EU passes law to restore 20% of bloc’s land and sea by end of decade
EU passes law to restore 20% of bloc’s land and sea by end of decade
Narrow vote causes fury in Vienna where climate minister is threatened with legal action by coalition partners
Unfortunately it only tells countries to make a good effort. But that's better than nothing, and the current policy of doing nothing is at least out of the window.
As someone whose country just put the moronic Farmers party in charge of the environment, this EU law makes me very happy
As someone whose country reelected a party that outright ignores EU regulation, I wish you a better luck...
Do you have some kind of pointer to a summary of what concrete impacts it actually has? Like, the article here doesn't list any concrete material. I see some phrases like "20% of land and sea". Given that Hungary and Austria were apparently both reluctant and both are land-locked, I am wondering if it was "20% of land and sea", where sea can substitute for land.
Does it basically ask EU members to designate at least 20% of their territory as a sort of national park?
The EC has a section on their website on the thing, but it's...really fluffy and full of marketing material. Their factsheet on the law is...very sparse on actual facts about the law.
EDIT: This Wikipedia page seems to reference what is a superset of it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Green_Deal
But the targets there don't seem to match up with what is going through, like:
The EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 includes the following targets:
- Protect 30% of the sea territory and 30% of land territory especially primary forests and old-growth forests.
...whereas the law that went through uses "20%".
EDIT: Okay, that's definitely a superset of what was planned for the law, because the page does reference the targets that were actually taken being 20%.
The factsheet is vague because it tells countries to find a way to fix a problem. All countries have to come up with a realistic method to improve natural areas, 20% by 2026, 30% need a concrete plan by 2030 and 90% by 2050.
More importantly, there's a requirement that Member States make a significant effort to prevent worsening in the meantime.
What those plans are, is up to the Member States, but they need to be solid and realistic, not the usual vagueness
But a last-minute change of heart by Austria’s Green climate minister, whose vote is credited with saving the proposal, led to fury in Vienna, with the party of the chancellor, Karl Nehammer, announcing it would seek criminal charges against her for alleged abuse of power.
The fuck?
This is the best summary I could come up with:
But a last-minute change of heart by Austria’s Green climate minister, whose vote is credited with saving the proposal, led to fury in Vienna, with the party of the chancellor, Karl Nehammer, announcing it would seek criminal charges against her for alleged abuse of power.
In an extraordinary display of division at the heart of Austria’s coalition government, Nehammer wrote to the Belgian presidency of the EU Council before the vote urging it to disregard his minister’s support and arguing that she did not have the right to take the position she had.
“Today marks a significant day for Europe as we transition from merely protecting and conserving nature to actively restoring it,” said César Luena, a centre-left MEP from Spain who led the European parliament’s negotiations on the law.
Copa and Cogeca, the EU’s biggest farming lobby group, criticised the slim majority of ministers voting in favour of the law, calling it a “flawed proposal” that would cause legal battles in regional, national and European courts.
“Political rhetoric aside, the question of the lack of clear and consistent funding for ecosystem restoration across the EU remains unanswered – partly explaining the great embarrassment and headlong rush that surrounds this law,” a spokesperson said.
Špela Bandelj Ruiz, a Greenpeace biodiversity campaigner, said: “Despite the weakening of the law, this deal offers a ray of hope for Europe’s nature, future generations and the livelihoods of rural communities.”
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“Karl Nehammer, announcing it would seek criminal charges against her for alleged abuse of power.”
Austrians should sue that fool Karl for selling off their future.
I feel this is like the least controversial thing to happen in Austrian politics in the last 10 years... There is a long list of shit before this one that the ÖVP should be sued for...
Copa and Cogeca, the EU’s biggest farming lobby group, criticised the slim majority of ministers voting in favour of the law, calling it a “flawed proposal” that would cause legal battles in regional, national and European courts.
I suspect this is not so much to do with the lack of clarity regarding funds as the lobby group suggested in the article, and more to do with the fact this law paints a target on the back of the Agribusinesses that hide within this "Agricooperative" lobby, who are responsible for large biodiversity losses, and carbon emissions.
I was thinking recently, with how many pollinators we're hemorrhaging, often simply because their habitat is destroyed or poisoned by pesticides, we really need to get some strips of untouched nature around the place. Cool, that there was already something in the works here.