The EU Harms The Environment
The European Union harms the environment of the World through its policies. In Europe itself, for decades, the EU has introduced dangerous environmental legislation, much of it unscientific and politically inspired.
The outcome is a damaged environment.
For example:
The Common Fisheries Policy
The worst example is the Common Fisheries Policy, which forces fishermen to throw thousands of tons of dead fish back into the sea.
The Times on 29 March 2007 reported that for every plaice eaten by Britons, nine are left floating dead on the surface of the North Sea. Up to 800,000 tons of fish are dumped overboard each year in the North Sea. More than 1.33 million tons are dumped in the North Atlantic. Even the EU has finally come to recognize that this is insane. New regulations are on the way, but they will probably be nearly as flawed as the present ones - they are unlikely to be drawn up by anyone who understands fishing.
By contrast, Iceland and Norway, outside the EU, have already banned discards, and are seeing cod stocks recover as a result.
New nets and technology are used by other countries to focus fishing much more effectively, and conserve fish stocks.
Even the EU has now admitted that its entire strategy is wrong (see News 23 April), and plans to reform it.
But can the EU learn from sensible and effective policies being pursued by other countries? Don't hold your breath.
The Common Agricultural Policy
The Common Agricultural Policy enforces intensive food production methods which damage the environment. Incentives to increase production have led to the pollution of land and watercourses, the destruction of natural features, hedges and wildlife habitats, and direct damage to wildlife through the use of herbicides and insecticides.
EU Recycling and Energy Policies
EU recycling and energy policies are ineffective and cause pollution rather than reducing it. Our local authorities are struggling with arbitrary recycling targets which come from the European Union. They can be fined very large sums if they fail to meet these targets, so many of them are resorting to the extreme measure of collecting non-recyclable rubbish only every fortnight. This can represent a danger to public health, as many people found their bins infested with maggots.
This has become a big political issue, but the policy is forced on us.
The CAP is Killing off Europe's Birdlife.
A study by the RSPB has found that Europe's farmland birds have declined by almost half in the past 25 years as a direct consequence of the Common Agricultural Policy.
(Telegraph , 6 June)
Failure to Cut Carbon Emissions
The EU’s much-touted Emissions Trading Scheme is turning out, like most EU initiatives, to be a fiasco. It is failing in its aim to cut down carbon dioxide emissions and it will cost the UK up to £2.3bn over the next five years. If we are spending that kind on money, we ought to spend it on something which has a chance of success.
Under the scheme, the European Commission gives member states targets for how much carbon dioxide they can produce. The member state governments then set individual targets limiting how much CO2 companies and other bodies can produce. If an organisation produces more CO2 than it is entitled to, it must buy carbon credits from those who have not used the allocation.
The fatal flaw is that there is no incentive for Governments not to be over-generous, doling out far more credits than the manufacturers, oil companies and energy firms who are obliged to be in the scheme need. So generous were the allocations that UK companies have been able to profit by more than £2bn from selling on surplus credits. The huge allocations ensured that the price of carbon has remained far too low to punish polluters. Open Europe, the think tank, is also critical of the decision to allow cheap credits from outside the EU to be traded in the scheme. This will only help peg the price of carbon credits to the floor, it says.
Member state governments have also used the scheme to subsidise flagging industries. The Carbon Trust, an agency set up to combat climate change, has criticised the way that Germany is effectively using the ETS to subsidise its brown coal power stations - the worst polluting power stations of all.
The European Union is bad for the environment. We should leave.
We will Leave the European Union - Give Us a Referendum
