Business & government - Government

Yesterday I was one of the estimated 4,000 people who turned up to attend the Pedal on Parliament (POP) rally in Edinburgh to make Scotland a ‘cycle-friendly nation’. As someone who comes from the Netherlands, I know just how good it can be to cycle in a country that respects, encourages and invests in cyclists. [...]

Over recent weeks, climate scientists and environmentalists have been carefully watching the output from a remote data collection point in Mauna Loa, Hawaii, which measures the volume of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere. And now we’ve heard confirmation that levels have reached 400 parts per million – the highest since the Pliocene era which finished 3 million years ago.

There are plenty of loud voices trying to make politicians believe that airport expansion in the South East is what we need to lift the UK out of recession. But is this simply wishful thinking? How much evidence is there that simply building more runways, so that more flights can go to more places, will [...]

Recently, the fight against climate change suffered a serious blow as MEPs in the European Parliament narrowly voted against a plan to shore up the EU’s struggling emissions trading scheme (ETS). The proposals – known as ‘backloading’ – would have pushed up the price of carbon, which had sunk to record lows. In fact, ahead [...]

Sometimes when people think policy, they think boring – talking about document wording, and who’s saying what on which issues. For me it’s exciting – there’s a rush when a delegate repeats on the floor what you’ve said in the lunch break – and highly important, because without the right policies in place you can’t [...]

On Friday 8 March, David Cameron met with school children from his Witney constituency. They wanted to ask if he’ll be taking part in WWF’s Earth Hour and if he supports the UK getting more electricity from renewable energy. Over 250 local children created letters and artwork for the Prime Minister to show they want [...]

It’s been an unusual CITES Conference of the Parties (CoP) so far. A big debate on secret voting earlier on delayed the main agenda, so we’ve only today gotten on to some of the higher profile agenda items we’re here to discuss. Elephant discussions began and a number of Parties, including the EU member states, [...]

I’m in Tromsø in Norway this week, which is north of the Arctic circle. WWF has brought together some of the world’s leading polar bear experts from Russia, Norway, Greenland, Canada and Alaska in the US – the polar bear ‘range states’ – for a workshop at the Fram High North Research Centre for Climate [...]

Actress and WWF ambassador Miranda Richardson talks about how people power has come together to help protect the world’s forests. “I’m sure you’ve heard of the butterfly effect, where a small change in one place in a complex system can result in large impacts elsewhere. It sprang to my mind when I heard about the [...]

WWF’s local authority timber pledge campaign has now come to an end, but for the councils who have signed up to a sustainable timber pledge, the work has only just begun. The campaign has been extremely successful, with 96 local authorities making 130 sustainable timber pledges between them – that’s almost a quarter of all [...]