EU Two Faced Approach To Forests & Biodiversity
Indonesian Palm Oil Farmers Stage Protest before EU Embassy over Deforestation Regulation
Update August 22, 2024
Since we last wrote on the EU's two-faced approach to forests and biodiversity, new reports have been published to expose this fact even more!
Swedish officials have granted licences for just under 500 brown bears to be culled by hunters. That equates to about 20% of the total population, according to official figures, and would bring the number of bears in Sweden down to approximately 2,000 – a drop of almost 40% since 2008. The Guardian
According to the European Wilderness Society, brown bears have gone extinct in some parts of Europe recently.
The extinction of brown bears in the western part of Europe can be attributed to a combination of factors, primarily habitat loss and extensive hunting. Over centuries, widespread deforestation and the expansion of agriculture and urban areas drastically reduced bear habitats. Additionally, bears were hunted relentlessly due to threats to livestock, human safety concerns, and the demand for their pelts and body parts.
A worse future awaits the European wolves if Ursula von Der Leyen's personal agenda against wolves is allowed to boil over into public policy.
On the issue of renewable energy, Swedish plans to clear cut more forests in Sweden, has met with protests from enviromental groups including Skydda Skogen and Greta Thunberg.
A new report from Nature supports Greta Thunberg's condemnation of the Swedish clear cut of forests to produce "renewable energy."
“Using biomass emits even more CO2 to the atmosphere per energy generated than even fossil fuels,” says Michael Norton, a co-director of the environment programme at the EASAC secretariat in Vienna.
Eventually, biomass energy will produce less carbon than fossil fuels do. But the time it takes to make up for the extra initial emissions, says Norton, “is so long as to worsen climate change for decades to centuries — hardly an effective climate strategy given that we are already overshooting Paris agreement targets”.
Researchers have pointed out other problems with the way wood pellets are accounted for in carbon-emission assessments. In particular, the EU accounts for greenhouse-gas emissions associated with biomass at the point of production, not the point of combustion. That allows EU countries relying on biomass to avoid including emissions from this source in their tallies and creates an incentive to use biomass energy, say Sterman and other researchers.
Since we last wrote on the EU's two-faced approach to forests and biodiversity, new reports have been published to expose this fact even more!
Swedish officials have granted licences for just under 500 brown bears to be culled by hunters. That equates to about 20% of the total population, according to official figures, and would bring the number of bears in Sweden down to approximately 2,000 – a drop of almost 40% since 2008. The Guardian
According to the European Wilderness Society, brown bears have gone extinct in some parts of Europe recently.
The extinction of brown bears in the western part of Europe can be attributed to a combination of factors, primarily habitat loss and extensive hunting. Over centuries, widespread deforestation and the expansion of agriculture and urban areas drastically reduced bear habitats. Additionally, bears were hunted relentlessly due to threats to livestock, human safety concerns, and the demand for their pelts and body parts.
A worse future awaits the European wolves if Ursula von Der Leyen's personal agenda against wolves is allowed to boil over into public policy.
On the issue of renewable energy, Swedish plans to clear cut more forests in Sweden, has met with protests from enviromental groups including Skydda Skogen and Greta Thunberg.
A new report from Nature supports Greta Thunberg's condemnation of the Swedish clear cut of forests to produce "renewable energy."
“Using biomass emits even more CO2 to the atmosphere per energy generated than even fossil fuels,” says Michael Norton, a co-director of the environment programme at the EASAC secretariat in Vienna.
Eventually, biomass energy will produce less carbon than fossil fuels do. But the time it takes to make up for the extra initial emissions, says Norton, “is so long as to worsen climate change for decades to centuries — hardly an effective climate strategy given that we are already overshooting Paris agreement targets”.
Researchers have pointed out other problems with the way wood pellets are accounted for in carbon-emission assessments. In particular, the EU accounts for greenhouse-gas emissions associated with biomass at the point of production, not the point of combustion. That allows EU countries relying on biomass to avoid including emissions from this source in their tallies and creates an incentive to use biomass energy, say Sterman and other researchers.
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Is the EU truly concerned about the state of forests globally? Multiple legal steps are being undertaken by the EU to protect forests in order to fight climate change. These include the notorious Deforestation Regulations (EUDR) and its twin, the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD).
The EUDR requires companies to actively examine their supply chains to ensure their products are not linked to deforestation or forest degradation.
The CSDDD requires companies to establish due diligence procedures to address adverse impacts of their actions on human rights and the environment, including along their value chains worldwide.
Set against the backdrop of the EU’s commitment to protect biodiversity, the EUDR and CSDDD look like really good legal instruments to reduce the footprint of the EU citizen on nature, from imported goods and domestic production.
Having established the legal tools to control imported goods, the EU is now backpedaling from its commitment to European biodiversity. The NGO FERN, lambasted EU politicians with a harshly worded criticism.
Conservatives are prepared to sacrifice nature in Europe — and fight tooth and nail to try to sabotage laws to conserve it — despite being perfectly happy to penalise the destruction of nature in the global South.
Nowhere is this clearer than on forests.
Member states’ double standards on maintaining their own forests threaten not only to undermine the EU’s international credibility on environmental leadership but their very ability to galvanise global climate action, Hannah Mowat writes.
When the current crop of MEPs was elected in 2019, most appeared to grasp the gravity of the climate emergency - and were prepared to act.
Yet in the wake of the hottest month recorded on earth for 120,000 years, many of them tried to destroy a central plank of Europe’s Green Deal — the bloc's flagship plan aiming to make the continent “climate neutral” by 2050, which European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called the continent’s “man on the moon moment” when she launched it four years ago.
FERN’s criticism of the EU’s double standards for biodiversity was punctuated with the news that wolves, which play a key role in healthy ecosystems, are now extinct in Andalusia.
Europe’s Two Face Approach on Biodiversity
If there was ever an icon for biodiversity in Europe, it has to be the wolf. Once hunted to near extermination, the return of this apex predator to the European landscape and its future is tenuous as farming interests lobby against the wolf.
European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, was caught up in the same situation when a wolf killed the family pony, Dolly. According to this report on Politico:
Shortly after her prize pony was savaged to death, Commission President von der Leyen ordered an in-depth inquiry into the wolf menace.
James Crisp who writes for the Telegraph covered the news with his opinion that:
A wolf is on the loose with a bounty on its head after killing Ursula von der Leyen’s prized pony in a case that could have dire implications for Europe’s resurgent predators.
Indonesia and Malaysia Show Distaste for EU Hypocrisy
Indonesia and Malaysia, which account for over 80% of the world’s palm oil production, have shown a distaste for the EU’s hypocrisy.
While the EU is a large market for palm oil, its demands have been criticized as “excessive” by Malaysia and “discriminatory” by both palm oil producing countries.
As of this writing, both countries appear to be walking away from the EU market as Indonesia chases after its primary customers in India and China. Its pretty much the same for Malaysia which expects a boost in exports to non-EU markets.
These subtle moves to disengage the EU as a market of consequence could very well derail EU ambitions to be a green leader as the EU’s CBAM came under critical review at the World Trade Organisation.
1.3. Of particular concern are the unilateral environmental measures being pursued by some countries, which are implemented with little consideration of their potential impact on developing countries and have the effect of:
(i) undermining the multilaterally agreed mandate of nationally determined contributions (NDCs) of the countries of export,
(ii) conflicting with and undermine the common but differentiated responsibility and equity (CBDR) principle,
(iii) creating a preferential treatment for domestic over imported goods, restricting the market access of developing countries and least developed countries (LDCs) and creating a distortive effect on international trade,
(iv) diminishing the prospects for development of developing countries, and
(v) leading to a change in trade patterns with no significant reduction on emissions, and such actions will not succeed in either forcing or encouraging other countries to adopt equivalent environment policies.
Published August, 2023. CSPO Watch
The EUDR requires companies to actively examine their supply chains to ensure their products are not linked to deforestation or forest degradation.
The CSDDD requires companies to establish due diligence procedures to address adverse impacts of their actions on human rights and the environment, including along their value chains worldwide.
Set against the backdrop of the EU’s commitment to protect biodiversity, the EUDR and CSDDD look like really good legal instruments to reduce the footprint of the EU citizen on nature, from imported goods and domestic production.
Having established the legal tools to control imported goods, the EU is now backpedaling from its commitment to European biodiversity. The NGO FERN, lambasted EU politicians with a harshly worded criticism.
Conservatives are prepared to sacrifice nature in Europe — and fight tooth and nail to try to sabotage laws to conserve it — despite being perfectly happy to penalise the destruction of nature in the global South.
Nowhere is this clearer than on forests.
Member states’ double standards on maintaining their own forests threaten not only to undermine the EU’s international credibility on environmental leadership but their very ability to galvanise global climate action, Hannah Mowat writes.
When the current crop of MEPs was elected in 2019, most appeared to grasp the gravity of the climate emergency - and were prepared to act.
Yet in the wake of the hottest month recorded on earth for 120,000 years, many of them tried to destroy a central plank of Europe’s Green Deal — the bloc's flagship plan aiming to make the continent “climate neutral” by 2050, which European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called the continent’s “man on the moon moment” when she launched it four years ago.
FERN’s criticism of the EU’s double standards for biodiversity was punctuated with the news that wolves, which play a key role in healthy ecosystems, are now extinct in Andalusia.
Europe’s Two Face Approach on Biodiversity
If there was ever an icon for biodiversity in Europe, it has to be the wolf. Once hunted to near extermination, the return of this apex predator to the European landscape and its future is tenuous as farming interests lobby against the wolf.
European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, was caught up in the same situation when a wolf killed the family pony, Dolly. According to this report on Politico:
Shortly after her prize pony was savaged to death, Commission President von der Leyen ordered an in-depth inquiry into the wolf menace.
James Crisp who writes for the Telegraph covered the news with his opinion that:
A wolf is on the loose with a bounty on its head after killing Ursula von der Leyen’s prized pony in a case that could have dire implications for Europe’s resurgent predators.
Indonesia and Malaysia Show Distaste for EU Hypocrisy
Indonesia and Malaysia, which account for over 80% of the world’s palm oil production, have shown a distaste for the EU’s hypocrisy.
While the EU is a large market for palm oil, its demands have been criticized as “excessive” by Malaysia and “discriminatory” by both palm oil producing countries.
As of this writing, both countries appear to be walking away from the EU market as Indonesia chases after its primary customers in India and China. Its pretty much the same for Malaysia which expects a boost in exports to non-EU markets.
These subtle moves to disengage the EU as a market of consequence could very well derail EU ambitions to be a green leader as the EU’s CBAM came under critical review at the World Trade Organisation.
1.3. Of particular concern are the unilateral environmental measures being pursued by some countries, which are implemented with little consideration of their potential impact on developing countries and have the effect of:
(i) undermining the multilaterally agreed mandate of nationally determined contributions (NDCs) of the countries of export,
(ii) conflicting with and undermine the common but differentiated responsibility and equity (CBDR) principle,
(iii) creating a preferential treatment for domestic over imported goods, restricting the market access of developing countries and least developed countries (LDCs) and creating a distortive effect on international trade,
(iv) diminishing the prospects for development of developing countries, and
(v) leading to a change in trade patterns with no significant reduction on emissions, and such actions will not succeed in either forcing or encouraging other countries to adopt equivalent environment policies.
Published August, 2023. CSPO Watch
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