The House of Commons’ Environment Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Committee has published a report today on EU proposals for reform of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). The report should be urging  the UK government to improve the European Commission’s proposals for CFP reform, so that it provides urgently needed environmental protection for EU fisheries. However, rather than pushing for improvements to the Commission’s proposals, which are much needed, the EFRA Committee’s recommendations in some crucial areas would significantly weaken the Commission’s proposals.

Picture credit: Datu Arellano

A scientific report released this week by the European Commission demonstrates that there is growing evidence that endocrine disrupting or “gender bending” chemicals are contributing to a variety of adverse human and environmental health effects.

Last year in Durban, the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) failed to provide significant additional clarity and positive incentives on issues relating to Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries. Let me first give you the context and a brief overview of what happened in the lead to Durban.

The New Economics Foundation (nef) has just published a report whose findings back up everything that we’re working for during the current review of Europe’s disastrous Common Fisheries Policy (cfp). nef explain that the “value of restoring fish stocks is worth £2.7 billion (€3.2 bn) per year to all countries. It is worth £1.5 billion (€1.8 bn) per year to the EU27, or almost three times its annual fishing subsidies.”
 
ClientEarth have long argued that biological sustainability (Maximum Sustainable Yield) makes economic and social sense and here are the figures that prove it – taking more fish out of the sea than can biologically reproduce damns fishers to empty nets.  

Those who undermine sustainable fishing limits are not just creating an environmental calamity but are also talking economic nonsense. In a key year for the reform of the CFP we need to make sure that this message is heard loud and clear from coast to coast.
To find out more about ClientEarth's work on the cfp, click here

ClientEarth has set up an Aarhus centre focusing on the implementation of the Aarhus Convention by the EU institutions.   The new EU Aarhus Centre offers NGOs and citizens’ groups top-level legal advice on their rights to information, participation and justice in environmental matters provided under the Aarhus Convention. The Centre supports the development and enforcement of these rights by providing training and advice, monitoring the practices of EU institutions, bodies and agencies and creating a space for dialogue between NGOs and the EU institutions as well as organising events and publish materials on the issue.

This week, the European Commission published the Staff Working Paper Analysis of options to move beyond 20% greenhouse gas emission reductions: Member State results. The paper provides concrete data showing that an increased push to a 30% emission reduction target by 2020 will deliver financial, health and environmental benefits for member states. It complements the Communication adopted in May 2010 which outlined the costs and benefits at EU level of a higher emission reduction commitment by 2020.