An Essential Alliance: Climate Change and the Law – UCL

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The fate of the climate and the future of the law are intimately entangled. The rule of law is a crucial precondition for the success of climate policy. Climate policy failure is not inevitable but it is imminent. Avoiding failure means an end to the burning of fossil fuels by […]

DEMOCRACY, LAW AND THE ENVIRONMENT – UKELA ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2021

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This is a speech I gave at the UKELA annual conference 2021. In summary, I argue that the rule of law will not long survive a failure to maintain the ecological foundations of the economy. The climate is the foundation in the most imminent danger. The ecological foundations of the […]

What Are the Priorities for Environmental Law Following Brexit – PIEL UK 2021

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It is fifty years since I joined a local group of Friends of the Earth. I started as an environmentalist. What I am going to do is step back a bit and look at both some of the failures and the tensions in a wider context of the development of […]

There’s no doubt about government green intentions, but what about its ability to follow through? – Green Alliance

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Fifty years ago, extending the rule of law over the then wild frontier of the British environment was the main challenge facing environmental campaigners. Post-Brexit, the challenge we now face is protecting the rule of EU environmental law from populist politicians. Environmental law is the tool we use to balance […]

The impact of coronavirus on the environment – France 24

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One of the things that has become very clear, in the last five years or so, is that we have a serious problem, not just with bees, but with insect life in general. We are seeing massive declines in insect populations, and they are extraordinarily important because they play a […]

How does the coronavirus pandemic impact Earth Hour and the way that we think about climate change? – Al Jazeera

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This is an enormous shock to the way that we think about ourselves in the world, and it’s a real reminder, of how important it is for us to work with each other to deal with things. It is giving us a real sense that there are no borders anymore, […]

Is this the end of fracking? – LBC

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I did an interview for LBC on Sunday 13th October with Ian Payne. The discussion was “Is this the end of fracking?” Here are some excerpts from the interview: I wouldn’t claim fracking is over, it’s probably over for Cuadrilla, but there are other people seeking to do fracking in […]

A million species are being driven to the verge of extinction by the impact of humans on the planet – LBC

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. This is an excerpt from an interview I did for LBC about a United Nations report that has just been released. It states that a million species are being driven to the verge of extinction by the impact of humans on the planet. The full interview can be listened […]

More than two-thirds of Defra staff moved to Brexit-related roles

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. Staff redeployed as ex-government adviser says Brexit is bad for environment . More than two-thirds of all staff employed directly by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) are working on delivering Brexit, according to official figures released by the government. The response to a freedom of […]

Prosperity, Security, Stability

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  These are anxious times. Much that we take for granted in the way the world is ordered is in flux. The brief moment when scholars talked confidently of the ‘End of History’ has passed. Change is no longer an option, to be welcomed or resisted, as a matter of […]