Post-Brexit: The UK Must Continue The Fight for Environmental and Climate Progress

Ever since the term Brexit, the decision of whether the UK should leave the European Union or not, was coined June of 2012, green groups have been warning voters that the decision to leave will have disastrous environmental consequences. Their arguments are not without evidence, as these groups have been pointing to the 2016 high-profile report from the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP), which concludes that Brexit will lead to “significant risks” for nature. Previous EU legislation has cleaned up the UK, the IEEP report concludes, despite the fact that successive British governments often fought the rules in Brussels. And with the results of the Brexit referendum now revealing that the UK will indeed leave the European Union, environmentally conscious citizens and organizations all over the UK will need to fight to make sure the UK stays focused on pursuing a green agenda.

Currently, many groups fear this ‘Brexit’ will set the UK years back in environmental progress, causing the UK to once again been viewed as the ‘dirty man of Europe,’ the name other European Union members gave it when it first joined the EU back in 1973 due to its sewage-infested waters and its high sulphur dioxide emissions. And with the current UK government showing distaste for renewable energy and holding back offshore wind and solar developments in Scotland, many fear the consequences the leave will have on UK environmental policy.

As a part of the EU, UK was being held to the EU’s environmental policy standards, which had them on target to attain 15 percent of its energy from renewables by 2020, but now it will need to negotiate its own climate targets with the UN, and since many of the politicians backing the leave vote are climate skeptics who are against renewable energy, this could embolden them to water down environmental laws they say are pushing up energy prices and making companies uncompetitive. Lord Deben, chairman of the Committee on Climate Change, believes the UK will now have much less clout outside the EU, which could raise pressure on businesses and make them less willing to accept environmental restrictions. Thus, it is crucial to recognize the importance of continuing EU environmental policies like the 2008 Climate Change Act, which allowed the UK to get a record 25 percent of its electricity from renewable generators in 2015. EU rules have led to a decline in pollution and carbon emissions and to an increase in biodiversity protection, the report by the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) states.

Since the Brexit decision will no longer hold the UK to EU environmental standards, it crucial now than more ever for green groups across the UK to band together and demand environmental action. We need to heed the message of Friends of the Earth campaigner, Sam Lowe, “it is not possible to address the challenges of the future - such as climate change and the destruction of the natural world - alone. We should be working together, not pulling apart.”

For more information and to read the full IEEP report see:

http://www.ieep.eu/assets/2000/IEEP_Brexit_2016.pdf

https://www.foe.co.uk/sites/default/files/downloads/eu-referendum-environment-81600.pdf

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35758427

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/apr/04/brexit-could-put-britains-environment-at-risk-says-stanley-johnson