Posts Tagged: parliament

A lot has happened since the UK voted to leave the European Union on 23 June. Prime Ministers have come and gone, Cabinet Ministers have been purged and promoted, and the main party of Opposition is engaged in another battle for its leadership, just a year after the last one. With all this political upheaval, […]

The European Union has contributed a lot to environmental policies in the UK, such as the EU Birds and Habitats directives, which saw the rare bittern brought back from the brink of extinction in the UK, and which have protected a range of wildlife sites up and down our country and across Europe. Now that […]

“Climate Change is not a risk that has been downgraded after the Referendum” Amber Rudd, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. Climate change is a political issue. It is such a big problem that we cannot tackle it without ambitious legislation from global governments to reduce our emissions. Of course, we encourage individuals […]

Environmental and economic goals do not conflict and a healthy natural world is the foundation of a resilient, productive economy. Given recent extreme weather events in the UK and around the world, and the global scientific consensus that climate change will make such events more common, these words should by now be regarded by both […]

The European Union (EU) is home to more than 500 million people speaking 24 official languages in 28 countries with a GDP of over €17 trillion. Today, its borders to the south and east are blighted by conflict, terrorism and civil unrest. To the west – the vast Atlantic Ocean.  But when the EU looks […]

Following yesterday’s Comprehensive Spending Review announcement by the Chancellor George Osborne, we now know the shape and scale of Government spending up to 2020 – the year of the next UK General Election.  We knew from the rhetoric in advance, from the Conservative General Election manifesto, and from the pressure on Cabinet Ministers to come […]

Last weekend in New York, world leaders adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that aim to end poverty, hunger, injustice and environmental destruction. The aim is sustainable development that benefits everyone without wrecking the planet. The set of SDGs is in itself is a great achievement, one which WWF can be really proud to have […]

The election of the first Conservative majority administration for a generation opened a new chapter for UK environmental policy. Would David Cameron, who once asked Britain to ‘Vote Blue, Go Green’, provide strong leadership on green issues, or would his Government retreat to a depressing grey zone, with green priorities consigned to the distant margins? […]

On Friday, Amber Rudd MP, gave her first major speech as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change during a meeting hosted by Aviva. I am always encouraged when I hear a minister speaking with conviction about the need for international action on climate change- this Rudd clearly has in spades. She is not […]

“Make yourself at home” – we might say to a friend who is a guest at our house. Planet Earth is, as the sub-title of the Pope’s new encyclical calls it, the ‘common home’ for humanity. And it’s a home that is increasingly falling into disrepair, due to lack of care by the tenants to […]