The TYE guide to Brexit #2 Climate Change
As an international community, we have a responsibility to take climate change seriously
An article by MP Caroline Lucas highlighted the crucial role that the European Court of Justice has played in holding individual EU countries to account on Climate Change. Post-Brexit, the UK must adopt an adequate alternative that will transcend the whims and wishes of British governments in the future!
Chemical regulation, marine and coastal pollution, soil quality, air quality, recycling, the protection of endangered species… and so continues the endless list of over 1,100 pieces of EU legislation to which EU countries are held accountable. On the launch of the UK’s ‘Great Repeal Bill’, by which all EU law would be transferred into British law, Brexiteers such as David Davis were all smiles… yet many politicians, environmental lawyers and other conscientious citizens are concerned by the potentially devastating effect that a massive simplification of EU environmental legislation would have for the UK’s green policies.
It is clear that the British government has taken neither the legal, nor the moral responsibility for tackling air pollution. A known danger since 2010, only this year parts of London overshot their air pollution limits for NO2 within days!
In February 2017 the EU commission filled a ‘final warning’ to the UK (as well as to Germany, Italy, France and Spain) for contravening air pollution levels for nitrogen dioxide (NO2). Respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses cause the premature death of 50,000 Britons each year, which is utterly shocking for our supposedly developed country. At a time when the NHS funding crisis is at a tipping point, these mortalities are estimated to cost the NHS £20bn per year! However, it is clear that the British government has taken neither the legal, nor the moral responsibility for tackling air pollution. A known danger since 2010, only this year parts of London overshot their air pollution limits for NO2 within days!
Closer to home, I grew up in North Norfolk where there are some of the UK’s most beautiful coastline. As recently as 1995, half of England’s 370 beaches were deemed to have unacceptable levels of faecal pollution. After petitions to the EU commission against the British government, and following some £30bn of investment by water and waste companies as encouraged by EU directives; the UK now profits from a 99% rate of ‘safe for swimming’ beaches! Furthermore, the UK beach tourism industry is currently worth £3.6bn and provides 210,000 jobs across the UK.
The concern is that environmental standards, just like Human Rights and labour protections, will be targeted as so-called EU bureaucracy, which could be swept under the table by rushed amendments and without proper parliamentary scrutiny.
Currently the British government’s position is that post-Brexit governments will rely on judicial reviews by NGOs. However, as Richard Macrory, head of the UK environmental law agency, pointed out that, where as judicial reviews cost thousands of pounds to produce; a citizen complaint can be sent to the European Commission for the price of a stamp, if they consider that their government is acting irresponsibly. What is more, the European Commission can impose financial sanctions, which the British Supreme Court cannot. The concern is that environmental standards, just like Human Rights and labour protections, will be targeted as so-called EU bureaucracy, which could be swept under the table by rushed amendments and without proper parliamentary scrutiny.
Whatever your position on Brexit, climate change must be an omnipresent and unmovable driving force at the heart of any future UK government. However low the price of the pound might fall on leaving the Single Market, our commitment towards the preservation and the continuation of environmental standards is priceless. Finally, wherever debates on Brexit lead us over the next two years and beyond, it is our responsibility to remind UK governments that Britain’s role in the fight against Climate Change must never be jeopardised!
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