EIA: Lack of political will fueling environmental crime
Agency Report
The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) has warned that 18 after raising the alarm, environmental crime has grown more sophisticated, more profitable and more destructive, with little political will to stop it,
According to a new report by the Agency, crimes that affect the environment still a critical threat to our future, the London-based EIA said the structural weaknesses identified in its 2008 landmark study remain largely unaddressed, even as the consequences become harder to reverse.
The 2008 report was the first to analyse the combined impact of different environmental crimes and call for a coordinated global response.
EIA’s Securing Criminal Justice Programme Lead, Justin Gosling, said the organisation’s 4 decades of work across climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss gives it unique insight into the scale of the threat.
“Fragmented legislation, weak deterrence, limited cross-border cooperation and insufficient political will persist today,” Gosling state.
“The consequences of inaction have become progressively harder, and in some cases, impossible to reverse.”
The report argues environmental crimes should no longer be treated as isolated regulatory breaches. Instead, they must be seen as interconnected forms of transnational organised crime, often linked to money laundering and corruption, and driving what scientists call the “triple planetary crisis.”
EIA highlighted six key crime areas,
Climate crime: The illegal trade in HFC refrigerant gases by networks evading customs and VAT. The trade cost governments an estimated €77 million in lost VAT annually and industry over €400 million in 2020.
Pollution crime: Now recognised as serious criminality with irreversible impacts on ecosystems and public health, not just minor non-compliance.
Waste crime: One of the fastest growing categories. It includes fraudulent UK recycling schemes worth an estimated £50 million per year and illegal shipments of plastic waste to unlicensed facilities in the Global South.
Forest crimes: Illegal logging, forest conversion and illicit mining continue to drive deforestation. Illicit mining is now among the fastest growing causes of forest loss, mercury contamination and violence against forest communities.
Illegal fishing: Accounts for 15-30% of global catches and is worth up to $23.5 billion a year. It undermines fisheries, deprives states of revenue and is linked to labour exploitation and human trafficking. Bycatch is pushing the vaquita porpoise toward extinction.
Wildlife crime: A global industry with about 4,000 species recorded in trafficking data between 2015-2021.
More than 70% of emerging zoonotic diseases are linked to wildlife. Corruption and lack of prosecutions make it “high-reward, low-risk.”
Gosling said common threads across all crime types include profit incentives that outweigh enforcement risks, corruption, opaque supply chains and a failure to treat environmental crime seriously under existing laws, including the UN Convention against Transnational Organised Crime.
“This is not a failure of available tools the legal frameworks and cooperation mechanisms needed to act already exist,” he said.
“The failure has been one of political will, resourcing and coordination.”
EIA is calling on governments to operationalise UNTOC more effectively, strengthen cross-border enforcement, and build the political commitment to treat environmental crime as the global security threat it is.
