David Baldock, Director of the Institute for European Environmental Policy said: “Few Governments, in Britain or elsewhere, have been ready to acknowledge how far progress on the environment in their own countries has depended on agreements at a European level. Standards have been raised across the board – in air and water pollution, recycling, the regulation of chemicals and nature conservation. Without the force of law behind these standards they would not have been respected. The world now looks to Europe for leadership on the environment, including climate change in a way they once followed the US.”