Who do I trust more on the environment? The European Union or the governments that British citizens vote for? The truth is that I don't trust either, but if I had to select one over the other I would side with the EU for the reasons that George Monbiot has articulated here and here. That might be different if I had greater confidence in the capacity of the British electoral system to deliver a government of a radical green/left persuasion. But I don't have such confidence. Instead I fear that the environment will drop further down the list of priorities as a post-Brexit government deregulates in a desperate attempt to maintain the competitiveness of UK businesses and the attractiveness of Britain for foreign investors for whom access to EU markets is no longer one of the benefits of investing in this country.
On the much bigger issue of climate change I see little chance of progress unless nation states, especially smaller ones, engage with each other via negotiating blocs. The EU, acting on behalf of European countries, has performed that function relatively well in recent decades. There is little reason to think that disrupting existing arrangements for negotiating collective agreements with other parts of the world would lead to better outcomes as far as avoiding the worst effects of climate change is concerned. That's not to say alternative arrangements could never exist or that Britain outside the EU could not act with the EU in climate deals. It's merely to say that concern about climate change doesn't offer a strong argument for leaving the EU. On the contrary, if Brexit is a catalyst for the long-term collapse of the EU, it could seriously undermine joint action on climate change, especially if the fragmentation of the EU strengthens the forces of nationalism and intra-European political tension.
As far as I can see, the only environmental argument for Brexit rests on a fairly apocalyptic view of the future in which we are already much closer to a global climate catastrophe than almost anyone is prepared to acknowledge. In this view, the only possibility of saving the planet from such a fate is if the global economy enters a state of rapid collapse, leading to a massive contraction in production and the associated consumption of fossil fuels. Could Brexit be part of that process? Very few would wish to make such a claim. Moreover, the obvious response to it would be that the destabilising effects of such a precipitous economic collapse could unleash the most environmentally destructive force of all: nuclear war.
It is tempting to imagine Brexit representing a global process of benign localisation in which the destructive forces of global capitalist expansion are reigned in, and where community, economy, and environmental impact once again share a common boundary, as has been the case for most of our history as a species. This would make the causes of environmental and social problems more visible than they are at the moment and therefore potentially easier to solve. Unfortunately, the complexity and interconnectedness of the global economy, and our total dependence upon it for survival, has reached such a high level that it is hard to envisage an orderly process of contraction. Localisation, if it occurs, is, it seems to me, most likely to be traumatic and involuntary, and driven by forces beyond anyone's control. Whether there are any environmental pay-offs to be had from such a process may again depend upon our ability to avoid nuclear war, which, according to those who study such things, still lies just ahead of climate change as the number one planetary threat.
In conclusion, environmental concerns push me more towards remain than leave. I am in little doubt that human civilisation as we know it faces a number of existential threats, some of them relating to ecological collapse and others connected to intrinsic problems within capitalism itself. It is hard not to feel pessimistic about our trajectory as a species, irrespective of whether or not Britain remains part of the EU. Complex international cooperation is needed to save our global civilisation and the ecological foundations upon which it rests. Whether or not the EU and Britain's membership of it are the best way to facilitate international cooperation is unclear to me. However, I'm certainly not convinced that undermining the EU at this point in time in the hope of replacing it with something better is likely to be more fruitful than attempting to reform it from within.
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