Planning system shake up – danger ahead for nature.

A Rocha UK Trustee Rev. Dr Mike Perry comments on the shake-up to planning promised in the August White Paper ‘Planning for the Future’.

‘Build, Build, Build’ has been a recent mantra of the UK government. In June Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced fundamental changes to planning in England as part of last month’s consultative White Paper ‘Planning for the Future’. The changes aim to radically reduce and simplify environmental assessment within the planning process in England. However, as these proposals stand, the result will be that local communities cannot rely on a reactive process of opposing the development of Local Plans. It is essential now for environmental groups to engage with the government as it formulates its new strategy.

Successive governments have considered the planning process to be cumbersome and a brake on the economy. The White Paper, as far as ... Read more...

Arctic melt down?

In the past few weeks temperature records across the Arctic Circle have smashed every known record in modern times. On June 20 2020 in the Russian town of Verkhoyansk, the Russian Roshydromet (federal climate recording bureau) reported an air temperature of 38C – a high temperature anywhere, but unheard of in the usually cold Arctic. Does this mean we are heading for a runaway greenhouse effect? Just how alarming is this news?

First it is important to put the news in context.  This temperature was recorded in the Republic of Sakha in the far east of Siberia.  Contrary to media reports, Sakha has a similar climate to some parts of eastern Canada with long and bitterly cold winters and short, but hot summers with temperature regularly over 20C and infrequently well over 30C.  So the shocking stories suggesting the temperatures were 60F or more above ... Read more...

The time is now

A Rocha UK CEO, Andy Atkins, comments on the critical window of opportunity to ‘build back better’ from the pandemic. 

No sane person would have wished Covid-19 on the world. But among the glimpses of a silver lining that have been observed as a side effect of major industrial countries ‘locking down’, has been the sharp fall in greenhouse gas emissions, more space for nature, and cleaner air for people and nature to breathe as air pollution has fallen. Even these small comforts however are in danger of being lost if governments and people do not move very fast to ‘build back better’.

The world is at a moment of acute risk and opportunity. In mid-June the respected International Energy Agency (IEA) published a report in which it suggested that we have only about 6 months to ensure that economic recovery funds ... Read more...