Geoengineering is a concept that can raise some eyebrows. Environmental scientists either love it or loathe it, and the application of large-scale engineered solutions to environmental problems have so far proven largely unpredictable – nature doesn’t always respond the way scientists expect. 

Nevertheless, geoengineering still offers what other branches of science don’t – large-scale potential solutions to global climate system problems. In this case, that problem is sea-level rise, which is influenced by glacial sea-ice melt. 

Even if we hit all the targets of the Paris Agreement, sea level will still increase because the heat caused by global warming to date can be stored in water for much longer than in air. Warm water will heat the bottoms of ice shelves, which will cause more sea-ice melt, which will contribute to sea-level rise. 

Thinking the unthinkable 

As Professor Jonathan Bamber, president of the European Geosciences Union, said: “Present-day sea level rise is about 3mm a year and it keeps accelerating. Even if we cut greenhouse gas emissions to zero tomorrow, we’re committed to some sea level rise, because of inertia in the oceans, glaciers, ice caps and the whole climate system.”

Lead researchers Michael Wolovick and John Moore decided to investigate the potential for glacial geoengineering to prevent sea-ice melt. Moore,  a scientist at Beijing Normal University China and a professor of climate change at the University of Lapland, Finland, said: “Doing geoengineering means often considering the unthinkable.” 

The team examined two methods – the first was to build walls underwater, blocking warm water from reaching the ice shelf’s base and melting it, and the second approach involved constructing artificial mounds on the seafloor to prop up the glacier, and help it to regrow. 

The researchers conducted the study with computer models, and based their modelling on the Thwaites glacier, which is projected to be the largest individual source of future sea-level rise. The idea was that by basing their study on one of the most challenging glaciers in the world, the researchers could reasonably expect it to work on most others. 

Their results have been astonishingly encouraging – they found that a small underwater wall blocking about half of all warm water from reaching the ice shelf base was 70 percent likely to succeed, and large walls would be even more likely to delay or even stop ice-sheet collapse completely.

Diverse consequences 

Even the smallest intervention tested – the building of isolated 300-metre-high mounds or columns on the seafloor, had a 30 percent probability of preventing a runaway collapse of the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet for the foreseeable future, according to the models. 

Although the wall is more effective, other constraints could mean that the mounds are more practical in some instances, according to Moore. He said: “There is a trade off in the 2 designs, the long wall is more likely to succeed in stopping ice sheet collapse than the simple pinning points. But it requires a much larger volume of material to construct, so it’s much more difficult, and presumably a higher risk of potential accidents during construction.”

While geoengineering could be an effective tool to prevent sea-ice collapse, the researchers say that reducing greenhouse gases is still the most vital part of the fight against climate change. The solution proposed by the team would limit sea-level rise caused by glacial ice melt, but would not have an effect on other harmful consequences of climate change, such as ocean acidification, floods, droughts and heat waves. 

In the past, scientists have tried out geoengineering solutions that have affected the ecological balance and the environment around, but it is unlikely that the glacial walls will have those kinds of effects. In any case, glacial ice collapse is likely to cause even more disruption to ecosystems and the environment, according to Moore. More analysis is needed, but it is likely that the impacts would probably be localised because the aim would be to preserve the glaciers as close to their current form as possible. 

Moor said: “This is quite different from ideas such as iron fertilization or stratospheric aerosol injection which add new material and reactions to the global environmental system. If the glacier collapses – which it is very likely to do under greenhouse gas warming – then the local changes in oceanic environment and ecology would be far greater, as also would be the global consequences from the rising seas affecting coastal wetlands, agriculture and cities.” 

This Author 

Catherine Collins writes on marine and environmental issues. She has a BSc in marine science and an MA in journalism. You can read more of her work here. 

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an international body of practicing scientists who are experts in their field, has gathered in Incheon, Republic of Korea, where they will launch the UN Special Report on 1.5°C (SR1.5).

The UN Report on 1.5° forms a major scientific undertaking, compiling all the latest climate change research in one single document spanning over 800 pages. It will inform policy makers and global leaders of the impacts their policy decisions will have on global warming and sustainable development.

Behind Paris

“At the time the Paris Agreement was decided on, there was not yet so much scientific knowledge of what the 1.5° limit – the Paris goal of keeping global warming below 1.5° of average global warming – actually means,”Jonathan Lynn, head of communications at the IPCC explains to me.

The Paris Agreement, created in 2015 and due to be implemented from 2020 onward, sets a long-term goal of holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5 °C.

“Global Leaders at the Paris summit then tasked the IPCC to compile a report of all known science on the global impacts that the warming of 1.5° compared to 2°C would have on the world,” Lynn clarifies.

The 1.5° report describes the impacts of global warming on natural and human systems, but also includes research on the different pathways necessary to mitigate the causes of climate change, as well as the effects of global warming on sustainable development, poverty eradication and reducing inequalities.

Overdue warnings

“Scientists have been warning us for years that we can expect to see more extreme weather with climate change. The heat waves, wildfires, and heavy rainfall events of recent months all over the world underscore these warnings,” Hoesung Lee, the chair of the IPCC, declared at the opening on the one-week gathering in the Republic of Korea.

“Science alerts us to the gravity of the situation, but science also, and this special report in particular, helps us understand the solutions available to us,” Lee explained.

At the meeting this week in the Republic of Korea, representatives of the IPCC’s 195 members governments will agree to a Summary for Policymakers (SPM) that will accompany the full report. Both the summary and full report will be made publicly available on Monday October 8.

“Overall, it is essential that the report is approved at the session in Korea and not blocked by countries hoping to undermine rapid climate action,” Sven Harmeling from CARE International wrote in a piece for Reuters. “It has been a tremendous scientific exercise, triggering and processing a wave of new findings.”

The 1.5° report will feed into decisions made at the upcoming UN climate summit in Poland (COP24), this December. Many environmental organisations hope the science report will activate political commitments for stronger climate targets by 2020.

This Author

Arthur Wyns is an external scientific reviewer for the IPCC Special Report on 1.5°. He is the program manager of Climate Tracker, an organisation supporting environmental journalists worldwide to bring climate change into their national debates. He tweets from @ArthurWyns

ExxonMobil and other industry hardliners came together in 1998 to create an “Action Plan” to combat America’s growing fondness for fighting climate change. 

This plan would provide a blueprint for undermining the climate movement over the next four years.

But, the environmentalists were also well-organised. Having bought shares in ExxonMobil, they attended the corporation’s first annual meeting, held in Dallas in May 2000, and used it as a platform to attack Exxon boss Lee Raymond and the corporation’s policies.

Convincing evidence

When one activist shouted for a “long-term solution to global warming”, applause ripped through the room. Raymond, infuriated, let rip.

Reading from a petition apparently signed by 17,000 scientists, he railed: “There is no convincing scientific evidence that any release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will in the foreseeable future cause catastrophic heating of the earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the earth’s climate.”

Continuing in his own words, “I’m not saying you’re wrong. What I am saying is there is a substantial difference of view in the scientific community as to what exactly is going on.”

Raymond was not going to be put off by the activists. 2000 was a big year for the corporation as the US election cycle started, pitting industry insider George W Bush against environmentalist Al Gore.

Election funding

It was a chance for the corporation to be free of the threat of the Democrats’ regulatory ambitions, and so the funding of denial organisations continued to increase.

As Greenpeace’s ExxonSecrets project has documented, between 1998 and 2010, ExxonMobil spent nearly $25 million funding climate denier groups.

The move to disinformation would prove a defining issue of ExxonMobil’s strategy and influence throughout the first Bush term.

This Author

Brendan Montague is editor of The Ecologist, founder of Request Initiative and co-author of Impact of Market Forces on Addictive Substances and Behaviours: The web of influence of addictive industries (Oxford University Press). He tweets at @EcoMontague. This article first appeared at Desmog.uk.

The government has quietly abandoned efforts to meet a longstanding target to improve England’s most important wildlife sites, according to a leaked document seen by Unearthed.

The document also warns that Natural England, the government’s nature regulator, is too stretched to prevent “further human-induced extinctions of known threatened species”.

The environment department (Defra) had an official target, set by the Coalition government in 2011, to conserve 50 percent of England’s sites of special scientific interest (SSSIs), by area, by 2020.

Conserved and enhanced

But a leaked internal Natural England action plan shows that the agency is actually working towards a target of ensuring 38.7 percent of SSSIs are in “favourable” condition – the top grade of the six-point scale Natural England uses to assess sites.

The new target is just 0.07 percent higher than the current level.

An insider at Natural England, which has faced significant budget cuts in recent years, told Unearthed they “would be surprised if we even meet that”.

Labour environment spokeswoman Sue Hayman described the news as “extremely concerning”, while the RSPB said the plan seems “desperately weak”.

The leaked plan, which was signed off by Defra, comes eight months after Theresa May launched the government’s 25 year environment plan, which pledged to ensure protected areas are “not only conserved but enhanced” and introduced a new target to conserve 75 percent of SSSIs within the lifetime of the plan.

This plan feels like the moment of impact between aspiration and reality

Commenting on the story a spokesperson for the government’s conservation watchdog said the agency had not reduced any targets – insisting these were set by central government.

A Natural England spokesperson told Unearthed: “We are working to meet our ambition of achieving 75 percent favourable condition on SSSIs as part of the 25 Year environment plan. We do not comment on leaked documents.”

Protected areas

The law requires the government to “further the conservation and enhancement” of SSSIs, under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000.

They protect England’s most important areas for biodiversity, from the Lake District to the Pennines to Exmoor. Unearthed has found parts of all of these areas that were recorded as being in “unfavourable” condition when they were last assessed. 

Natural England ranks sites as “favourable”, “unfavourable – recovering”, “unfavourable – no change”, “unfavourable – declining”, “partially destroyed” or “destroyed”.

But a source at Natural England told Unearthed the agency could even slide backwards on its target to conserve sites.

“We don’t really know what’s happening,” the insider said. “There is very little monitoring going on and when this is combined with little to no proactive management work, there is very little hope of any gains. We could go backwards on the the target but in reality we are unlikely to know as the site condition hasn’t been checked. It is pretty shocking.”

Three weeks ago, a parliamentary question from Caroline Lucas, co-leader of the Green party, revealed that almost half of England’s SSSIs have not been monitored in the last six years, as is required by national guidelines.

Labour’s Sue Hayman told Unearthed: “SSSIs protect our most precious natural environment. If ministers are serious about their green credentials, then they need to prioritise protecting our environment.”

Natural England’s budget has nearly halved in the past decade.  In 2017/18 it was £112m, down from £200m in 2006/7, its chairman Andrew Sells told parliament in December.

The agency has recently consulted on new plans to use local enforcement powers to crackdown on damaging activities on SSSIs.

Extinctions

The report lays out key risks that Natural England is facing, alongside measures that will be taken to combat them.

These include a “high” likelihood that “resources, and thus actions, are inadequate to meet the Biodiversity 2020 target to secure an overall improvement in the status of our wildlife and to prevent any further human-induced extinctions of known threatened species”.

The impact of this risk would be “high”, the document states.

Natural England’s plan to combat these risks is to “engage with partners to commit resources”, which could mean NGOs, businesses or other public bodies.

Matt Shardlow, CEO of nature charity Buglife, said this mitigation strategy “is not going to be enough to halt and reverse the huge declines of biodiversity – ever, let alone by the global target of 2020.”

He told Unearthed: “This plan feels like the moment of impact between aspiration and reality.  The clear desire to leave the natural environment in a better condition than we inherited it rests uncomfortably askew atop a jagged heap of colliding aims and financial realities.”

More than one in ten of the UK’s wildlife species is threatened with extinction, making it “among the most nature depleted countries in the world”, according to a major report published in 2016. Atlantic puffins, European turtle doves and wildcats are among the species at risk of extinction in the UK.

Planning

Natural England’s role advising on planning proposals and wildlife licences, which permit culling, disturbance or handling of species, also looks set to change.

The report warns of a high risk that “turn around targets” for this work will be missed.

In response the agency will bring in the “introduction and expansion of chargeable services” – presumably for licences and permits – and “continue to work on longer term reforms” and standardise its responses to casework.

The RSPB, the country’s largest conservation charity, said that standardised responses could be “a useful tool to speed up consenting processes or pose a very real threat to wildlife, depending on how they are used.”

It could also lead to increased charges, less robust advice and leave some unable to pay for it, they said.

Chris Corrigan, RSPB’s director for England, told Unearthed: “Gove and May both signed up to an ambition to leave the environment in a better state than they found it and there was great ambition in the 25 year environment plan.

“But here for the first time there is something tangible that shows how the government is implementing that vision – and it all feels desperately weak.”

This Article

This article first appeared at Unearthed, from Greenpeace.

The government has quietly abandoned efforts to meet a longstanding target to improve England’s most important wildlife sites, according to a leaked document seen by Unearthed.

The document also warns that Natural England, the government’s nature regulator, is too stretched to prevent “further human-induced extinctions of known threatened species”.

The environment department (Defra) had an official target, set by the Coalition government in 2011, to conserve 50 percent of England’s sites of special scientific interest (SSSIs), by area, by 2020.

Conserved and enhanced

But a leaked internal Natural England action plan shows that the agency is actually working towards a target of ensuring 38.7 percent of SSSIs are in “favourable” condition – the top grade of the six-point scale Natural England uses to assess sites.

The new target is just 0.07 percent higher than the current level.

An insider at Natural England, which has faced significant budget cuts in recent years, told Unearthed they “would be surprised if we even meet that”.

Labour environment spokeswoman Sue Hayman described the news as “extremely concerning”, while the RSPB said the plan seems “desperately weak”.

The leaked plan, which was signed off by Defra, comes eight months after Theresa May launched the government’s 25 year environment plan, which pledged to ensure protected areas are “not only conserved but enhanced” and introduced a new target to conserve 75 percent of SSSIs within the lifetime of the plan.

This plan feels like the moment of impact between aspiration and reality

Commenting on the story a spokesperson for the government’s conservation watchdog said the agency had not reduced any targets – insisting these were set by central government.

A Natural England spokesperson told Unearthed: “We are working to meet our ambition of achieving 75 percent favourable condition on SSSIs as part of the 25 Year environment plan. We do not comment on leaked documents.”

Protected areas

The law requires the government to “further the conservation and enhancement” of SSSIs, under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000.

They protect England’s most important areas for biodiversity, from the Lake District to the Pennines to Exmoor. Unearthed has found parts of all of these areas that were recorded as being in “unfavourable” condition when they were last assessed. 

Natural England ranks sites as “favourable”, “unfavourable – recovering”, “unfavourable – no change”, “unfavourable – declining”, “partially destroyed” or “destroyed”.

But a source at Natural England told Unearthed the agency could even slide backwards on its target to conserve sites.

“We don’t really know what’s happening,” the insider said. “There is very little monitoring going on and when this is combined with little to no proactive management work, there is very little hope of any gains. We could go backwards on the the target but in reality we are unlikely to know as the site condition hasn’t been checked. It is pretty shocking.”

Three weeks ago, a parliamentary question from Caroline Lucas, co-leader of the Green party, revealed that almost half of England’s SSSIs have not been monitored in the last six years, as is required by national guidelines.

Labour’s Sue Hayman told Unearthed: “SSSIs protect our most precious natural environment. If ministers are serious about their green credentials, then they need to prioritise protecting our environment.”

Natural England’s budget has nearly halved in the past decade.  In 2017/18 it was £112m, down from £200m in 2006/7, its chairman Andrew Sells told parliament in December.

The agency has recently consulted on new plans to use local enforcement powers to crackdown on damaging activities on SSSIs.

Extinctions

The report lays out key risks that Natural England is facing, alongside measures that will be taken to combat them.

These include a “high” likelihood that “resources, and thus actions, are inadequate to meet the Biodiversity 2020 target to secure an overall improvement in the status of our wildlife and to prevent any further human-induced extinctions of known threatened species”.

The impact of this risk would be “high”, the document states.

Natural England’s plan to combat these risks is to “engage with partners to commit resources”, which could mean NGOs, businesses or other public bodies.

Matt Shardlow, CEO of nature charity Buglife, said this mitigation strategy “is not going to be enough to halt and reverse the huge declines of biodiversity – ever, let alone by the global target of 2020.”

He told Unearthed: “This plan feels like the moment of impact between aspiration and reality.  The clear desire to leave the natural environment in a better condition than we inherited it rests uncomfortably askew atop a jagged heap of colliding aims and financial realities.”

More than one in ten of the UK’s wildlife species is threatened with extinction, making it “among the most nature depleted countries in the world”, according to a major report published in 2016. Atlantic puffins, European turtle doves and wildcats are among the species at risk of extinction in the UK.

Planning

Natural England’s role advising on planning proposals and wildlife licences, which permit culling, disturbance or handling of species, also looks set to change.

The report warns of a high risk that “turn around targets” for this work will be missed.

In response the agency will bring in the “introduction and expansion of chargeable services” – presumably for licences and permits – and “continue to work on longer term reforms” and standardise its responses to casework.

The RSPB, the country’s largest conservation charity, said that standardised responses could be “a useful tool to speed up consenting processes or pose a very real threat to wildlife, depending on how they are used.”

It could also lead to increased charges, less robust advice and leave some unable to pay for it, they said.

Chris Corrigan, RSPB’s director for England, told Unearthed: “Gove and May both signed up to an ambition to leave the environment in a better state than they found it and there was great ambition in the 25 year environment plan.

“But here for the first time there is something tangible that shows how the government is implementing that vision – and it all feels desperately weak.”

This Article

This article first appeared at Unearthed, from Greenpeace.

The government has quietly abandoned efforts to meet a longstanding target to improve England’s most important wildlife sites, according to a leaked document seen by Unearthed.

The document also warns that Natural England, the government’s nature regulator, is too stretched to prevent “further human-induced extinctions of known threatened species”.

The environment department (Defra) had an official target, set by the Coalition government in 2011, to conserve 50 percent of England’s sites of special scientific interest (SSSIs), by area, by 2020.

Conserved and enhanced

But a leaked internal Natural England action plan shows that the agency is actually working towards a target of ensuring 38.7 percent of SSSIs are in “favourable” condition – the top grade of the six-point scale Natural England uses to assess sites.

The new target is just 0.07 percent higher than the current level.

An insider at Natural England, which has faced significant budget cuts in recent years, told Unearthed they “would be surprised if we even meet that”.

Labour environment spokeswoman Sue Hayman described the news as “extremely concerning”, while the RSPB said the plan seems “desperately weak”.

The leaked plan, which was signed off by Defra, comes eight months after Theresa May launched the government’s 25 year environment plan, which pledged to ensure protected areas are “not only conserved but enhanced” and introduced a new target to conserve 75 percent of SSSIs within the lifetime of the plan.

This plan feels like the moment of impact between aspiration and reality

Commenting on the story a spokesperson for the government’s conservation watchdog said the agency had not reduced any targets – insisting these were set by central government.

A Natural England spokesperson told Unearthed: “We are working to meet our ambition of achieving 75 percent favourable condition on SSSIs as part of the 25 Year environment plan. We do not comment on leaked documents.”

Protected areas

The law requires the government to “further the conservation and enhancement” of SSSIs, under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000.

They protect England’s most important areas for biodiversity, from the Lake District to the Pennines to Exmoor. Unearthed has found parts of all of these areas that were recorded as being in “unfavourable” condition when they were last assessed. 

Natural England ranks sites as “favourable”, “unfavourable – recovering”, “unfavourable – no change”, “unfavourable – declining”, “partially destroyed” or “destroyed”.

But a source at Natural England told Unearthed the agency could even slide backwards on its target to conserve sites.

“We don’t really know what’s happening,” the insider said. “There is very little monitoring going on and when this is combined with little to no proactive management work, there is very little hope of any gains. We could go backwards on the the target but in reality we are unlikely to know as the site condition hasn’t been checked. It is pretty shocking.”

Three weeks ago, a parliamentary question from Caroline Lucas, co-leader of the Green party, revealed that almost half of England’s SSSIs have not been monitored in the last six years, as is required by national guidelines.

Labour’s Sue Hayman told Unearthed: “SSSIs protect our most precious natural environment. If ministers are serious about their green credentials, then they need to prioritise protecting our environment.”

Natural England’s budget has nearly halved in the past decade.  In 2017/18 it was £112m, down from £200m in 2006/7, its chairman Andrew Sells told parliament in December.

The agency has recently consulted on new plans to use local enforcement powers to crackdown on damaging activities on SSSIs.

Extinctions

The report lays out key risks that Natural England is facing, alongside measures that will be taken to combat them.

These include a “high” likelihood that “resources, and thus actions, are inadequate to meet the Biodiversity 2020 target to secure an overall improvement in the status of our wildlife and to prevent any further human-induced extinctions of known threatened species”.

The impact of this risk would be “high”, the document states.

Natural England’s plan to combat these risks is to “engage with partners to commit resources”, which could mean NGOs, businesses or other public bodies.

Matt Shardlow, CEO of nature charity Buglife, said this mitigation strategy “is not going to be enough to halt and reverse the huge declines of biodiversity – ever, let alone by the global target of 2020.”

He told Unearthed: “This plan feels like the moment of impact between aspiration and reality.  The clear desire to leave the natural environment in a better condition than we inherited it rests uncomfortably askew atop a jagged heap of colliding aims and financial realities.”

More than one in ten of the UK’s wildlife species is threatened with extinction, making it “among the most nature depleted countries in the world”, according to a major report published in 2016. Atlantic puffins, European turtle doves and wildcats are among the species at risk of extinction in the UK.

Planning

Natural England’s role advising on planning proposals and wildlife licences, which permit culling, disturbance or handling of species, also looks set to change.

The report warns of a high risk that “turn around targets” for this work will be missed.

In response the agency will bring in the “introduction and expansion of chargeable services” – presumably for licences and permits – and “continue to work on longer term reforms” and standardise its responses to casework.

The RSPB, the country’s largest conservation charity, said that standardised responses could be “a useful tool to speed up consenting processes or pose a very real threat to wildlife, depending on how they are used.”

It could also lead to increased charges, less robust advice and leave some unable to pay for it, they said.

Chris Corrigan, RSPB’s director for England, told Unearthed: “Gove and May both signed up to an ambition to leave the environment in a better state than they found it and there was great ambition in the 25 year environment plan.

“But here for the first time there is something tangible that shows how the government is implementing that vision – and it all feels desperately weak.”

This Article

This article first appeared at Unearthed, from Greenpeace.

The government has quietly abandoned efforts to meet a longstanding target to improve England’s most important wildlife sites, according to a leaked document seen by Unearthed.

The document also warns that Natural England, the government’s nature regulator, is too stretched to prevent “further human-induced extinctions of known threatened species”.

The environment department (Defra) had an official target, set by the Coalition government in 2011, to conserve 50 percent of England’s sites of special scientific interest (SSSIs), by area, by 2020.

Conserved and enhanced

But a leaked internal Natural England action plan shows that the agency is actually working towards a target of ensuring 38.7 percent of SSSIs are in “favourable” condition – the top grade of the six-point scale Natural England uses to assess sites.

The new target is just 0.07 percent higher than the current level.

An insider at Natural England, which has faced significant budget cuts in recent years, told Unearthed they “would be surprised if we even meet that”.

Labour environment spokeswoman Sue Hayman described the news as “extremely concerning”, while the RSPB said the plan seems “desperately weak”.

The leaked plan, which was signed off by Defra, comes eight months after Theresa May launched the government’s 25 year environment plan, which pledged to ensure protected areas are “not only conserved but enhanced” and introduced a new target to conserve 75 percent of SSSIs within the lifetime of the plan.

This plan feels like the moment of impact between aspiration and reality

Commenting on the story a spokesperson for the government’s conservation watchdog said the agency had not reduced any targets – insisting these were set by central government.

A Natural England spokesperson told Unearthed: “We are working to meet our ambition of achieving 75 percent favourable condition on SSSIs as part of the 25 Year environment plan. We do not comment on leaked documents.”

Protected areas

The law requires the government to “further the conservation and enhancement” of SSSIs, under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000.

They protect England’s most important areas for biodiversity, from the Lake District to the Pennines to Exmoor. Unearthed has found parts of all of these areas that were recorded as being in “unfavourable” condition when they were last assessed. 

Natural England ranks sites as “favourable”, “unfavourable – recovering”, “unfavourable – no change”, “unfavourable – declining”, “partially destroyed” or “destroyed”.

But a source at Natural England told Unearthed the agency could even slide backwards on its target to conserve sites.

“We don’t really know what’s happening,” the insider said. “There is very little monitoring going on and when this is combined with little to no proactive management work, there is very little hope of any gains. We could go backwards on the the target but in reality we are unlikely to know as the site condition hasn’t been checked. It is pretty shocking.”

Three weeks ago, a parliamentary question from Caroline Lucas, co-leader of the Green party, revealed that almost half of England’s SSSIs have not been monitored in the last six years, as is required by national guidelines.

Labour’s Sue Hayman told Unearthed: “SSSIs protect our most precious natural environment. If ministers are serious about their green credentials, then they need to prioritise protecting our environment.”

Natural England’s budget has nearly halved in the past decade.  In 2017/18 it was £112m, down from £200m in 2006/7, its chairman Andrew Sells told parliament in December.

The agency has recently consulted on new plans to use local enforcement powers to crackdown on damaging activities on SSSIs.

Extinctions

The report lays out key risks that Natural England is facing, alongside measures that will be taken to combat them.

These include a “high” likelihood that “resources, and thus actions, are inadequate to meet the Biodiversity 2020 target to secure an overall improvement in the status of our wildlife and to prevent any further human-induced extinctions of known threatened species”.

The impact of this risk would be “high”, the document states.

Natural England’s plan to combat these risks is to “engage with partners to commit resources”, which could mean NGOs, businesses or other public bodies.

Matt Shardlow, CEO of nature charity Buglife, said this mitigation strategy “is not going to be enough to halt and reverse the huge declines of biodiversity – ever, let alone by the global target of 2020.”

He told Unearthed: “This plan feels like the moment of impact between aspiration and reality.  The clear desire to leave the natural environment in a better condition than we inherited it rests uncomfortably askew atop a jagged heap of colliding aims and financial realities.”

More than one in ten of the UK’s wildlife species is threatened with extinction, making it “among the most nature depleted countries in the world”, according to a major report published in 2016. Atlantic puffins, European turtle doves and wildcats are among the species at risk of extinction in the UK.

Planning

Natural England’s role advising on planning proposals and wildlife licences, which permit culling, disturbance or handling of species, also looks set to change.

The report warns of a high risk that “turn around targets” for this work will be missed.

In response the agency will bring in the “introduction and expansion of chargeable services” – presumably for licences and permits – and “continue to work on longer term reforms” and standardise its responses to casework.

The RSPB, the country’s largest conservation charity, said that standardised responses could be “a useful tool to speed up consenting processes or pose a very real threat to wildlife, depending on how they are used.”

It could also lead to increased charges, less robust advice and leave some unable to pay for it, they said.

Chris Corrigan, RSPB’s director for England, told Unearthed: “Gove and May both signed up to an ambition to leave the environment in a better state than they found it and there was great ambition in the 25 year environment plan.

“But here for the first time there is something tangible that shows how the government is implementing that vision – and it all feels desperately weak.”

This Article

This article first appeared at Unearthed, from Greenpeace.

The government has quietly abandoned efforts to meet a longstanding target to improve England’s most important wildlife sites, according to a leaked document seen by Unearthed.

The document also warns that Natural England, the government’s nature regulator, is too stretched to prevent “further human-induced extinctions of known threatened species”.

The environment department (Defra) had an official target, set by the Coalition government in 2011, to conserve 50 percent of England’s sites of special scientific interest (SSSIs), by area, by 2020.

Conserved and enhanced

But a leaked internal Natural England action plan shows that the agency is actually working towards a target of ensuring 38.7 percent of SSSIs are in “favourable” condition – the top grade of the six-point scale Natural England uses to assess sites.

The new target is just 0.07 percent higher than the current level.

An insider at Natural England, which has faced significant budget cuts in recent years, told Unearthed they “would be surprised if we even meet that”.

Labour environment spokeswoman Sue Hayman described the news as “extremely concerning”, while the RSPB said the plan seems “desperately weak”.

The leaked plan, which was signed off by Defra, comes eight months after Theresa May launched the government’s 25 year environment plan, which pledged to ensure protected areas are “not only conserved but enhanced” and introduced a new target to conserve 75 percent of SSSIs within the lifetime of the plan.

This plan feels like the moment of impact between aspiration and reality

Commenting on the story a spokesperson for the government’s conservation watchdog said the agency had not reduced any targets – insisting these were set by central government.

A Natural England spokesperson told Unearthed: “We are working to meet our ambition of achieving 75 percent favourable condition on SSSIs as part of the 25 Year environment plan. We do not comment on leaked documents.”

Protected areas

The law requires the government to “further the conservation and enhancement” of SSSIs, under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000.

They protect England’s most important areas for biodiversity, from the Lake District to the Pennines to Exmoor. Unearthed has found parts of all of these areas that were recorded as being in “unfavourable” condition when they were last assessed. 

Natural England ranks sites as “favourable”, “unfavourable – recovering”, “unfavourable – no change”, “unfavourable – declining”, “partially destroyed” or “destroyed”.

But a source at Natural England told Unearthed the agency could even slide backwards on its target to conserve sites.

“We don’t really know what’s happening,” the insider said. “There is very little monitoring going on and when this is combined with little to no proactive management work, there is very little hope of any gains. We could go backwards on the the target but in reality we are unlikely to know as the site condition hasn’t been checked. It is pretty shocking.”

Three weeks ago, a parliamentary question from Caroline Lucas, co-leader of the Green party, revealed that almost half of England’s SSSIs have not been monitored in the last six years, as is required by national guidelines.

Labour’s Sue Hayman told Unearthed: “SSSIs protect our most precious natural environment. If ministers are serious about their green credentials, then they need to prioritise protecting our environment.”

Natural England’s budget has nearly halved in the past decade.  In 2017/18 it was £112m, down from £200m in 2006/7, its chairman Andrew Sells told parliament in December.

The agency has recently consulted on new plans to use local enforcement powers to crackdown on damaging activities on SSSIs.

Extinctions

The report lays out key risks that Natural England is facing, alongside measures that will be taken to combat them.

These include a “high” likelihood that “resources, and thus actions, are inadequate to meet the Biodiversity 2020 target to secure an overall improvement in the status of our wildlife and to prevent any further human-induced extinctions of known threatened species”.

The impact of this risk would be “high”, the document states.

Natural England’s plan to combat these risks is to “engage with partners to commit resources”, which could mean NGOs, businesses or other public bodies.

Matt Shardlow, CEO of nature charity Buglife, said this mitigation strategy “is not going to be enough to halt and reverse the huge declines of biodiversity – ever, let alone by the global target of 2020.”

He told Unearthed: “This plan feels like the moment of impact between aspiration and reality.  The clear desire to leave the natural environment in a better condition than we inherited it rests uncomfortably askew atop a jagged heap of colliding aims and financial realities.”

More than one in ten of the UK’s wildlife species is threatened with extinction, making it “among the most nature depleted countries in the world”, according to a major report published in 2016. Atlantic puffins, European turtle doves and wildcats are among the species at risk of extinction in the UK.

Planning

Natural England’s role advising on planning proposals and wildlife licences, which permit culling, disturbance or handling of species, also looks set to change.

The report warns of a high risk that “turn around targets” for this work will be missed.

In response the agency will bring in the “introduction and expansion of chargeable services” – presumably for licences and permits – and “continue to work on longer term reforms” and standardise its responses to casework.

The RSPB, the country’s largest conservation charity, said that standardised responses could be “a useful tool to speed up consenting processes or pose a very real threat to wildlife, depending on how they are used.”

It could also lead to increased charges, less robust advice and leave some unable to pay for it, they said.

Chris Corrigan, RSPB’s director for England, told Unearthed: “Gove and May both signed up to an ambition to leave the environment in a better state than they found it and there was great ambition in the 25 year environment plan.

“But here for the first time there is something tangible that shows how the government is implementing that vision – and it all feels desperately weak.”

This Article

This article first appeared at Unearthed, from Greenpeace.

The government has quietly abandoned efforts to meet a longstanding target to improve England’s most important wildlife sites, according to a leaked document seen by Unearthed.

The document also warns that Natural England, the government’s nature regulator, is too stretched to prevent “further human-induced extinctions of known threatened species”.

The environment department (Defra) had an official target, set by the Coalition government in 2011, to conserve 50 percent of England’s sites of special scientific interest (SSSIs), by area, by 2020.

Conserved and enhanced

But a leaked internal Natural England action plan shows that the agency is actually working towards a target of ensuring 38.7 percent of SSSIs are in “favourable” condition – the top grade of the six-point scale Natural England uses to assess sites.

The new target is just 0.07 percent higher than the current level.

An insider at Natural England, which has faced significant budget cuts in recent years, told Unearthed they “would be surprised if we even meet that”.

Labour environment spokeswoman Sue Hayman described the news as “extremely concerning”, while the RSPB said the plan seems “desperately weak”.

The leaked plan, which was signed off by Defra, comes eight months after Theresa May launched the government’s 25 year environment plan, which pledged to ensure protected areas are “not only conserved but enhanced” and introduced a new target to conserve 75 percent of SSSIs within the lifetime of the plan.

This plan feels like the moment of impact between aspiration and reality

Commenting on the story a spokesperson for the government’s conservation watchdog said the agency had not reduced any targets – insisting these were set by central government.

A Natural England spokesperson told Unearthed: “We are working to meet our ambition of achieving 75 percent favourable condition on SSSIs as part of the 25 Year environment plan. We do not comment on leaked documents.”

Protected areas

The law requires the government to “further the conservation and enhancement” of SSSIs, under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000.

They protect England’s most important areas for biodiversity, from the Lake District to the Pennines to Exmoor. Unearthed has found parts of all of these areas that were recorded as being in “unfavourable” condition when they were last assessed. 

Natural England ranks sites as “favourable”, “unfavourable – recovering”, “unfavourable – no change”, “unfavourable – declining”, “partially destroyed” or “destroyed”.

But a source at Natural England told Unearthed the agency could even slide backwards on its target to conserve sites.

“We don’t really know what’s happening,” the insider said. “There is very little monitoring going on and when this is combined with little to no proactive management work, there is very little hope of any gains. We could go backwards on the the target but in reality we are unlikely to know as the site condition hasn’t been checked. It is pretty shocking.”

Three weeks ago, a parliamentary question from Caroline Lucas, co-leader of the Green party, revealed that almost half of England’s SSSIs have not been monitored in the last six years, as is required by national guidelines.

Labour’s Sue Hayman told Unearthed: “SSSIs protect our most precious natural environment. If ministers are serious about their green credentials, then they need to prioritise protecting our environment.”

Natural England’s budget has nearly halved in the past decade.  In 2017/18 it was £112m, down from £200m in 2006/7, its chairman Andrew Sells told parliament in December.

The agency has recently consulted on new plans to use local enforcement powers to crackdown on damaging activities on SSSIs.

Extinctions

The report lays out key risks that Natural England is facing, alongside measures that will be taken to combat them.

These include a “high” likelihood that “resources, and thus actions, are inadequate to meet the Biodiversity 2020 target to secure an overall improvement in the status of our wildlife and to prevent any further human-induced extinctions of known threatened species”.

The impact of this risk would be “high”, the document states.

Natural England’s plan to combat these risks is to “engage with partners to commit resources”, which could mean NGOs, businesses or other public bodies.

Matt Shardlow, CEO of nature charity Buglife, said this mitigation strategy “is not going to be enough to halt and reverse the huge declines of biodiversity – ever, let alone by the global target of 2020.”

He told Unearthed: “This plan feels like the moment of impact between aspiration and reality.  The clear desire to leave the natural environment in a better condition than we inherited it rests uncomfortably askew atop a jagged heap of colliding aims and financial realities.”

More than one in ten of the UK’s wildlife species is threatened with extinction, making it “among the most nature depleted countries in the world”, according to a major report published in 2016. Atlantic puffins, European turtle doves and wildcats are among the species at risk of extinction in the UK.

Planning

Natural England’s role advising on planning proposals and wildlife licences, which permit culling, disturbance or handling of species, also looks set to change.

The report warns of a high risk that “turn around targets” for this work will be missed.

In response the agency will bring in the “introduction and expansion of chargeable services” – presumably for licences and permits – and “continue to work on longer term reforms” and standardise its responses to casework.

The RSPB, the country’s largest conservation charity, said that standardised responses could be “a useful tool to speed up consenting processes or pose a very real threat to wildlife, depending on how they are used.”

It could also lead to increased charges, less robust advice and leave some unable to pay for it, they said.

Chris Corrigan, RSPB’s director for England, told Unearthed: “Gove and May both signed up to an ambition to leave the environment in a better state than they found it and there was great ambition in the 25 year environment plan.

“But here for the first time there is something tangible that shows how the government is implementing that vision – and it all feels desperately weak.”

This Article

This article first appeared at Unearthed, from Greenpeace.

The world is taking less than three percent of the action needed to stop the global extinction crisis, Zac Goldsmith MP said today.

The former editor of The Ecologist was speaking ahead of a Seahorse Environmental Communications fringe event at the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham today. 

“If we need a hundred units of action we’re probably seeing two or three units at the moment. But as it happens a big chunk of those two or three units are emanating from the United Kingdom,” he said.

Nature for humans

However, Mr Goldsmith said Britain is lagging behind in the amount the country spends on biodiversity. The Government should allocate part of Britain’s foreign aid budget to protecting global nature, he argued. 

“The easiest and most effective tool at our disposal in this country is our aid budget – £14.5 billion and growing every year. We need to see a significant chunk of that money spent on restoring, repairing and protecting ecosystems and nature.”

The MP was speaking alongside Joanna Elliott, the senior director of conservation partnerships at Fauna & Flora International. “There is enough space out there for animals and people to coexist. So it must be nature for humans and humans for nature,” she said.

Peter Hall, director of International Rhino Foundation and a Conservative party donor, argued Brexit represents a “wonderful” opportunity to boost investment in global nature.

Supporting communities

“Britain sends £1.5 billion to the European Union as part of its Official Development Assistance spend. Let’s get that £1.5 billion and apply it to nature,” he added.

A member of the audience at the fringe event representing Oxfam reminded the delegates that the aid budget was essential in supporting life saving disaster work, and also supporting communities suffering from conflict, corruption and dire poverty.

Tony Juniper, the environmental campaigner Tweeted after the event: “Excellent fringe meeting hosted by @ZacGoldsmith on UK environmental leadership @wwf_uk’s @MBarrettwwfuk sets out three parts to leading: 1. Restore our own wildlife 2. Cut our global footprint 3. Use our aid programme to achieve environment goals at same time as cutting poverty.”

According to the Fullfact charity: “About 15 percent [of the aid budget] goes as humanitarian aid, or crisis relief, with the rest focused on strategic or long-term goals.

The side adds that “36 percent of the money goes via multilateral organisations, like the United Nations. The other 64 percent goes to programmes in specific countries as bilateral aid.

“The five biggest recipients of bilateral aid are Pakistan, Syria, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Afghanistan. When it comes to continents, significantly more gets spent in Africa (51 percent) and Asia (42 percent) than anywhere else.”

This Author

Brendan Montague is editor of The Ecologist, founder of Request Initiative and co-author of Impact of Market Forces on Addictive Substances and Behaviours: The web of influence of addictive industries (Oxford University Press). He tweets at @EcoMontague.