About 70% of environmental safeguards in Britain stem from European legislation. As a consequence of Brexit, environmentalists are now fearing the lowering of environmental standards in Scotland and the UK. NGOs like ClientEarth have regularly used EU laws to challenge governments concerning environmental issues, but the environmental legislation that implemented EU law before will likely be changed after Brexit. While international agreements like the Aarhus Convention providing for access to justice in environmental matters for citizens and NGOs would then still be in place, environmentalists nevertheless expect the standards in the domestic interpretation of the Convention to be lowered. Possible alternatives for filling this gap could be the creation of an ombudsman or bolstering of public access to justice in relation to environmental matters.
