Government doesn't want quality data

I've just finished reading the second paper of the Natural Capital Committee. It was published in March, there wasn't a great fanfare but it is another credible paper that describes the mess we're in environmentally.

What screams out from the start is the lack of data about our environment. Of the nine Natural Assets it lists, there isn't one for which the committee can be confident in the data available.

This is not the first time lack of data has reared its head. We've been talking about valuing the environment for some time but nobody seems to be sure of the metrics to use. 

In the biodiversity offsetting consultation paper there was mention of 'biodiversity units', except that it only measured habitat. There are carbon values for trees and for peatland but nothing else that locks up carbon.  There's an ecosystem system services framework that describes all the benefits and value of the natural world but there are no metrics to actually carry out any sort of meaurement, just words.

So a key priority for the Natural Capital Committee is to 'design effective metrics' where none exist or where they are inconsistent.

But I wonder if government wants good metrics? Has it not been dragging its feet for the past few years on this subject? Can it be that hard to define?

My feeling is that government does not want us to be able to use its own metrics to demonstrate the state of our natural environment. It will come up with something in 2019, just before the 2020 objective of halting biodiversity loss (assuming it doesn't put that back). What government doesn't want is headlines showing how badly its doing with its own environmental objectives whilst it is growing the economy. Far better to drag their feet, encourage confusion and be able to use one set of data to discredit another.

They wouldn't be able to that if they produced the metrics.