Selin Submits Expert Testimony to UK Parliament
Associate Professor Henrik Selin of the Boston University Pardee School of Global Studies was invited to submit written testimony to a United Kingdom Parliamentary policy inquiry into UK-EU relations on environmental issues. This was part of the UK evaluating its current EU membership, including the possibility of renegotiating of some of the terms of its membership in the EU, in the face of the upcoming UK referendum on future membership.
The Environmental Audit Committee is holding an inquiry to assess the extent to which EU environmental objectives and policies have succeeded in tackling environmental issues in the UK. This is to inform the debate ahead of the referendum on EU membership that the Government has committed to holding by the end of 2017, following a renegotiation of the UK’s terms of membership.
In his testimony, Prof. Selin writes:
Looking forward, it is important to recognize that the UK must seek to fulfill similar short-term and long-term policy objectives irrespective of whether it is an EU member or not; in either case, the UK will have to work to strengthen environmental and human health protection in several areas, improve resource efficiency across the national economy, address local climate change impacts, and strive for domestic carbon neutrality no later than mid-century. The UK will have to do all of this both to safeguard the well-being of its own environment and citizens and as a major member of the global community.
The full write up is available here.
Henrik Selin conducts research and teaches classes on global and regional politics and policy making on environment and sustainable development. His most recent book is EU and Environmental Governance, by Routledge Press, and is also the author of Global Governance of Hazardous Chemicals: Challenges of Multilevel Management by MIT Press. He is the co-editor of two books, Changing Climates in North American Politics: Institutions, Policy Making and Multilevel Governance (MIT Press, with Stacy VanDeveer) and Transatlantic Environment and Energy Politics: Comparative and International Perspectives (Ashgate, with Miranda Schreurs and Stacy VanDeveer).