The UK Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology has produced a useful briefing on biodiversity offsetting. Biodiversity offsetting is a policy tool used when loss of or impact on biodiversity is compensated by deliberate improvement elsewhere.
The UK House of Commons committee on Science and Technology has decided to hold an inquiry into the Forensic Science Service, which the UK government has decided to wind down. Written evidence by 14 Feburary in response to the following questions: /...
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There is current interest in rare earth and strategic metals in UK policy circles - I made a post on this in December. The UK Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology has just issued a briefing note for parliamentarians to tie in with the Select Committee inquiry. Covers the basics, but not much reference to other international policy initiatives.
Interesting Nature news blog post yesterday on science policy discussions in the US on rare earth metals and their availabilty. This has been a fairly regular topic in the last five years with concerns on where the metals are and how markets operate.
In the US, there have been reports such as the 2008 Minerals, Critical Minerals, and the U.S. Economy from the National Research Council, aimed at Congress. Richard H has pointed to European developments: the EU Raw Materials Initiative resulted in the publication of Critical Raw Materials in June 2010, the report and an annex of an Ad Hoc Task Force on Defining Critical Raw Materials. I believe that a Communication from the Commission is due on this in January - although it has leaked a little to the press.
In the UK, there is a current inquiry of the House of Commons Committee on Science and Technology on Strategically Important Metals, which is asking questions about the UK position - written evidence due by 17 December 2010.
The lists of metals in the different reports shift slightly, owing to methodologies for assessment and the economic or strategic interests defined. Politically, there is increasing noise about working with China - such as from a conference last week in Germany that was reported in Der Spigel. The German government raised this in mid October with the release of a national strategy and there have been exchanges since, with proposals for G8 and G20 discussions.
