Environment

Evolving life sciences and agricultural research approaches may have a decreasing need to access physical resources in future, such as plant seeds or viral material. Information and genetic data may be all that is required for commercial exploitation of biological resources. This POSTnote summarises the challenge this creates for international discussions on the governance of genetic resources and the possible options for addressing these.

Plastic packaging waste has become a key consumer concern. In the UK, over 2.2 million tonnes of plastic packaging enter the consumer market each year. Much of this is used in the food sector because plastic packaging is cheap, light to transport, hygienic, and can be used to extend the product’s shelf-life. In the UK around 46% of plastic packaging is collected for recycling, mostly through local authority collections. However several issues with the current systems of plastics recycling persist. This POSTbrief reviews proposals to Defra and HM Treasury to improve plastics recycling in the UK .

In November 2021 the UK will host COP26, the UN climate summit that will be vital for international efforts to respond to climate change. POST is inviting anyone with expertise in areas relating to COP26 to provide feedback. We would like to know what you think the UK Parliament and Government’s priorities should be while preparing for and delivering COP26. Findings from our survey will feed into an inquiry. Those who respond to the survey will be entered onto a database of experts who may be contacted by parliamentary staff, MPs or Peers, in order to help them scrutinise government preparations for COP26 over the next 16 months.

There is increasing interest in using machine learning to automatically analyse remote sensing data and increase our understanding of complex environmental systems. While there are benefits from this approach, there are also some barriers to its use. This POSTnote examines the value of these approaches, and the technical and ethical challenges for wider implementation.

Understanding the combined impacts of land use on environmental benefits could better inform decision-making and land management frameworks. This POSTnote summarises the challenges of managing landscapes on a large scale to deliver multiple environmental benefits, the evidence needed, and the policy approaches that could be used to achieve this.

The food system underpins many aspects of our society. It feeds us and shapes the economic, social and natural environments that we live in. The COVID-19 pandemic has further highlighted the importance of resilience in the food system. This POSTnote defines resilience and why it is needed, describes what a more resilient UK food system would look like and explores possible ways of achieving this.

The EU operates space programmes which provide services such as navigation and weather forecasting to European citizens. These programmes include Galileo, the EU's global navigation satellite system (which is similar to GPS), Copernicus, the EU's Earth observation programme, and the EU space surveillance and tracking (EUSST) programme which aims to protect satellites from space debris. The UK has made significant contributions to the development and delivery of these programmes in recent decades, but there will be changes to future involvement at the end of the Brexit transition period.

Marine renewables are technologies that generate electricity from tide and wave motion. They produce electricity without greenhouse gases, and could provide economic benefits for the UK. However, the technologies have been slow to develop, despite previous projections of growth. This POSTnote examines the causes of this delay and how the sector might develop.

Evidence suggests that food fraud continues to be an issue in the global food supply chain. This POSTnote provides an overview of food fraud, including its drivers and impacts. It discusses methods for food authenticity testing, broader strategies to prevent food fraud and impacts of EU exit.

The UK’s flood risk from rivers, surface water and ground-water is projected to increase with climate change. Natural flood management (NFM) can be described as using the natural features of the land to store and slow down the flow of water. NFM is being piloted across the UK and its expansion is an objective of the Government’s 25 Year Environment Plan. This POSTnote examines the evidence for the effectiveness of NFM at reducing flood risk, and successful governance approaches to implementing NFM measures.

Key infrastructure areas such as transport, energy, water and telecoms are vital to society and the economy. Evidence suggests that climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, posing a risk to infrastructure systems. This POSTnote looks at the main climate-related risks to the UK’s economic infrastructure, measures to reduce these risks and the main challenges to implementing resilience measures.

This POSTbrief provides further information on the data limitations for understanding insect declines and emerging methods to address these limitations. Further detail is also given on the evidence for drivers of insect declines, such as disease or artificial light at night, which are summarised in POSTnote 619. The POSTbrief also highlights areas where evidence is established or where there are gaps in knowledge, such as insect abundance data.