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The St Martin In The Fields Seminar On The Rio 20 Agenda
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Book Synopsis The St Martin-In-the-Fields Seminar on the Rio+20 Agenda by : Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Environmental Audit Committee
Download or read book The St Martin-In-the-Fields Seminar on the Rio+20 Agenda written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Environmental Audit Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report is on the recent public debate on the Rio Earth Summit agenda, which took place at St Martin-in-the-Fields, London. The Secretary General of the UN has labelled the Rio+20 Conference as one of the most important conferences in the history of the United Nations. In not attending the Rio Earth Summit, the Prime Minister is sending out a powerful signal that the UK Government does not see sustainability as a priority. Public attention is understandably focused on the financial crisis, but we risk sleep walking into an even worse environmental crisis if world leaders cannot find a greener and cleaner way of developing our economies in future. It is down to us to find these solutions and to insist that our governments do so too. The Committee have produced a previous report on the Rio+20 agenda (HC 1026, session 2010-12, ISBN 9780215561954), and since then there has been a debate in the House of Commons on that report and the Government's response to it. The Committee intends to examine the outcomes of the Rio+20 Summit, and the action the UK will need to take, later in the year. That will provide an opportunity to review the way the Government approached the Summit and its role there. Key issues to be examined will be the extent to which the Government shows leadership at the Summit on the green economy agenda, and subsequently whether the Government revisits its 'Enabling the Transition strategy' to reflect the outcomes of the Summit.
Author :Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee Publisher :Stationery Office ISBN 13 :9780215058898 Total Pages :88 pages Book Rating :4.0/5 (588 download)
Book Synopsis Outcomes of the UN Rio+20 Earth Summit by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee
Download or read book Outcomes of the UN Rio+20 Earth Summit written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee and published by Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-06-14 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report highlights the commitments for the UK from the conclusions agreed in the 'Rio+20' Summit. It was regretted that the Deputy Prime Minister declined to give evidence. It was also regretted that the Prime Minister did not attend the Rio+20 Summit. His absence undermined the Government's attempts to demonstrate its commitment to the sustainable development agenda, not just internationally but also at home in the UK. The conclusions of the Summit itself disappointed many with a lack of concrete agreement on key areas. On the other hand, many welcomed the firm commitment to develop new Sustainable Development Goals. The development of the SDGs and the Post-2015 Development Goals should be carried out jointly. The Prime Minister should take advantage of his position as co-chair of that High Level Panel to continue to push for integration of sustainable development targets with poverty eradication and climate change targets. Permanent mechanisms should be established to continue engagement with a wider range of NGOs and businesses and examine the scope for introducing wider-ranging 'sustainability reporting' for the private sector. New Sustainable Development Indicators which will complement such Government reporting, will reflect our call for emissions Indicators to be on a consumption (rather than just a production) basis. The Summit included commitments on education and the Government should remind schools of the scope for addressing sustainable development in their learning plans. Alongside this report, the Committee's scrutiny of the Government's progress in embedding sustainable development in its own policies and programmes is also being published (HC 202, session 2013-14, ISBN 9780215058911)
Book Synopsis HC 885 - A 2010-15 Progress Report by : Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Environmental Audit Committee
Download or read book HC 885 - A 2010-15 Progress Report written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Environmental Audit Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2015 with total page 53 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis Measuring Well-being and Sustainable Development by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee
Download or read book Measuring Well-being and Sustainable Development written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-11-29 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The new Sustainable Development Indicators don't do enough to hold the Government to account for inequalities in the environment and in our communities, as well as the economic inequalities that have long been obvious. The Government should reconsider its proposal to drop the 'environmental equality' Sustainable Development Indicator and review each of the other proposed SDIs to see how they might capture the range of values for how they affect people's lives, not just the average. This report also criticises the lack of targets in the new indicator set, despite there already being binding targets elsewhere in some areas covered by the SDIs - for emissions, air pollution and renewable energy. The Government should instead use an indicator which reflects the extent to which public sector debt will be a burden rather than a boon for the next generation, such as Government bond rates. The 'natural resource use' indicator is also of concern because it would monitor both finite and renewable resources taken together, and potentially treat fossil fuels the same as other resources which need to be preserved for future generations to use. The revision of the SDIs is running in parallel with the 'Measuring National Well-being' initiative, set up by the Prime Minister in 2010 and being run by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The Committee identified some overlap between the two indicator frameworks which is likely to be unclear for the public and possibly also for policy-makers. A single framework is recommended
Book Synopsis Wildlife Crime by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee
Download or read book Wildlife Crime written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-10-18 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wildlife legislation has become so complex that prosecutions fail and even specialist enforcement professionals struggle to implement it effectively. Hundreds of birds of prey have been deliberately poisoned with substances such as carbofuran that have no legal use and the Government could easily make possession an offence. The lack of sentencing guidelines on wildlife offences means that some offenders are being neither punished nor deterred in the courts. The CPS is also failing to train its prosecutors to handle complex wildlife cases. Furthermore, the inflexible implementation in UK law of international agreements covering the trafficking of endangered species squanders limited resources. The Government has maintained funding for specialist wildlife crime investigation and enforcement, but this is provided on an ad hoc basis, reducing operational effectiveness. Funding provided to monitor wildlife crime on the internet was too short-term to attract a suitably qualified individual to fill the post. In 2004, the Committee called for a new database to record all wildlife crime but this has still not been introduced. Internationally, this report also examines how the rhino, tiger and elephant are being driven to extinction by growing demand for illegal wildlife products in south-east Asia and China. The Government needs to exert robust diplomatic pressure in favour of the development and enforcement of wildlife law at the next CITES meeting in March 2013. In particular, the Government should focus attention on the damaging effect of 'one-off' sales of impounded ivory, which has been found to actually fuel demand for ivory products, and seek an unequivocal international ban on all forms of ivory trade.
Book Synopsis Autumn Statement 2012 by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee
Download or read book Autumn Statement 2012 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-11-20 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Treasury led 'dash for gas' could make the UK's carbon targets under the Climate Change Act unachievable. The Committee is calling on the Government to restore investor confidence in the future direction of energy policy by setting a clear decarbonisation objective in the forthcoming Energy Bill to clean up the power sector by 2030. Ongoing policy uncertainty could mean that the UK loses out on millions of pounds of green investment. Global competition for green growth is fierce and the UK is competing with other countries to secure renewables investment. The Committee heard a variety of suggestions to boost take-up of energy efficiency measures in its inquiry on the Autumn Statement and received suggestions for new environmental taxes that could be implemented to help deliver the Coalition Agreement commitment to increase the proportion of tax revenues accounted for by environmental taxes
Book Synopsis House of Commons - Environmental Audit Committee: Sustainability - HC 613 by : Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Environmental Audit Committee
Download or read book House of Commons - Environmental Audit Committee: Sustainability - HC 613 written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Environmental Audit Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report examines how well new processes and systems for embedding sustainable development are working in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. This is the first report of its kind - examining an individual department in this way - by the Committee. It examines BIS performance against sustainable operations targets, the role of a 'Sustainability Champion' and a Sustainability Committee in BIS, and how well sustainability considerations are taken into account in policy-making case studies. These case studies included the Regional Growth Fund and the Industrial Strategies initiative. They found that overall the Department was delivering on their sustainable operations targets, although that was in part the result of reductions in staffing and the size of the BIS estate. On policy-making, however, analysis of specific case studies indicates that environmental and social aspects of sustainability are not getting the same attention as economic factors. The assessment process needs to be reformed to do so. Defra and the Cabinet Office should challenge other government departments which have similar grant schemes to do the same. They are also disconnected from the BIS Business Plan process, weakening the main vehicle by which Defra and the Cabinet Office challenge the sustainability-proofing of BIS policy-making. BIS, including its agencies and NDPBs, should produce sustainable development strategies, to provide a reference point for sustainability initiatives by senior management and the sustainability champion, and to allow all staff to readily understand the wider sustainable development imperatives
Book Synopsis HS2 and the Environment - HC 1076 by : Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Environmental Audit Committee
Download or read book HS2 and the Environment - HC 1076 written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Environmental Audit Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Government needs to show real commitment to dealing with the impact that HS2 will have on our countryside and wildlife. It is imperative that an infrastructure project on such a large scale implements proper environmental safeguards and ensures that impacts are minimised. That won't happen if HS2 Ltd can avoid implementing safeguards if they consider them to be 'impracticable' or 'unreasonable'. There needs to be a separate ring-fenced budget for these safeguards and for compensation, separate from the rest of the HS2 budget, to prevent the environment being squeezed if HS2 costs grow. The Government's aim of 'no net biodiversity loss' on HS2 is not good enough - it should aim for environmental gains that the Government promised in its white paper on the Natural Environment. In any case, the Government can't demonstrate it will cause no net harm because it has still not surveyed 40% of the land to be used. Ancient woodland should be treated with particular care. HS2 will damage some woodlands, and where that happens, compensation measures should be much higher than the level indicated in the calculation that HS2 Ltd will use. The HS2 Hybrid Bill will be given its second reading on 28 April, after which it will be referred to a dedicated select committee to examine 'petitions' against it. The Committee criticises the procedure's failure to fully address the requirements of EU and national directives on environmental assessments, which it wants to be at least partly rectified in the forthcoming Parliamentary proceedings
Book Synopsis House of Commons - Environmental Audit Committee: Biodiversity Ofsetting - HC 750 by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee
Download or read book House of Commons - Environmental Audit Committee: Biodiversity Ofsetting - HC 750 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-11-12 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Environmental Audit Committee reports that Government plans to introduce a system of 'biodiversity offsetting' for new building developments could enhance the way the planning system accounts for the damage done to valuable natural habitats, but the proposals must be improved to properly protect Britain's wildlife and woodlands. The Green Paper does not provide an evidence based analysis of how offsetting would deliver "biodiversity gain". The twenty minute assessment for calculating biodiversity losses at a site, proposed by Ministers, is also overly simplistic. It should include particular species, local habitat significance, ecosystem services provided - such as pollination and flood prevention - and 'ecosystem network' connectivity to reflect the full complexity of habitats. Sites of special scientific interest and ancient woodlands should be even more rigorously protected. A mandatory, rather than voluntary, offsetting system would allow more environmentally and economically viable offset projects to be brought forward. The report also warns of a danger that an offsetting market could produce many offsets of a similar, lowest-cost, type rather than a mixed range of habitats. Natural England should monitor schemes to ensure a balance of habitat types are covered in the offsets. It is also important to consider the implications of biodiversity offsetting for people's access to nature and well-being. A decision on the Government's offsetting proposals should not be made at this time. Offsetting pilots, set up in 2011, should be allowed to run their course and then be subjected to the independent evaluation previously promised by ministers.
Author :Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee Publisher :Stationery Office ISBN 13 :9780215059093 Total Pages :160 pages Book Rating :4.0/5 (59 download)
Book Synopsis Transport and accessibility to public services by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee
Download or read book Transport and accessibility to public services written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee and published by Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-06-24 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report looks at progress on improving accessibility since 2003 and ways of improving accessibility. Problems with transport provision and the location of services can reinforce social exclusion by preventing people from accessing key local services and undermines government policies to tackle worklessness, increase participation in education, reduce crime and narrow health inequalities. Insufficient progress has been made since the 2003 Social Exclusion Unit's Making the Connections report, many findings of which are relevant today. There is evidence that accessibility is worsening, driven by tight budgets in central and local government. Accessibility statistics show travel times to key services steadily increasing over time, particularly for access to hospitals. The Department for Transport needs to focus more closely on improving accessibility as well as on supporting the economy. Existing transport funding could be better coordinated and directed to 'accessibility'-focused initiatives, which will have a swifter impact on people's well-being than large infrastructure projects. The social value of transport and accessibility needs to be explicitly considered in policy-making and in the planning system and should no longer be seen as a second-order criterion.The Committee believes it will take time for any improvements to make a noticeable difference. Their recommendations focus on improving how government operates rather than funding. Central government cannot abdicate its role in coordinating action across departmental silos and helping local authorities and service providers to share best practice. Accessibility planning, introduced by Making the Connections, has had limited success and needs to be re-energised.
Book Synopsis Energy Intensive Industries Compensation Scheme by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee
Download or read book Energy Intensive Industries Compensation Scheme written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-01-04 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Environmental Audit Committee believes the Government's £250 million compensation scheme to help energy intensive companies with the cost of carbon must be tightened up to avoid over-compensating large companies already profiting from the over allocation of EU Emissions Trading System allowances. The Committee scrutinised the Government's proposal for a compensation scheme to help offset some of the future electricity price rises that energy intensive industries will face as a result of the EU Emissions Trading System and the Government's Carbon Price Floor. Across Europe a large surplus of emission allowances in the EU Emissions Trading System worth 4.1 billion Euros had been accrued by large industrial companies as a result of pre-recession overly optimistic forecasts of growth and fierce lobbying by heavy industry. Sales of these allowances had already raised 1.8 billion Euros for these companies. In the UK, the Government's proposed rules do not take the value of these excess allowances into account when calculating compensation. The Committee also calls for an energy intensive industries strategy, as part of a wider UK manufacturing strategy, to set out a path for their maximum feasible decarbonisation and help guide and support companies to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels. Such a strategy should identify by how much these industries can feasibly decarbonise and improve their energy efficiency and how the Government will help to ensure that this is achieved, including through energy consumption reduction measures and incentives, and support for innovation, technological research, development and investment.
Book Synopsis HC 215 - An Environmental Scorecard by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee
Download or read book HC 215 - An Environmental Scorecard written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014-09-16 with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Emissions of a number of airborne pollutants increased in 2013, after being steady between 2010 and 2012 and in a longer term decline before that. The UK failed to meet targets for nitrogen dioxide pollution in 34 of the 43 zones specified in the EU Ambient Air Quality Directive in 2012, resulting in the European Commission launching infraction proceedings against the UK in February 2014 in regard to 16 zones that would not be compliant by 2015. The Committee's report recommends an overarching Environmental Strategy be implemented, to set out strategic principles and good practices; facilitate discussion between central and local government and identify how they can work together and with the wider community; encompass clear environmental assessments; identify work required to fill data gaps in assessments; map appropriate policy levers to environmental areas; and set out how environmental and equality considerations will be addressed in policy areas across Government. The report concludes that the Government should set up an independent body-an 'Office for Environmental Responsibility'-to (i) review the Environment Strategy we advocate; (ii) advise Government on appropriate targets; (iii) advise Government on policies, both those in Government programmes and new ones that could be brought forward to support the environment; (iv) advise Government about the adequacy of the resources (in both central and local government) made available for delivering the Strategy; and (v) monitor and publish performance against the Strategy and its targets.
Book Synopsis House of Commons - Environmental Audit Office: Progress on Carbon Budgets - HC 60 by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee
Download or read book House of Commons - Environmental Audit Office: Progress on Carbon Budgets - HC 60 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-10-08 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The UK's existing carbon budgets represent the minimum level of emissions reduction required to avoid a global 2 degrees temperature rise - regarded as a dangerous threshold - and the UK's leading climate scientists do not believe loosening the budgets is warranted. The current (2008-2012) and second (2013-2017) carbon budgets will be easily met because of the recession. But the UK is not on track to meet the third (2018-22) and fourth budgets (2023-2027), because not enough progress is being made in decarbonising transport, buildings and heat production. The Government's Carbon Plan - which set milestones for five key Government Departments to cut carbon - is out of date without any quarterly progress reports published yet. The Green Deal has also had low take-up rates so far. The Government should set a 2030 decarbonisation target for the power sector now, rather than in 2016 as the Energy Bill sets out. The Government should also reconsider placing a statutory duty on local authorities to produce low-carbon plans for their area. The current low-carbon price in the EU ETS - the result of the economic downturn of recent years and over-allocation of emissions permits - also means that that scheme will not deliver the emissions reductions envisaged when the fourth carbon budget was set. Without any tightening of the EU ETS increased pressure will therefore be placed on the non-traded sector, which will have to produce further emissions reductions to cover the emerging gap left by the traded sector
Book Synopsis Invasive Non-Native Species - HC 913 by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee
Download or read book Invasive Non-Native Species - HC 913 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014-04-16 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Invasive species, such as Japanese Knotweed, the Oak Processionary Moth, the Ruddy Duck and Zebra Mussels, can have detrimental effects on the native species they supplant, as well as on human health and business. The Environmental Audit Committee is calling on the Government to revamp the system for controlling invasive species in England and Wales. Current Wildlife legislation has never been used to prosecute anyone and is unlikely to provide the level of protection now needed. Better prevention, surveillance, monitoring, eradication and long-term control measures are all needed in the fight against invasive species. The Government currently has no formal surveillance system in place to trigger action to ensure early eradication. Defra needs to develop a surveillance system that integrates voluntary wildlife recording with professional monitoring and identification. The current system of "listing" species to be monitored and controlled is too slow. The Government must implement legal changes recommended by the Law Commission and replicate the Scottish system of species control orders to provide a mechanism for eradicating invasive species before they become established. Species on the existing national lists that are already well established here should be reviewed, according to the Committee. Where habitats cannot be restored or biodiversity protected, the invasive species should be removed from the list and control measures re-evaluated.
Book Synopsis HC 59 - Well-Being - HC 59 by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee
Download or read book HC 59 - Well-Being - HC 59 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014-06-05 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Government's ’Natural Capital Committee', set up to check how far the Government bases its policies on the cost the benefits the UK derives from its natural environment - such as clean air, water, food and recreation - should be put on a permanent statutory footing, the Environmental Audit Committee recommends. The NCC was set up in May 2012 with a three-year remit that ends just before the General Election. It has produced 2 progress reports so far, highlighting gaps in the available data on these factors and calling for a 25-year plan to plug the gaps and start using the information in Government decisions. But the Government has yet to respond in detail to those NCC reports. The environment is just one strand of a wider view of people's well-being, which also addresses people's economic and social circumstances, as well as their view of the satisfaction they get from their lives. In November 2010, the Prime Minister launched a programme to measure well-being to complement economic statistics like ’GDP' in - "measuring our progress as a country". However, more than three years since then, the Committee note, our quality of life is not yet receiving the same attention as those economic metrics. The Committee highlight the links being uncovered in the statistics between people's view of their well-being and their background and circumstances - for example the link between well-being and people's health, marital status or religion. But the MPs warn that the data are not yet sufficiently robust to support a single metric that could encompass well-being and which could be set alongside GDP.
Book Synopsis Protecting the Arctic by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee
Download or read book Protecting the Arctic written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-09-20 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report calls for a halt on Arctic oil drilling until: a pan-Arctic oil spill response standard is in place; a stricter financial liability regime for oil and gas operations is introduced that requires companies to prove that they can meet the costs of cleaning up; an oil and gas industry group is set up to peer-review companies' spill response plans and operating practices, reporting publicly; further independent research and testing on oil spill response techniques in Arctic conditions is conducted, including an assessment of their environmental side-effects; an internationally recognised environmental sanctuary is established in at least part of the Arctic. Drilling is only currently feasible in the Arctic during a short summer window and if a blow-out occurred just before the dark Arctic winter returned it may not be possible to cap it until the following summer - potentially leaving oil spewing out under the ice for six months or more with devastating consequences for wildlife. This report also warns that a collapse in summer Arctic sea-ice, increased methane emissions from thawing permafrost, melting of the Greenland ice-sheet and changes to the thermo-haline circulation could all have disastrous consequences for the world - pushing up sea levels and transforming weather patterns. Temperature rises in the Arctic are already affecting the UK's weather. The report points out that there are already more proven fossil fuel reserves in the world than can be burnt safely and calls on the Government to rethink its approach to combating climate change by tackling the supply of fossil fuels, as well as demand
Book Synopsis Pollinators and Pesticides by : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee
Download or read book Pollinators and Pesticides written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-04-05 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If farmers had to pollinate fruit and vegetables without the help of insects it would cost hundreds of millions of pounds and we would all be stung by rising food prices. Defra Ministers, however, have refused to back EU efforts to protect pollinators. Disease, habitat loss and climate change can all affect insect populations, but a growing body of research suggests that neonicotinoids are having an especially damaging impact on pollinators. The weight of scientific evidence now warrants precautionary action, so the Committee is calling for a moratorium on pesticides linked to bee decline to be introduced by 1 January next year. An EU-wide moratorium on the use of imidacloprid, clothianidin and TMX on crops attractive to bees, following a recent risk warning from the European Food Safety Authority, has also been proposed. Many of the UK's largest garden retailers have voluntarily withdrawn non-professional plant protection products that contain neonicotinoids. A full ban on the sale of neonicotinoids for public domestic use, which could create an urban safe haven for pollinators is recommended. The pesticide industry must open itself to greater academic scrutiny if it wants to justify its continued opposition to the precautionary protection of pollinators. The Government's National Action Plan for the Sustainable Use of Pesticides published earlier this year was a missed opportunity, according to the Committee. Clearer targets are needed to reduce reliance on pesticides as far as possible. And Integrated Pest Management - which emphasises alternatives to pesticides, but does not preclude their use - should be made the central principle of the plan.
