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Here’s a statistic worth dwelling on: at least 80,000 lives a year have been saved because of the higher air quality standards imposed by the EU, often in the teeth of strong opposition from individual Member States. In my personal view, it’s that sort of insight that makes the vast majority of…

No sooner had I finished off the blog posted earlier today, than I heard from Friends of the Earth that the Charity Commission had decided to reissue its guidance to charities on campaigning around the EU Referendum. Instead of trying to bully them into remaining silent through the campaign, the…

Even for a sympathetic observer from the UK, the politics of climate change in Australia is, to say the least, vexatious. But it’s now entering a more critical phase than ever before. The mismatch between the conclusions of the Paris Agreement in December last year and the failure of Australia’s…

Predictably, the Referendum campaign so far has been much more about instinct than it has about reasoned debate. And that’s true in the environment space as much as anywhere else. Which is why we can all welcome a really helpful new report from the Institute for European Environmental Policy…

So, a deal (of sorts) has been done, Cameron is claiming an historic victory, and the date for the Referendum is set: June 23rd. This is where the real work starts – especially for environmentalists who are only too aware of the fact that, as yet, the environment hasn’t even made it onto the…

Here’s something telling: for the first time (as far as I can remember) the UK did not have a presence at the World Future Energy Summit. China, Japan, Germany, France, South Korea, Italy – all present and correct. But no trace of the UK. There’s both realism and symbolism wrapped up in that little…