Government cuts and its controversial Public Bodies bill are likely to have a dire impact on sustainable development in the UK.

That is the stark warning in a new TUC briefing which assesses the impacts of the Public Bodies bill and cutbacks in public funding for 'green' bodies announced in the government's October 2010 comprehensive spending review.

The combined effects of the cuts – averaging 24% or over £130m – and the bill will impact on all environmental protection and sustainable development work undertaken in the UK, across both the public and private sectors, from pollution, waste management and recycling through to nature conservation, climate change adaption, and biodiversity, says the report.

It warns that cuts to the environmental front line could not come at a worse time: the stakes of climate change are the highest imaginable and urgent action is required.

The report, based on interviews and correspondence with the people working in these organisations, details the impacts and consequences for good environmental stewardship and sustainable development in the UK, including:

• loss of expertise
• loss of independent research functions
• loss of front line services
• loss of independent oversight
• short term v long term costs
• organisational confusion.

The potential damage is far more than the mere sum of combined budget reductions because the work of many of the non-departmental public bodies is interrelated and cumulative in nature. “Reduced capacity in one area will reverberate throughout the sector, causing correlated repercussions across the board.”

If the UK is to have any hope of meeting the numerous international targets it is committed to - on habitat and species loss, carbon emissions, recycling and so on - the agencies responsible for these areas need more funding, not less.

Failure to meet these goals is not only financially punitive in the short term - the UK is likely to be fined £300m for consistently breaching EU air pollution standards in the first four months of 2011 - but potentially catastrophic in the long term as the effects of anthropogenic climate change continue to intensify.

“As the UK faces a drastic deterioration of the quality of its environment, it should be strengthening the country's capacity to address and adapt to issues of climate change and ecological degradation, not stepping back from the tentative advances that have been made thus far.”

The TUC’s findings echo those of Jonathan Porritt in a report for Friends of the Earth: 'It is, I'm afraid, unavoidably depressing to see just how rapidly things have gone backwards since May 2010. Instead of having a really strong story to tell at the Rio + 20 Conference in a year's time, having built up an internationally-recognised framework for sustainable development in the 10 years running up to last year's General Election, our contribution in Rio - as things stand at the moment - will be humiliatingly insubstantial.'