Environmentalists suspect environmental laws would be on the chopping block.
By Rakesh Agrawal
With a small majority of less than two percent, the UK citizens have decided to break free, free of supra-nationalism where a few thousands elites sitting at Brussels used to decide which economic, financial and environmental policies more than 500 million residents of 28 member countries would follow.
While, the world is feeling the aftershocks of this referendum, but that is confined to its economical and financial implications, but, little is said about its impacts on the European environment and British environmental policies.
When the UK joined the EU in 1973, it was known as the “dirty man of Europe” because of its sewage-infested waters and its high sulphur dioxide emissions and notorious fog which caused it to have the highest acid-rain levels on the continent. EU legislation has cleaned up the UK, although as a reluctant European, successive British governments often fought the rules in Brussels.
It must be pointed out that most EU environment and climate law would remain on the books because the directives have been implemented in national legislation. But the UK would be free to use its new-found freedom to scrap these laws if it wished, if the terms of its new relationship with the EU allowed it to do so. Environmentalists suspect environmental laws would be on the chopping block.
In the EU legislative process British government representatives and members of the European Parliament have often voted against increased environmental regulation, favoring a more laissez-faire approach as it resisted the protection directives, binding renewable energy targets and limits to pesticides that may cause harm to bees.
The EU has adopted such an environmental policy that has been a pioneer in showing how environmental responsibility and growth can be achieved together and it is probably the best example of a truly influential supranational organization that is actually helping the environment and the economy at the same time. The EU has been working under the aegis of the Fifth Program with a mission of sustainable growth. Its Cohesion Fund is the most effective tool to implement it that Fund was created in order to help the poorest members of the EU meet the costs of environmental and infrastructural developments and through this fund, member states can apply for money that will actually help them become more environmentally sound. It is the EU’s way of sharing the burden of creating clean development. Now, with Britain out of the EU, it will not get Cohesion Fund, which funds both environmental and infrastructural developments, meaning UK environment will be direly affected due to the resulting weakening of the British economy.
The second way, the EU has been positively affecting the environment is through green NGOs as they have always had a major impact on individual European countries, they are able to use the EU as a way to organize and voice their concerns on a supranational level. Now, when the UK is out, these NGOs will have a weaker say to regulate the environment in Britain.
Through its directives, the EU has proven that concern about the environment does not automatically negate economic growth as it takes a pragmatic approach to environmental sustainability that is not caught up in either the idealism of pure capitalism or in radical environmentalism. The EU has shown the way to other supranational organizations how to create a consensus over what should be done to keep our environment viable for generations to come. (See: http://web.stanford.edu/class/e297c/trade_environment/global/heurope.html)
In fact, the EU is considered by some to have the most extensive environmental laws of any international organization its environmental legislation addresses issues such as acid rain, the thinning of the ozone layer, air quality, noise pollution, waste and water pollution written in more than 500 Directives, Regulations and Decisions.
A few key directives such as the Water Framework Directive for water policy, aiming for rivers, lakes, ground and coastal waters to be, the Birds Directive and the Habitats Directive are pieces of European Union legislation for protection of biodiversity and natural habitats. These protections however only directly cover animals and plants; fungi and micro-organisms have no protection under European Union law.
Until now, the UK government has been required to put in place a host of policies with strict targets that can be legally enforced, and to provide regular publicly available reports upon its performance in relation to those targets.
And, now with mo such external force at work, the fragile environment of the British Isle, would be at a peril( See: Friends of the earth : https://www.foe.co.uk/sites/default/files/downloads/eu-referendum-environment-81600.pdf)
However, still not everything is lost as the UK could pursue membership of the European Economic Area (EEA), like Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein.
While, EEA members do not participate in Justice and Home Affairs, Common Foreign and Security Policy, the Common Agricultural Policy, and the Common Fisheries Policy, in order to gain preferential access to the EU market they do have to abide by the acquis communautaire–the rules and regulations governing the operation of the single market, including many environmental rules, but with some notable and important exceptions.
Although, the current government’s is known for its antipathy to environmental protection, it would still have to abide by many of the same EU environmental regulations that exist today, but the EEA environmental policies currently don’t follow the directives on bathing water, birds, habitats, and aspects of the water framework directive, consequently, membership of the EEA will mean that the UK government will no longer be bound by EU laws in these areas. As a result, in the UK, environmental protections would be weakened.