PCE speech on the environment

The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment presented a speech to the Bluegreens Forum on Saturday 22 February which outlined six conclusions that policy makers need to confront when considering the environment.

This is a final speech in a series of speeches on the economy and the environment delivered by the Commissioner, with earlier ones given to business leaders at Chapter Zero meeting in November and environmentalists at the EDS Conference in June.

He notes that resources such as water, soil or minerals, are often considered to be ‘free’ and expected to be used without payment: "But the reality is that we've treated the environment as a sort of piggy bank that we have been raiding for 150 years, and no one is really keeping tabs. No one, that is, except the environment itself.

Because the environment is starting to send some invoices for services rendered. There are plenty more in the pipeline – and they’re becoming larger."