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This article discusses Great Britain's environmental policy. Great Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair describes climate change as "the greatest long-term challenge facing the human race." However, progress towards carbon-dioxide emissions reduction has reversed; in Great Britain carbon-dioxide emissions have risen each year since 2002. According to the Environmental Audit Committee, a parliamentary group, green taxes have fallen as a proportion of total tax revenue as emissions have risen.

The article reports that the British government may soon have to oblige industry to take back and recycle the packaging it ships its product in. The British government tends to see itself as a bastion of common sense where European environmental policy is concerned, weighing benefits against costs which more dogmatic governments ignore. Now, foreign dogmatism threatens to drive the government down a road it abhors- forcing it to oblige industry to take back and recycle the packaging it ships its product in. In practice, lots of "recyclables" slip out of Germany, looking for buyers abroad. In Britain, the government has been trying to encourage commercial recyclers such as waste-paper merchants to join forces with the packaging industry to give more packaging a second life.

Focuses on environmental regulations implemented in Great Britain. Provisions of the regulations; Implication of the regulations on property owners; Government agencies tasked to implement and monitor the fulfillment of the regulations.

Reviews the legal proceedings filed against the British government by the European Commission (EC) for failing to implement an EC environmental directive, resulting in the EC's insistence that the British government stop work on a series of road projects until Britain conducts `environmental impact assessments.' How the action will cause difficulties in reaching a political agreement on political union; The 1985 EC directive.

Discusses Britain's white paper on the environment. Subjects the paper might cover including climate change; Effects of the higher energy prices due to the Persian Gulf crisis of 1990; Targets for green policy; Possibility of creating a regular report on the impact of government activity on the environment.