Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee Publisher: ISBN: 9780215031020 Category : Marine resources development Languages : en Pages : 11
Book Description
Response to HCP 1323, session 2005-06 (ISBN 0215030206)
Author: Great Britain. Parliament. Joint Committee on the Draft Marine Bill Publisher: The Stationery Office ISBN: 9780104013427 Category : Coastal zone management Languages : en Pages : 158
Book Description
The Marine Bill was designed to establish a new UK-wide strategic system of marine planning to balance conservation, energy and resource needs, based on the principle of sustainable development and working with the devolved administrations. The Committee reports here reservations about the framework nature of the draft Bill. It was felt that too much of its policy is contained in secondary legislation or guidance. That there are significant areas of confusion of responsibility - between UK and international, especially EU, obligations; between devolved adminstrations; the many agencies and other bodies who will be involved in delivering the proposals in the Bill.
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee Publisher: The Stationery Office ISBN: 9780215540782 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 100
Book Description
This is the Committee's eighth report on the sustainable operations on the Government estate. There has been some progress against targets but the Sustainable Development Commission has found that in 2007-08 the Government was not on track to meet its target for the reduction of carbon emissions from its own buildings. The Government was on track to meet its targets for recycling and for the sourcing of electricity from renewable sources, but it performed less well than it had in 2006-07. It must improve the sustainability of its operations each year. The ease with which the Government continues to meet some targets, even when its performance worsens, indicates the urgent need for the Government to set itself more stringent targets. The Government should extend the system of targets and monitoring beyond central government and agencies to the wider public sector, including its outsourced operations. The Government has the potential to drive change in the wider economy through sustainable procurement, through investment in low carbon technologies and by driving the development of "green" skills in the workforce. But the Sustainable Development Commission found that Government performed poorly against its own targets. The Government must use its buying power to drive progress towards a greener economy. Many of the changes to the governance of Government's sustainable operations have been confusing or ineffective. The Government must ensure that there is a clear line of accountability for these matters, and the Cabinet Office Minister responsible must take an active role in overseeing performance management.
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee Publisher: The Stationery Office ISBN: 9780215532442 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 220
Book Description
An area of tropical forest the size of England continues to be lost each year. This gives rise to around 17 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, greater than global emissions from transport. Addressing deforestation is as essential as decarbonising electricity or transport if the world is to avoid dangerous climate change. A failure to act on deforestation could double the cost of avoiding dangerous climate change to 2030. Deforestation is caused by a range of factors, many of which are exacerbated by a growing global population and increasing consumption. Halting deforestation requires: (a) support for rainforest nations to help them manage their development so that it does not allow continued deforestation; (b) management of the demand for commodities whose production encourages deforestation; and (c) the introduction of a mechanism to pay developing countries for maintaining, and in due course recreating, their forests. The UK needs to act in all three areas if its policies on deforestation are to be successful. Ignoring any one undermines the effectiveness and durability of action in the other areas. As part of this work the Government must: remove subsidies that contribute to deforestation, such as biofuels policy; develop sustainability standards for agricultural commodities; implement and enforce government timber procurement; and, seek an EU-wide ban on illegal timber imports combined with robust sanctions. Illegal timber imports are still a fact of life within the UK timber trade. The economic, environmental and development case for immediate action on deforestation is clear. But success is possible only if the international community works together effectively.
Author: Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Environmental Audit Committee Publisher: The Stationery Office ISBN: 9780215529145 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 116
Book Description
This report examines, firstly, the Treasury's response to recession. The fiscal stimulus measures intended to pull the economy out of recession represent an invaluable opportunity to transform the UK into a low carbon economy. But meeting climate change and renewable energy targets will require a step-change in environmental investment. This year's Pre-Budget Report announced a £535m package of green fiscal stimulus measures designed to tackle economic and environmental problems simultaneously. This investment is welcome, but the scale too small- most of this funding was already committed, and will be offset by reduced spending in 2010-11. Extra funding announced for the Warm Front programme will not deliver the scale and speed of change that is needed. Programmes aimed at improving the energy efficiency of existing buildings should be the number one priority for green fiscal stimulus. It is disappointing that the wider fiscal stimulus package contains hundreds of millions of pounds for road building and widening. The Treasury should publish an assessment of the net impacts of its fiscal stimulus package on the environment. The second part of the report looks at green taxation. In real terms, revenue from green taxes has gone down slightly since 1998, while revenue from all taxation has increased by around 30 per cent. On aviation taxes, the Committee criticise the Treasury's backtracking on replacing Air Passenger Duty with a 'per plane' charge, and exhorts the Government to seek reform of the Chicago Convention so as to allow taxation of international aviation fuel. On motoring taxes, it calls for re-examination of the merits and practicalities of a 'car scrappage' scheme to pay people to trade in their existing, older cars, for newer, more efficient models.
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee Publisher: The Stationery Office ISBN: 9780215521743 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 116
Book Description
Greening Government operations is important in its own right, because of the size and range of their environmental impacts. Each year central Government offices produce approximately 2.3 million tonnes of CO2 emissions (around 0.4 per cent of the UK total) and 309,000 tonnes of waste. Central Government spends £60 billion on goods and services each year and through sustainable procurement it could accelerate the take-up of environmentally friendly products. This report examines progress relating to: carbon emissions; renewable energy; carbon neutrality; energy consumption; Government response to the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC); the role of the Sustainable Development Commission. The record is poor on carbon emissions. Excellent progress has been made on increasing the use of green electricity, but progress on generating its own electricity from on-site or district renewables has been very disappointing. The target of making the Government Estate carbon neutral by 2012 will depend very heavily on buying offsets. It is important the Government does as much as possible to reduce its own emissions. The newly-announced Greening Government IT programme is encouraging, given that increased use of IT would appear to be the biggest single factor in the upward trend in emissions from civil departments. The Government has, encouragingly, announced significant reforms in its response to the SDC's report. The Commission is having a significant influence in galvanising Government to improve its structures.
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee Publisher: The Stationery Office ISBN: 9780215522122 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 236
Book Description
This report, entitled "Climate change and local, regional and devolved government", (HCP 225, session 2007-08, ISBN 9780215522122) sets out 22 conclusions and recommendations, including: that Central Government has a duty to co-ordinate how different spheres of government interact and integrate in regard of action on climate change; overcoming barriers to progress on climate change is essential and the Government must look at incentives and encouragements it can offer to local, regional and devolved government; all local authorities should be obliged to include climate change indicators in their Local Area Agreements and further, the investrment and development plans for local authorities should consider the need to reduce emissions and adapt to climate change; that local authorities, regional and devolved governments need to be aware of other targets, including biodiversity and energy efficiency; that the Government needs to consider what part carbon impact assessments will play in local, regional and devolved governments and how they can become a central role in decision and policy making.
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee Publisher: The Stationery Office ISBN: 9780215036681 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 68
Book Description
The Government has highlighted the importance of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) in providing the cornerstone of its policy framework to tackle climate change. The Committee published its report on the Scheme (HCP 70, session 2006-07; ISBN 9780215032720) in March 2007, in which it made an assessment of the likely impact of the ETS to 2012 and its implication for the UK Climate Change programme. This report contains the Government's reply to the Committee's report, together with the Committee's thoughts on that reply. Amongst its findings, the Committee concludes that emissions trading can be very valuable, enabling emissions cuts to be made in the most economically efficient manner irrespective of location. However, their report raises ongoing concerns about i) the transparency of the reporting process on emissions trading and the risk that the complexities of such transactions might obscure whether they are reducing the full amount of emissions they ostensibly represent. It is especially important to get the transparency of reporting right at this stage, given the Government's plans under the forthcoming Climate Change Bill, to make use of international emissions trading within a national carbon budgeting system; and ii) the Government's presentation in some publications of the purchase of carbon credits by the UK as being, in practice, synonymous with reducing emissions within the UK, since buying emissions credits from other countries does not necessarily translate into cutting emissions, at home or abroad.
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee Publisher: The Stationery Office ISBN: 9780215033185 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 190
Book Description
As part of the Committee's annual inquiry into the Treasury's Pre-Budget Report (PBR) and the progress made towards achieving environmental objectives with regards to its tax and spending policies, this publication examines the PBR's fiscal policy announcements in relation to the aviation, motoring, waste and energy sectors, focusing on the findings of the Stern Review of the economics of climate change (ISBN 9780102944204) published in October 2006. Amongst the 40 conclusions and recommendations made, the Committee notes that the Stern Review highlights the central problem involved in efforts to address the effects of global warning, that is the need to take action now before the more serious effects have begun to be felt in order to benefit future generations, a problem that will be both practically and politically challenging. The Committee urges the Government to use the Stern Report in order to promote a better informed public discussion of the science of climate change, so that we can use the limited window of opportunity presently available to prevent greenhouse gases growing to dangerous levels beyond which there are risks of major irreversible impacts, and recognising the Stern Review's accompanying argument that the sooner the world begins to cut its emissions, the easier and less costly mitigation will become.
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee Publisher: The Stationery Office ISBN: 9780215036896 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 146
Book Description
The Committee's report finds that, over the past decade, the Government has failed to rise fully to the domestic challenge of climate change, and its likely failure to reach its domestic target on reducing carbon dioxide emissions will have a damaging impact on the UK's international leadership role in reaching a post-Kyoto agreement. Although the Government has introduced some new arrangements for co-ordinating climate change policy more effectively across Whitehall, the scale of the challenge and the complexity involved in radically restructuring the economy to bring about the needed emission reduction targets requires further changes. There is a need for a strategic review of Government action to ensure that the leadership and responsibility for the development and delivery of climate change mitigation and adaptation policies is clear, as well as a new long-term policy framework to ensure that policies introduced today do not undermine our ability to reduce emissions in the future. The Committee also recommends that a new and authoritative body be established within the Cabinet Office to drive forward policy and to diminish the potential for a conflict of objectives between departments.
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee
Author: Great Britain. Parliament. Joint Committee on the Draft Marine Bill
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee
Author: Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Environmental Audit Committee
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee