How the EU Treaty will impact on Environmental issues

I believe this Government has played a leading role in tackling climate change at home and abroad.  We were pivotal in securing the Kyoto Protocol and also launched with our European neighbours the world’s first international emissions trading scheme - the EU Emission Trading Scheme is the biggest environment policy in the world and, as Stern says, the heart of a future global carbon trading scheme.

Many environmental problems are best tackled at EU level: environmental degradation does not respect national borders and collective action is often the most effective and efficient way to tackle these issues, also ensuring a level playing field across the EU.  The Reform Treaty therefore, accurately reflects the importance now attached to this shared global challenge by EU governments.  It includes a specific reference to climate change: for the first time, climate change is recognised as an important strategic challenge and as a specific objective of EU policy (Art 174(l) TOFU) and demonstrates the EU’s ambition to lead the way towards becoming the world’s first high growth, secure, low carbon, competitive economy. 

The EU has demonstrated global leadership in tackling climate change by agreeing in March 2007 an ambitious package of measures that will address greenhouse gas emissions and ensure energy security for EU citizens.  These include, a unilateral reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of 20% by 2020 – rising to 30% in the context of an international agreement, the EU Emissions Trading Scheme and the future deployment of low carbon technologies such as Carbon Capture and Storage through EU demonstration, a series of EU Directives to control and monitor levels of air pollutants to ensure improvements to human health and the protection of vegetation and ecosystems.

Other important factors of cohesive EU action include; higher standards of pollution control, air and water quality, biodiversity protection and waste control.  Environmental safeguards written into a wide range of goods and products traded within the EU single market and with the rest of the world (e.g. cars, electrical goods, chemicals, agricultural products and, importantly, the ability to join EU partners in tackling global environmental issues together with a force and influence we could not achieve acting alone (e.g. climate change, biodiversity loss, marine pollution).

The UK has had a big impact on delivering these benefits.  In 1998 the UK Government, as Presidency, led the EU in driving through the historic Kyoto agreement which remains a crucial part of the agenda for concerted global action to control dangerous climate change.  Indeed, as a result of the Kyoto agreement we have seen many positive changes although it goes without saying we need to do more.  The changes include; peak ozone concentrations - the main component of summer smog and responsible for an estimated 800 deaths in the UK during the 2003 heat wave 
of acid rain) have reduced from 6,500 kilo tonnes in 1997 to just over 1,000 kilo tonnes now (2005), a reduction of 85% since 1970.  UK beaches are now cleaner, with a record 99 per cent of UK bathing waters complying with the EU Bathing Water Directive's standards in 2006.

Although Britain has set the agenda on numerous other occasions, and continues to lead, we are pushing for further developments including the rolling of the European Emissions Trading Scheme into more sectors such as aviation.  We are also pushing for agreement on the protection of wildlife and biodiversity.  For example, in England, the Rural Development Programme (2007-2013) funds the Environmental Stewardship agri-environment scheme, launched in 2005.  It is open to all farmers at the entry level, while the higher level delivers specific environmental benefits in targeted areas. The scheme, together with the predecessor agri-environment schemes (Countryside Stewardship and Environmentally Sensitive Areas) have a budget of  £3.3 billion (compared to £1 billion in the previous programme) from an overall Programme budget of £3.9 billion, more than double that for 2000-2006.

Evidence shows that England’s best wildlife sites are improving and that past schemes had a positive impact. Today, there are approximately 4.8 million hectares in Environmental Stewardship (4.6 million ha in Entry Level Stewardship alone), compared to 700,000ha in agri-environment schemes in 1999. The subsequent changes in farming practices have created environmental improvements such as increases in previously declining farmland bird and other species, and conservation of important wildlife habitats such as ancient hay meadows. However, many of our wider landscapes are losing their ecological richness and distinctive character. Protecting and enhancing the natural environment outside designated areas is therefore a key challenge, which Environmental Stewardship, as a broadly based agri-environment scheme, can help to address.

I welcome wide debate on environment matters.  It is testament to the campaigning skills of groups such as Friends of the Earth and Christian Aid that these issues have become on of the most pressing concerns of governments worldwide.  I feel strongly that it is only through working together that we will be able to take the big decisions and changes that tackling climate change requires.  The EU Reform Bill has shown that when the EU works together, often with Britain at the fore, we can expect to see through unified action, a cohesive  strategy to tackle the threat of climate change.