Last week the European Commission announced their plans for the new EU budget. The new budget, known as the Multi Annual Financial Framework (MFF) sets how much will be spent over the years 2014 to 2020, and how this money will be allocated.

Overall few changes have been made to the size of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) budget however there have been significant changes in the way in which this money will be allocated. Of the overall €372 billion budget around two thirds will be allocated to Pillar 1 which makes direct payments to farmers. 30% of direct payments from the CAP will be used to encourage environmentally sound practices, as part of a greening of the CAP. €4.5 billion will be spent on research into food security.

The Pillar 2 budget, which is used to fund agri-environment schemes, will be cut over the period by about 7%, leading some organisations such as WWF to doubt the ability of the new budget to deliver the ambitious environmental goals set out in Europe 2020. Sacrifices in this part of the budget have been made to avoid cutting direct payments to farmers. Another key concern is the new freedom that member states will have to move funding around between pillars 1 and 2 which many anticipate will further reduce the amount spent on environmental projects.

The budget for LIFE+, the EU scheme to fund nature and biodiversity projects has only been increased by a small fraction leading many organisations to doubt the ability of the new budget to maintain the Natura 2000 network of protected areas. National financing plans for Natura 2000 may be the only hope to protect our natural capital

The external budget, which funds initiatives such as the Global Climate and Biodiversity Fund and the European Development Fund, has been increased but it remains unclear how much funding will go specifically to projects to protect biodiversity and ecosystem services. Whether this money will be used in a way that contributes towards the millennium development goals whilst simultaneously delivering solutions for biodiversity remains to be seen, although the budget does state that the European Parliament are committed to contributing financially to help meet commitments on biodiversity and climate change.

Funding for research will focus on projects that cannot be achieved by countries acting alone. The budget states that Horizon 2020, the new framework for research funding, will focus on key sectoral policy priorities such as climate change, food security and unsustainable resource use.

A panel of scientists has today concluded that the planets oceans are in an even worse state that previously considered, with some referring to the results as “shocking”.

The report, written by experts on coral reefs, fisheries, climate and pollution that form the International Program on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) concludes that ocean life is “at high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history”. The reason for this decline in marine life is human induced climate change, pollution and over-fishing.

“What we’re seeing at the moment is unprecedented in the fossil record” said Alex Rogers, Scientific Director of the IPSO and Professor of conservation biology at Oxford University. In the past, mass extinctions took place over millions of years, not overnight as often perceived. The rate of decline seen today exceeds the speed at which the previous 5 mass extinctions took place, which some say indicates that we are now moving into a 6th period of mass extinction. The report concludes that is too early to say definitively that this is the case, but warns that current trends indicate that such a situation is likely to occur in the future.

The report presented to government at the UN headquarters in New York later this week during discussions on the reform of ocean governance. The publication will recommend three main changes to marine policy:

1. Making swift reductions in green house gas emissions
2. Reducing the input of pollutants
3. Bringing a stop to exploitative fishing

Pressures to implement action are supported both economically and in terms of human welfare. At present, coral reefs are estimated to be worth millions through tourism and for sea-defense, but 75% are at risk of severe decline. While a huge 70% of the world’s population reply on fish as their main source of protein, yet 50% of fisheries still remain classified as unsustainable in the UK alone.

Report contributor Dan Laffoley, an advisor to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) however remained positive, saying that “unlike previous generations, we know what now needs to happen”.

Vince Cable yesterday announced more detailed plans for the green investment bank, including some indication of the type of projects that will be financed. The bank will be the first of its kind in the world, specifically designed to fund the new low carbon green economy. The announcement, and publication of a progress report by the department of business innovation and skills, follows a speech given by Nick Clegg at an event hosted by Climate Change Capital.

The deputy Prime Minister emphasised the need to consider the reasons for investing, including preserving the environment on which we rely for the next generation. He also mentioned the economic incentive to make the UK the world leaders in producing green technology, suggesting that many companies could set up manufacturing plants in the UK.

In an oral statement to the House of Commons Vince Cable focussed on the legally binding commitment made by the government to reduce carbon emissions 50% by 2050, and the need to revolutionise our energy and transport sectors, and invest in green infrastructure to achieve this target. He also noted the requirement for stable long term green policies to encourage investment in green infrastructure, which will flow through the green investment bank. £3 billion will initially be invested in the bank.

The progress report published by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills picks out the Water Framework Directive and Air Quality Standards Regulations as other key legislation to be supported by the green investment bank. Money will be invested in waste water management and improving flood defences replacing loss of funding due to Defra budget cuts. Money will also be invested in improving air quality and reducing emissions from vehicles.

Both Nick Clegg and Vince Cable noted the economic benefits of investment in green infrastructure in terms of saving energy and money, however there was no mention of investment to protect ecosystem services, and biodiversity, or the possible cost of inaction in these areas. Investment in better protection of ecosystem services will be vital for protecting the environment for the next generation.

Last night the BES Policy Manager attended a lecture at the Geological Society, delivered by Nobel Laureate Prof. Paul Crutzen. Professor Krutzen’s lecture marked the end of a day-long conference on ‘The Anthropocene: A New Epoch of Geological Time?’ Prof. Krutzen explored the concept of the anthropocene – a term which he originated to describe the current period of history in which mankind is the predominant influence on the climate system – through a wide-ranging talk which also touched on his research interests and a potential solution to global warming through geoengineering.

Introducing Prof. Crutzen, Dr Bryan Lovell, President of the Geological Society, praised both his scientific genuis and his contribution to public affairs. Prof. Krutzen won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1995 for his work on the hole in the ozone layer. By characterising the period of time since the 18th Century as the ‘anthropocene’ he has highlighted man’s impact on the environment and climate to policy-makers.

In recent years Prof. Crutzen has advocated releasing particles of sulphur into the atmosphere, which could reflect sunlight and thereby cool the earth, if global warming results in temperatures increasing by more than 2 degrees centigrade over time. There are real issues with this approach which would need to be resolved before it could be considered however, including unforeseen effects. One point made by a questioner from the audience was also very pertinent; it is not clear how governments, which have found it incredibly hard to tackle a problem which is well understood – the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere – will be able to agree about enacting a solution that they understand even less well. The release of sulphur particles to promote global cooling would also do nothing to tackle ocean acidification, caused by increasing levels of carbon dioxide dissolving in sea water.

As Professor Crutzen’s talk made clear, mankind’s activities are impacting on both the biotic and abiotic components of the natural world; from species, to the availability of nutrients such as phosphorus, necessary for the growth of vegetation, to the rate of erosion of sedimentary rocks. The premise of the anthropocene is that man has created a new geological period, in which we are affecting the environment around us, have the power to do so deliberately, and therefore necessarily the power to address and reduce our impacts.

Further details of the event at the Geological Society can be found here.

A new government report titled Mapping and Understanding UK Palm Oil Use has identified possible policy options to increase the volume of sustainable palm oil used in the UK. The use of by-products of the palm oil industry in animal feed as one of the main challenges facing the move towards use of only sustainable palm oil in the UK. The report also noted the importance of commitment by the biofuels and personal care product industries as crucial for success. In 2009 the UK imported 643,000 tons of palm oil, and 663,000 tons of palm kernel meal, the by-product of the palm oil industry that is commonly used in animal feed. Over 10% of the world’s entire production of palm kernel meal is used to feed animals in Britain.

The report which was compiled for Defra by Proforest was designed to inform the government of potential policy options relating to palm oil.

Palm oil plantations are one of the main causes of deforestation in South East Asia and are frequently established on peatland resulting in loss of biodiverse forests and high greenhouse gas emissions. Palm oil and palm kernel meal can be used in products as diverse as biofuels and confectionary.

Certification by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil was set up in 2004 as a standardised certification system for palm oil. Currently 24% palm oil is currently obtained from sustainable sources, with many supermarkets and manufacturers committed to becoming 100% sustainable by 2015. However the UK government has no policy of sustainability for palm oil, and many pubs, restaurants, and manufacturers of animal feed have made no commitment so far. The report suggested that more needs to be done to gain commitments from refineries, producers of personal care and cleaning products, and the biofuel sector to increase the volume of sustainable palm oil used during manufacturing.

The report identified five main policy options:
• Awareness raising campaigns.
• Goals for removing unsustainable palm oil from supply chains.
• Government procurement policy promoting sustainable palm oil within supply chains.
• Voluntary or mandatory reporting of companies’ performance
• Private sector due diligence demonstrating sustainable sourcing

All 278 of Britain’s green laws, originally put in place to safeguard the natural environment, have been included on the list of red tape regulations to be considered for the axe by the public as part of the ‘Red Tape Challenge’. The proposed deregulation is a corwdsourcing exercise launched by government to assess which of the current regulations restrict growth of the economy and scrap unnecessary red tape.

Environmental laws including; the Wildlife and Countryside Act, National Park Act, Clean Air Act and the Climate Change Act could now all be scrapped by government as they fall under ‘general regulations’ outraging environmental campaigners.

If green laws such as the Wildlife and Countryside Act – which governs the protection of animals and plants in Britain – were axed as a result of the ‘Red Tape Challenge’ national parks, marine reserves and sites of special scientific interest (SSSI’s) would no longer be protected by law.

Additionally, the retraction of the Climate Change Act – which was the first of its kind – would mean the release the secretary of state from duties to reach climate change targets such as to reduce the UK’s carbon emissions by at least 80% below 1990 levels by the year 2050.

The Government’s ‘Red Tape Challenge’ website invites comments either as an individual or as an organisation about red tape regulations, with Ministers facing the presumption that laws and regulations listed in the ‘Red Tape Challenge’ should be scrapped unless argued otherwise. You can comment on environmental regulations threatened to be axed by the scheme over a number of subject areas including:

• Air quality
• Biodiversity, wildlife management, landscape, countryside and recreation
• Energy labelling and sustainable products
• Industrial emissions and carbon reductions
• Noise and nuisance
• Waste
• Environmental permits, information and damage

After receiving public comments Ministers will then have three months to work out which regulations they want to keep and why.

Last week the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) released the results of an investigation into public attitudes and knowledge relating to biodiversity and the natural environment.

The results of the study reflect the answers given by 1,769 people who participated in face-to-face interviews in England during March 2011, and similar surveys conducted between the 2007-2011 period.

Questionnaire results revealed the following key points:

• In 2011 92% of respondents said it was fairly or very important for them to have public gardens, parks, commons or other green spaces nearby.
• 56% of respondents said they used public gardens parks, commons or other green spaces at least once a week.
• 48% of respondents reported knowing at least a little about biodiversity; a slight increase from 44 per cent in 2009.
• 78% of respondents when prompted agreed that they “worry about changes to the countryside in the UK and loss of native animals and plants”.
• 13% of respondents had volunteered with, given time to or taken part in conservation volunteering for an organisation or community group in the previous 12 months.

In terms of environmental knowledge, when people were questioned specifically on how much, they knew about ‘climate change’, ‘ecosystem services’, and ‘biodiversity’ 44% reported knowing a lot or a fair amount about climate change. Yet, 31% of respondents said they had never heard of the term ‘biodiversity’, and 28% of respondents said they had never heard of the term ‘ecosystem services’.

The release, despite indicating progress towards increased environmental awareness among members of the public, shows that there is still room for improvement of environmental education, particularly in relation to biodiversity and ecosystem services.

That was the overall message from a lecture last night by Peter Bridgewater, at the Linnean Society. Peter Bridgewater, Chair of the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) has a long and distinguished career in international policy, providing support to a great many international conventions concerned with biodiversity. During his fascinating presentation, entitled ‘Seeing REDD: Science, Policy and Politics in Biodiversity and Climate Change’, Peter reflected on many years of negotiations and deliberations regarding environmental issues. Peter illustrated how governments, and the societies they represent, seem to be repeating themselves through endless deliberations, taking far too little action to tackle the threats to ecosystem integrity, and human well-being, which climate change and biodiversity loss pose.

Peter provided an overview of the development of the very many conventions which concern biodiversity. Prior to 1972, very few governments had environment ministries, he said, but 1972 saw the first major environmental conference, bringing together Heads of State. This was followed twenty years later by the World Conference on Environment and Development, in Rio de Janeiro (1992), which saw the drafting of major conventions, including the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The 2002 Conference of the Parties (COP) to the CBD in Johannesburg then agreed the 2010 target, to significantly reduce rates of biodiversity loss, whilst the ‘Rio + 20′ event in 2012 will once again discuss biodiversity issues. Peter’s point was that rather than being like ‘the hare and the tortoise’, with governments slowly making progress, they were in fact like ‘hamsters in a wheel’, running round and round, achieving little.

This point was illustrated most vividly by the recent climate change negotiations in Bangkok, which concluded on 8th April, in preparation for the COP to the UNFCCC in Durban at the end of this year. After days of deliberations, negotatiators reached a decision at the very last minute on the final day, agreeing ‘an agenda to lay the foundations for agreements at the annual meeting’. The run up to the COP on the UNFCCC in Cancun (2010) was equally inconclusive. Sub-groups met in Bonn, in June and August, and in Tianjin later in the year. At the June meeting in Bonn, attended by 2900 people, the Aliiance of Small Island States requested a technical paper on how global average temperatures could be limited to two degrees centrigrade. This was opposed by oil-rich states and no conclusion was eventually reached. Similarly, no conclusion was reached at the second meeting in Bonn, attended by 1650 people. An official at the meeting in Tianjin (2500 people in attendance) commented that this meeting ‘got us closer to a structured set of decisions to be discussed in Cancun….[including a decision on] what may need to be left until later’.

As well as failing to demonstrate significant progress, international conventions on biodiversity and climate change also currently lack synergy – which is a fundamental flaw. The first UN General Assembly meeting at Head of State level on biodiversity took place last year. One of the conclusions from this meeting was the need for biodiversity, forest degradation and climate change to be tackled together, with greater cohesion between the CBD, the UN Forum on Forests and the UNFCCC. However, the meeting also declared that biodiversity loss caused by climate change should be addressed through the UNFCCC, illustrating the disconnect which currently exists between these conventions.

Peter suggested that the outputs from the 2010 Nagoya COP meeting on the CBD did offer some cause for optimism. The CBD Strategy had been agreed, with 20 headline targets, whilst clear steps had also been outlined to increase the co-operation between all of the environment (Rio) conventions in advance of the ‘Rio + 20′ meeting. The meeting had also affirmed the role of the CBD in reducing emissions through the REDD+ mechanism (Reducing Emissions through Deforestation and Carbon Degradation, where the ‘+’ represents biodiversity conservation). Peter expressed concerns about REDD+ however, as much of the funding would flow to countries where governance was not as it should be, making it hard to assure that logging of forests would cease in return for payment to these nations. Peter also outlined concerns expressed by an Indian delegation to the Nagoya COP, that by monetising forests governments would become a primary stakeholder in their management, reducing the positive role of communities in forest protection.

Localism and community action was the key, Peter suggested, to tackling climate change and environmental degradation. Knowledge and responsibility must be put into the hands of those who have this knowledge and responsibility at the local level. In the context of the UK, Peter suggested that better management of existing protected areas should be a priority for action, with these patches managed with the guidance and assistance of local communities. We should not be afraid to manage for, not resist, change in our protected areas, and Peter suggested that the Ecosystem Approach, set out in the CBD, was the tool to allow us to do this. Amongst the twelve principles of the Ecosystem Approach are that the management objectives for protected areas/ our environment are a matter of societal choice; that management should be decentralised to the lowest level and that management must recognise that change is inevitable. The UK’s environment must be managed at a systems, not a species, level, recognising that protected areas are a major source of ecosystem services and that managing these sites better can promote ecological resilience.

Overall, Peter suggested, the role of people and communities over the next few years, to the culmination of the 2020 biodiversity targets, is to ‘keep governments honest’. People need to challenge governments to ensure that they are delivering on their commitments under the CBD, putting pressure on them from below to lead by example when at the negotiating table for international conventions. Governments are not ‘they’, but ‘us’; we put them there as our elected representatives and we have a duty and a responsibility to hold them to account for missing declared targets with respect to biodiversity and climate change, and to urge them to ’stop talking and start doing’. Regardless of decisions taken, or not, at the national and the international level, Peter made it clear that there is much that can be done at a local level to conserve biodiversity, and that it is all our responsibilities to make a start.

The European Nitrogen Assessment (ENA), a major new investigation, today released its findings revealing the environmental and economic cost of nitrogen pollution in Europe.

The ENA, conducted by over 200 international experts, estimated that nitrogen pollution is already costing Europeans up to £650 each every year – amounting to a total of £280 billion. This cost reflects the value of damage to essential services, (known as ‘ecosystem services’), such as climate regulation and the supply of clean water and air provided by healthy ecosystems that are rich in biodiversity.

For decades nitrogen fertiliser has been used to increase agricultural food production in order to meet rising demands and feed the planets growing human population. The use of nitrogen fertiliser to improve crop yields has however had negative environmental impacts. Much of the nitrogen pollution associated with agriculture is linked to its use as a fertiliser to produce crops used to feed livestock intended for meat production. As a result, large areas of forest are cleared each year to make space for soy beans grown to feed Europe’s chickens, cows and pigs.

In terms of climate, up to 60% of the economic cost of nitrogen damage is derived from fossil fuels burnt in order to generate energy and from transport (with the remiaing 40% coming from agriculture). Nitrogen fertilisers also cause the release of nitrous oxide, one of the fundamental green house gases responsible for global warming. Furthermore, nitrogen also contributes to air pollution with negative implications for human health, reducing life expectancy and causing problems such as asthma and cancer.

Despite this, there remains a great need to use nitrogen fertiliser, and demand for fossil fuel combustion. Consequently, there is now more than ever, a need to improve the efficiency of processes associated with nitrogen pollution so as not to cause unnecessary damage to the environment. The ENA report addresses these issues and suggests we minimise future damage by reducing fossil fuel emissions through investment in clean energy for homes and transport, and by reducing our demand for meat. The report discusses altering the western diet by decreasing meat consumption, in order to ease the environmental pressures associated with its production. Present figures show that in Europe people currently eat 70% more meat and diary products than required for a healthy diet and therefore reducing meat intake could be beneficial for both human health and the environment.

The report concludes that the overall costs of damage to the environment at the expense of nitrogen pollution far out-weigh the direct economic benefits of using nitrogen in agriculture alone. In light of these developments a move towards a more sustainable lifestyle by individuals, institutions and government is needed. Defra’s Chief Scientist, Professor Bob Watson, remained positive commenting that “things are going in the right direction, [the UK has reduced nitrous oxides by 60% since 1990] but we do need to move faster to avoid this environmental damage”.

Last week the University of Cambridge hosted the BES Annual Symposium, this year titled ‘Forests and Global Change’. The event was a huge success with 370 delegates attending the three day symposium which was called “the best symposium yet” by one of the speakers, Adrian Newton.

A number of experts gave presentations on the latest research into the effect a changing climate has on forest ecosystems, and what this might mean in the future. The talks covered a range of subjects from carbon storage to biodiversity conservation, and expanded on how we can implement action through the development of new strategies such as ‘Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation’ (REDD).

By bringing together so many experts to showcase this information it is hoped progress can be made towards the creation of an informed approach to climate change and its impact of forest ecosystems, and further help to bridge the gap between science and policy.