow more environmentally and economically viable offset projects to be brought forward. The report also warns of a danger that an offsetting market could produce many offsets of a similar, lowest-cost, type rather than a mixed range of habitats. Natural England should monitor schemes to ensure a balance of habitat types are covered in the offsets. It is also important to consider the implications of biodiversity offsetting for people's access to nature and well-being. A decision on the Government's offsetting proposals should not be made at this time. Offsetting pilots, set up in 2011, should be allowed to run their course and then be subjected to the independent evaluation previously promised by ministers.



Transport and accessibility to public services

Author : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee

Publisher : Stationery Office

Page : 160 pages

File Size : 50,16 MB

Release : 2013-06-24

Category : Business & Economics

ISBN : 9780215059093

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Book Description

This report looks at progress on improving accessibility since 2003 and ways of improving accessibility. Problems with transport provision and the location of services can reinforce social exclusion by preventing people from accessing key local services and undermines government policies to tackle worklessness, increase participation in education, reduce crime and narrow health inequalities. Insufficient progress has been made since the 2003 Social Exclusion Unit's Making the Connections report, many findings of which are relevant today. There is evidence that accessibility is worsening, driven by tight budgets in central and local government. Accessibility statistics show travel times to key services steadily increasing over time, particularly for access to hospitals. The Department for Transport needs to focus more closely on improving accessibility as well as on supporting the economy. Existing transport funding could be better coordinated and directed to 'accessibility'-focused initiatives, which will have a swifter impact on people's well-being than large infrastructure projects. The social value of transport and accessibility needs to be explicitly considered in policy-making and in the planning system and should no longer be seen as a second-order criterion.The Committee believes it will take time for any improvements to make a noticeable difference. Their recommendations focus on improving how government operates rather than funding. Central government cannot abdicate its role in coordinating action across departmental silos and helping local authorities and service providers to share best practice. Accessibility planning, introduced by Making the Connections, has had limited success and needs to be re-energised.