Blog entries

Beijing study shows the health benefits of clean air

Maria Arnold — Thu, 17 May 2012 16:20:02 +0100

Efforts made to clean up Bejing's air for the 2008 Olympics provided a striking insight into the health benefits that even a brief respite from air pollution can offer.

A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association examined healthy volunteers before, during and after the Games, observing big improvements in known risk factors for heart disease when levels of air pollution dipped. Similar Read More...

Court of Justice gives thumbs up to social aspects in sustainable public procurement

Catherine Weller — Mon, 14 May 2012 12:41:50 +0100

On Thursday 10 May 2012 the Court of Justice decided that EU rules permit public bodies to evaluate tenders for public contracts using criteria ‘based on considerations of a social nature’. In this case the Court was examining the province of North Holland’s use of fair trade criteria but the ruling has wider implications. Importantly, it confirms that there are no grounds for treating social criteria differently to environmental criteria. This will remove the legal uncertaiRead More...

Fish Fight launched in Poland: bringing fisheries issues to the top of public debate

Dawid Szescilo — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 12:58:34 +0100

One year after great success of Fish Fight in the UK, led by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and supported by the coalition of NGOs (including ClientEarth), the campaign arrived in Poland. At the launch event outside the Polish parliament we took part in a discussion about key challenges of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) from a Polish perspective.

During the panel discussion organized as a part of the eRead More...

UK Implementation of the Habitats Directive: no light-hearted matter

Susie Wilks — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 11:03:00 +0100

The Habitats Directive protects a large variety of the UK's plant and animal species, including rare and vulnerable animals such as otters, bats and dormice, and habitats from heathlands to sand dunes to rocky caves. It puts in place systems to make sure that areas containing this precious biodiversity are not damaged by development. It plays an important role in securing the vital ecosystem services benefiting human well being that flow from the preservation of such healthy natural areas. NoRead More...

What are the barriers to sustainable public procurement? We explain to the European Parliament

Catherine Weller — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 15:19:44 +0100

The European Commission has stated that the revision of the Public Procurement Directive aims to clarify how the purchasing power of Europe’s public bodies can contribute to sustainable development and environmental protection.

In October we released a briefing series, Identifying Opportunities for Sustainable Public Procurement, which showed how this could be done.

Yesterday, the main parliamentary committee charged with amending the proposal held a hearing and invited eRead More...

Don't discard the end of discards

Sandy Luk — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 16:24:56 +0100

photo: kasperbs

On Monday, fisheries ministers from each of the EU countries will be gathering at their monthly meeting, this time to discuss discards and the common fisheries policy (CFP). It appears that a number of Member States are planning to publish a declaration on the CFP reform. As we understand it, there will be grand statements reiterating the States’ “commitment to the sustaRead More...

Transparency: reflections across the pond

Mina Miller — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0100

Most of you will have caught wind of the recent Heartland Institute scandal, in which a prominent scientist and climate activist, Dr. Peter Gleick, leaked the climate sceptical group’s confidential strategy documents. The story has unleashed a furious response in the scientific and environmental communities and has a way to go before abating: Gleick, who obtained the documents illegally, faRead More...

Blogging logging: rules for monitoring organisations published

Emily Unwin — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 10:34:21 +0100

The European Commission has now publicised the delegated regulation that it adopted on 23 February, which sets out rules according to which monitoring organisations will be recognised under the Timber Regulation. The role of the Timber Regulation, monitoring organisations and this delegated act, were discussed in this earlier blog.

Our initial analysis of the delegated act suggests thaRead More...

Black carbon in the House of Commons

Alan Andrews — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 15:58:51 +0100

Reducing air pollution can save lives and save the Arctic. That was the message I gave to a parliamentary committee yesterday.

The Environmental Audit Committee is a house of commons select committee tasked with scrutinising the government’s performance on environment matters. They are currently holding an inquiry into protecting the Arctic. The Committee had previously heard from several leading cliRead More...

Norman Lamb: The man to change the narrative

Josh Roberts — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 14:42:57 +0100

image: Liberal Democrats

Last month, there was major changeup in the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS), when the sitting Minister for Employment Relations and Postal Affairs, Edward Davey, was moved to assume the position of Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. His replacement, a fellow Lib-Dem, Norman Lamb, will now be in charge of overseeing an important task: rRead More...

Blogging logging: The EU Timber Regulation today

Emily Unwin — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 09:24:46 +0100

image: Tech109

The EU Timber Regulation is designed to address the problem of illegal logging from a 'demand-side' perspective by restricting its access to the EU market.

The Timber Regulation was adopted in 2010 and established the framework for how it would work but left certain key details to be developed by non-legislative acts. To give time for these to be produced and for all stakeholdersRead More...

UK Parliament’s big report on the Common Fisheries Policy is a big disappointment

Melissa Pritchard — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0100

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 CommitteRead More...

Testing of “gender bending” chemicals fails to protect EU citizens

Vito Buonsante — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 10:50:36 +0100

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.

These chemicals are widely found in consumer products which we are exposed to on a daily basis. Read More...

From Durban to Qatar: Outlook for REDD+ in 2012

Daniela Rey — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 16:35:51 +0100

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 coRead More...

Money: the catch of the day

Melissa Pritchard — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 14:01:53 +0100

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, orRead More...

The new EU Aarhus Centre; enabling EU citizens’ participation in environmental decision making

Anais Berthier — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:44:51 +0100

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 rightsRead More...

Ambitious emissions reductions: greater energy security and a competitive European economy

Marta Ballesteros — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:25:46 +0100

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 Read More...

Hooked on sustainable seafood

Sandy Luk — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:42:50 +0100

image: dezz

This week began with some fantastic news as we read in the Guardian about the sharp rise in the sale of sustainable seafood products in the UK throughout 2011. This shows that people really do care about where their food is coming from and what effect that has.

Consumers have the power to help avoid an ecological disaster by choosing to buy sustainably caught or sustainRead More...

Climate change resilience is little comfort without a change in consumption

Feja Lesniewska — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 11:30:50 +0100

image: Flickr/CIFOR

Forests are key to ensuring that the climate remains stable enough so that life on Earth can continue as we know it. The ability of a forest to hold (or sequester) carbon is one of the key functions it provides globally. This function is undermined by increasing temperatures in tropical forests as well as by forest degradation and deforestation. The Amazon forest Read More...

Are Climate Change Reporters an Endangered Species?

James Thornton — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0100

image: NS Newsflash

This blog originally appeared on Huffington Post on 25 December 2011

Why aren't we seeing more coverage of climate change in the media? The issue is hardly going away. And now that world governments after Durban are not planning to take action 'til 2020, we need more coverage, not less.

Yet environmentalists reported a drop off in climate change reporting in 2009 Read More...