The environment council meeting in Brussels yesterday agreed the targets that Europe will put forward in international negotiations in Copenhagen.
One of them, surprisingly, is Lana Pollack, the president of the Michigan Environment Council, who helped write Mr. McDiarmid's introduction.
And I would ask: when the competitiveness of the single market is so important, why is there an environment council, a transport council, an education council but not a single market council?
Fourthly, I hope that they will try to deal with the auto oil programme, again, not at the first Environment Council but at the second one, because we can help there.
Thirdly, I agree with them that implementation and enforcement of environment policy are tremendously important issues, but I would ask them not to reach an agreement at the first Environment Council but rather to wait until the second one so that they can have the benefit of consultation and discussion with Parliament on this very important subject.
The league's president, Marcia Bystryn, called the current City Council "one of the most, if not the most, pro-environment councils that has ever served New York".
The chairman of the Local Government Association's children and young people board, David Simmonds, said: "No child should remain in an unsafe or neglectful environment, and councils will not hesitate to intervene when children are thought to be at risk.
Head of strategy, enterprise and environment, Cornwall council.
I'd learned that "environment" in council speak is not what environment means to the rest of the population.
A public call for names by the UK's natural environment research council (NERC) attracted more than 7,000 suggestions.
