03 Mar 2022
The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement this week that the new “Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report is an atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership. With fact upon fact, this report reveals how people and the planet are getting clobbered by climate change.” In […]
03 Mar 2022
The much-anticipated talks on a potential ‘Plastic pact’ at UNEA 5 has produced a treaty on plastic waste which has been described as ‘historic’. We covered the run up to the talks in detail over previous weeks. There were reports late in the day that that manufacturers had been lobbying to weaken the treaty proposal, as […]
03 Mar 2022
On 18 November 2021, the Environment Agency and Ofwat announced major investigations into potential widespread non-compliance by water and sewerage companies at sewage treatment works. Below is an update from the EA on progress: The investigations were launched after companies revealed to us that they may be in breach of their permit conditions. This issue […]
03 Mar 2022
Natural Resources Wales is introducing restrictions on salmon fishing on the River Severn in Wales, in response to the decline in migratory salmon stocks. Numbers are currently among the lowest on record and are below sustainable levels. New byelaws have been confirmed by the Minister for Rural Affairs and North Wales, and Trefnydd, Lesley Griffiths, […]
03 Mar 2022
Scottish Water is calling for a ban on the sale of wet wipes which contain plastic. The company says it responds to 36,000 blockages each year with the vast majority featuring wet wipes. It comes as an advertising campaign is launched urging people not to flush wipes of any kind down the toilet. Scottish Water […]
03 Mar 2022
In advance of the IPCC report, the House of Lords Science and Technology Select Committee produced a report, ‘Nature-based solutions: rhetoric or reality? The potential contribution of nature-based solutions to net zero in the UK’. The report states that: The term “nature-based solutions” is used to mean working with the grain of nature to achieve […]
01 Mar 2022
As reported in the Guardian, advisers say refusing new licences would signal green ambition, but final decision must be for ministers. The prospects for an expansion of oil and gas drilling in the North Sea have cleared a major hurdle, as the Committee on Climate Change said “stringent tests” must be applied to any new exploration licences […]
01 Mar 2022
Reducing use of plastic, made from oil and gas, has implications for the climate as well as pollution levels, Inger Andersen, head of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has said. More than 100 nations convening in Nairobi are expected to take the first steps toward establishing a historic global treaty to tackle the plastic crisis […]
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