Today, in the nick of time before MPs leave Westminster for the Summer, Government published some new legislation on fracking. But what was announced today was a bitter disappointment for anyone who cares about providing the utmost protection to our most important wildlife sites.

These new rules on fracking were promised back in January this year, at the time of the Infrastructure Act. The Government at the time made…

A Freedom of Information Request has forced Government to publish a report on the risks of fracking to rural communities, economies and the environment. The report is a draft literature review, and a covering note emphasises that it is incomplete and doesn’t take the UK regulatory context into account.

Nonetheless, some of the report’s findings, based in part on empirical evidence from the existing shale gas industry…

Earlier this week, thousands of people gathered in London from across the UK to speak to their politicians about climate change, urging them to take strong action to protect the things that we love. The ‘Speak Up for The Love Of’ lobby of parliament was the biggest ever lobby of Parliament, with some 330 MPs listening to their constituents explain why climate change matters to them and discussing actions government…

Guest blog by Jim Densham, Senior Land Use Policy Officer (Climate), RSPB Scotland

Today, three RSPB Scotland colleagues and I will set off from the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh on a 520mile cycle ride to London. We have named ourselves Team Sky-lark (i.e. NOT team Sky). Riding to London feels like a pretty crazy undertaking right now as there are less than 2 weeks to go, I haven’t done enough training rides and…

Guest blog by my colleague Dr Richard Benwell, RSPB Parliamentary Programme Manager

There’s something satisfyingly medieval about a good Parliamentary lobby.

Obviously, we’d never want to see the caricature of pitchfork-waving anger that prompted protests of the past. Peaceful political lobbying is the marker of democratic success.

But there should still be a hint of fury mixed with a healthy dose of fun…

Across the world, countries are increasingly turning to biomass to meet a need for low carbon energy sources. Biomass is already the largest source of renewable energy in the EU, and this dependency is predicted to persist in coming decades.

However, the European Union has recently recognised the risks and problems associated with different kinds of bioenergy. A cap has been placed on the percentage of their renewable…

The excitement is palpable in the air, the bunting is being strung, fountain pens are scribbling invitations to MPs, rickshaw drivers are oiling their wheels and musicians are warming up their voices

It can only mean one thing: there is less than a month to go until Speak Up For The Love Of, which is on 17 June. Over 5000 people have already signed up to attend, so why not join them?

If you'd like to come along, you…

By Pip Roddis, Climate Policy Officer

As we know, renewable energy is vital part of the toolkit to mitigate climate change and reduce climate impacts on wildlife. The RSPB uses renewable energy across many of our nature reserves, including solar panels, sustainable biomass and small-scale wind turbines, and later this year we will be putting up a medium sized wind turbine at our UK Headquarters.

This wind turbine alone…

Almost overnight two important new pieces of research on climate change have been published.

Research by the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute has managed to find the fingerprint of global warming in increasingly warm years in England. 2014 was a record-breaking warm year, despite not having any individual record-breaking months within it. The signs of climate change have become so obvious that it is now possible…

The European Parliament has today voted to approve a cap on the use of first generation biofuels, those from land-based crops. This cap places an important restriction on the use of a form of energy that can put wildlife at risk and in some cases be more polluting than the conventional fuels it is designed to replace.

The RSPB has been working on biofuels for a number of years because of the threat they pose to wildlife…

On the drive to work this morning I saw my first terns of the year; common terns I suspect although they were too far and facing away from us to pin them down to a particular species. But I still got a rush of excitement nonetheless.

The last three weeks or so have been a whirlwind of vaguely remembered birdsong and unusual silhouettes – swallows flapping overhead and bees (or bombus, the scientific name, as I prefer…

Spring is definitely in full swing and it has been putting us in a distinctly festival and creative mood. But much of our best loved wildlife, including Spring migrants, could be affected by climate change.

For the last year, we’ve been working with our friends at The Climate Coalition to speak up about climate change. On Valentine’s Day we helped to Show the love for the things we wanted to protect from…

The Easter holidays are coming to a close. All that remains of the chocolate egg that I treated myself to are a few, disappointing crumbs staring at me from their foil nest every time I open the cupboard.

This slight twinge of sadness I feel every time I rummage for rice or stock cubes is, for me, symbolic of a more underlying malaise about the future of our Easter eggs.

When I normally write about climate change I…

Pip Roddis, Climate Team Policy Officer 

Earlier this year, new numbers were added to the ‘terrifying new math’ of climate change: 82, 49, 33. They come from climate scientists at UCL and published in Nature, in the first study to suggest which existing fossil reserves cannot be burned over the next 35 years if we are to meet the 2°C climate change target.

82% is the amount of global coal reserves that…

To round off the week, Mark Ward - editor-in-chief of Nature's Home magazine - shows the love for what he doesn't want to lose to climate change.

What will I miss? I’ll miss the seasons and those magical moments in nature that tell me a new season has arrived.

I’ll miss the first sighting of a sulphur-yellow brimstone butterfly flashing through my garden in March. I’ll miss baby blackbirds hopping on my…

Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 is one of his most moving and poignant poems. The sonnet explores the themes of loss and change - the speaker tries to stave off the inevitable loss of the object of his affection, but there's an underlying uneasiness and sadness, a sense that written lines will only ever be a poor substitute for the real thing.

Could there be a more fitting poem to get us thinking about climate change…

RSPB has decided to Show the love for the climate this week. As part of The Climate Coalition's Valentine's campaign we're speaking out for all the things we want to see saved from climate change.

My boss, Martin Harper, the RSPB's Conservation Director, told us yesterday why he's showing the love this week.

Today, at our Lodge head office, staff came along and made their own origami green hearts…

This Valentine’s Day, I’ve got something I’m really excited about. It’s the return of The Climate Coalition’s ‘For the love of’ campaign.

For about a year, The Climate Coalition has been asking us to share photos and messages of what you love and want to save from climate change, and for many of you this means the wildlife and special places we share the UK and our world with…

With fewer than 100 days until the General Election, one of the last big pieces of legislation of this Parliament – the Infrastructure Bill – was debated in the House of Commons yesterday. I’ve been waiting on tenterhooks for several weeks for yesterday’s debate. 

Many elements of the Infrastructure Bill relate to hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. This technology could allow companies to access…

Later today, a committee of MPs will discuss amendments to the Infrastructure Bill. We believe some of the most important surround assurance that our protected sites remain protected.

We believe in the rush to develop Britain's fracking potential, we have a duty to ensure that our natural environment is not spoilt in the process.

There are many environmental concerns, including: the over abstraction of water; the…

Guest blog from Deborah Pardo, Richard Phillips and Phil Trathan, British Antarctic Survey

In Polar Regions, where species are already at the limit of their ranges, climate change is suspected to have particularly strong effects (Barbraud et al. 2012). Researchers at the British Antarctic Survey have been monitoring several key seabird colonies for a number of decades, as well as using animal-borne devices to better…

The growing gap between the level of ambition recommended by climate scientists and what politicians are able to deliver in terms of commitments to cut emissions is cause for serious concern. From a nature conservation perspective, there’s a high risk of climate change taking place so rapidly that many species will be lost. Just last month, for example, our partner organisation in the US, the Audubon Society, published…

Lucy Bjorck, RSPB Senior Agriculture Policy Officer

Food security means different things to different people. To a subsistence farmer in a developing country it means producing enough food for their family for a year. For a low wage worker it means having cash to buy enough healthy food to feed the family. And for us middle class westerners – it probably means very little.

The relationship of food security with…

Ivan Scrase, RSPB Senior climate Change Policy Officer

Building the energy infrastructure that Europe needs to tackle climate change can, and must, be achieved with wildlife and nature in mind. So shows our new report Connecting Energy, Protecting Nature launched in Brussels this week.

Photos © HorstWagner.eu

In particular we address the energy 'projects of common interest' (PCIs) which the EU selects and…