Paris Climate Change Agreement. With the apparent victory of Joe Biden in the US Presidential election, President-elect Biden has made a commitment that USA will re-join the Paris Climate Change Agreement. This is very positive news.

EU Commission to consult on Zero Pollution Action Plan, which is part of the EU Green Deal, which is closely linked to the Paris Climate Change Agreement. The consultation will end in February 2021 and should be good news for the ESA Fugitive Emissions Reduction Document, which is aimed squarely at reducing emissions. As members of the Industrial Emissions Directive (IED) article 13 committee, ESA is well placed to make any observations as part of this consultation process. All members input will be very welcome.

European Drinking Water Directive (DWD 98/83/TC). As members of the European Drinking Water Association (EDW) the ESA is well placed to keep up to date with the latest Directives and Regulations, and we await the final publishing of Article 10 covering the material and product approval Hygienic testing. This is due anytime now. In the UK there is some activity on WRAS approval test centres.

BREFs. All activities with BREFs have been restricted by Covid-19 issues.

Waste Gas Chemicals (WGC) BREF: Site visits planned for 19th-22nd October, had to be cancelled again, and the Technical Working group has been postponed to the second quarter 2021 at the earliest.

BREXIT. The trade negotiations rumble on without any sign of agreement as yet. The latest set of negotiations take place in Brussels week beginning 16th November, with time nearly run out. The key issues appear to be: Fishing Rights; Equal playing field for support for industry; EU Citizens rights while working in UK post Brexit. There is an added issue with President-elect Biden stating that USA will not do a trade deal with the UK, if the Northern Ireland Peace Deal is compromised under the current UK plans.

USA/EU Trade Tariffs. It will be very interesting to see if President-elect Biden has a differing attitude on the current trade tariffs between the EU and the USA. Currently tit for tat tariffs are in place because of subsidies to Boeing and Airbus respectively.

It is assumed the USA/ China trade war will continue in the short term at least.

David Mitchell, Standard and Legislation Director