LONDON, UK, 4 June 2024: As UK political parties hit the campaign trail in earnest for the July 4 General Election, London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) has released its own manifesto of key policy recommendations.

The 16-point action plan Our Planet, Our Problem is released against the backdrop of the mounting triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution, EIA said.

EIA said it marks its 40^th anniversary this year since it began investigating, exposing and campaigning against environmental crime and abuse. The charity organisation said it believes the next UK Government has a key role to play as a part of international efforts to secure a viable future.

EIA Campaigns Director, Julian Newman delivered copies of Our Planet, Our Problem to the major political parties this week and said: “The urgency for taking action cannot be overstated. Our key policy recommendations to the parties contesting the next election will, if acted upon, ensure that the country’s next Government implements progressive policies and takes strong actions to show leadership, both at home and internationally, to safeguard the future of our planet.”

Fuelled by climate change, the world’s oceans have broken temperature records every single day over the past year, and 2024 saw the warmest April on record in terms of global air temperatures, EIA said. Analysis of more than 147,500 species found that in excess of 41,000 are threatened with extinction, EIA said. Between 1990 and 2020, about 420 million hectares of forest has been lost, and a further 10 million hectares is being lost each year, EIA said. More than 12 million tonnes of plastic is dumped into the ocean every year, EIA added.

Key asks in EIA’s manifesto include:

• Reinstating the commitment of allocating 0.7 per cent of Gross National Income to international development
• Ensuring environmental and human rights are at the heart of UK trade deals and international development policies
• Making tackling environmental crime a priority and focus of agencies and Government departments responsible for other forms of serious and organised crime
• Putting Nature2030 at the heart of policy at home and abroad by delivering the UN Convention on Biological Diversity 30 x 30 targets
• Cancelling all new oil and gas licences and joining international calls for a managed phase-out of fossil fuels
• Recommitting to the obligations of the 2015 Paris Agreement, substantially strengthening measures to rapidly reduce emissions and achieve net-zero emissions in the early 2040s
• Advocating for an adjustment of the Kigali Amendment of 2016 to accelerate the global  phase-down of climate-harming hydrofluorocarbon refrigerants under the Montreal Protocol
• Halting the significant, ongoing decline in biodiversity in the UK by urgently developing robust, time-bound, costed and quantifiable domestic targets and measures to implement its global commitments under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework
• Ensuring that halting and reversing deforestation and forest degradation are at the forefront of efforts to meet Paris Agreement targets
• Fully implementing the 2021 Environment Act to ensure businesses are using legally sourced forest-risk commodities, and extending its scope
• Committing to negotiating and adopting an ambitious Global Plastics Treaty and to banning the export of all its plastic waste from the UK