EU’s nature restoration law in difficulty, despite climate policy wins

EU lawmakers this week adopted new laws boosting Europe’s climate change fight, but a parallel drive to restore nature and protect biodiversity in a separate bill to be finalised before the European Parliament elections next year looks to be on shakier ground.

Negotiations between the European Commission, EU member states and the European Parliament on the EU’s nature restoration law have run into difficulty over the details.

Scandinavian countries are worried about their important forestry sector, while other member states believe the scope of the text proposed by the Commission goes too far.

Still others are concerned about the impact on farmers, or how to reconcile the text with EU policies on agriculture and energy.

EU environment commissioner Virginijus Sinkevičius admitted on Tuesday, at a meeting of EU environment ministers in Sweden, that “we have a very busy time again in front of us” and “time is really limited”.

The deadline to complete the legislative work is before European Parliament elections due before the middle of next year, after which a new legislature and new European Commission will have to be formed.

The Commission’s proposed package of texts aims to restore degraded or polluted biosystems such as forests and marine zones.

It also sets a target of drastically reducing the use of pesticides in crops, improved animal welfare, and limits on polluting emissions including by livestock producers, which some member states worry will lead to a decline in their agricultural output.

Some of the texts being examined relate to changes to packaging, air quality and waste water.

‘Extremely challenging’ timeframe

Adam Guibourgé-Czetwertyński, a Polish junior climate minister, said that, given the varying centres of concern in the EU on the proposed nature restoration law, there was need “to make this proposition realistic in practice”.

Austria’s environment minister, Leonore Gewessler, underlined the “extremely challenging” timeframe and urged giving enough space for the negotiations to result in “a coherent policy mix”.

During a late March parliamentary debate on the nature restoration text, one left-leaning Spanish MEP, Cesar Luena, said: “Things are not looking very good.”

“The green consensus that was there at the beginning of our term has gradually been eroded. It’s fading away,” he said, pointing to remonstrations from farming and fishing lobbies.

Pacal Canfin, the chair of the parliament’s environment committee, said there was progress on the energy, industry and transport aspects of the proposed texts. “But for agriculture and fishing, no path has been found,” he added.

Some related topics – such as propositions on genetically modified crops and soil protection – are not even part of the talks and will be presented by the Commission in June.

Presentation of a tricky text on a tighter framework for the use of chemical substances which had been expected early last year has now been pushed back to late 2023.

While haggling continues over the biodiversity texts, the EU can at least bask in the glow of having the parliament on Tuesday adopting laws on expanding the bloc’s carbon trading market and introducing a carbon border tax on imports.

Those measures bolster Europe’s bid to cut greenhouse gas emissions as it moves towards the goal of a net carbon-neutral future.

The 27 EU countries are collectively the third-biggest global emitter of carbon dioxide.

The biggest by far is China, which is greatly expanding its fleet of coal-fired power plants despite a vow to have carbon emissions peak by 2030 then reduced to net zero by 2060.

Then comes the United States, historically the biggest carbon-gas emitter, which has a long-term strategy of reaching net zero by 2050.

cover photo:EU environment commissioner Virginijus Sinkevičius admitted on Tuesday, at a meeting of EU environment ministers in Sweden, that "we have a very busy time again in front of us" and "time is really limited".