Debate: Binding annual greenhouse gas emission reductions by Member States  - Land use, land use change and forestry  - COemission standards for cars and vans
Date: TUESDAY, 7 JUNE 2022
Speaker: Ville Niinistö
Country: Poland
Language: EN

Yet at the moment the exact opposite is still happening. EU sinks have continuously decreased since almost a decade now due to record high harvest in EU forests, intensive agricultural practices and not enough action to increase sinks. Furthermore, forest biodiversity is declining. An ambitious revision of the LULUCF Regulation is needed, therefore, to reverse the situation and to ensure a sustainable, predictable and long-term contribution of natural carbon sinks to the EU climate neutrality objective and to contribute to the EU’s biodiversity objectives. We must accelerate markets for sustainable land use measures. Strong and systemic measures to reduce carbon emissions caused by land use and to increase carbon sinks must be taken up to a whole new level. We need to promote carbon farming, restore wetlands and bogs, implement afforestation, halt deforestation and have better land use planning, reduce agricultural emissions, improve sustainability of forest use and keep harvesting levels, methods and rotation lengths within the limits of biodiversity and climate.  Public and private funding must be mobilised to support ecosystem based regenerative approaches in forests and agricultural lands that will also support individual farmers and forest managers. They should benefit from incentives to store more carbon on their land and forests while ensuring the protection of biodiversity and other societal benefits and also soil quality. The land use sector needs a sustainable transition, just like, for example, the automotive industry. Reducing emissions is not against them, it is for them. And the transition must be done in a just wait. The transition will be followed by a higher acceptability of production of forestry and agriculture. So it’s a win-win for markets and nature.  As rapporteur, I have worked hard to find cross-party compromises in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) Committee that could be acceptable for this Parliament. The Energy Report represents a good compromise of the main views, and I thank all the shadows for their very cooperative work on the file. The final ENVI report is an improvement for climate action from the initial proposal by the European Commission, while still maintaining its main focus.  We must ensure that climate smart policy is also biodiversity smart. Many in this Parliament claim that LULUCF is only about carbon accounting, but this is a false claim. Sinks have also a lot to do with biodiversity. Both natural sinks and biodiversity happen in the same land and we should pursue our policies at the same time. It is also more cost efficient to look for double benefits for climate and nature together. So the ENVI report tasks the Commission with setting up minimum criteria for the inclusion of biodiversity monitoring in land monitoring systems via delegated acts.  Also, one of the most difficult compromises is on the overall target of this regulation. Some studies have shown that we could reach as high as 600 million tonnes of sinks in Europe by 2030. And some MEPs are also asking this Parliament to support this level. The ENVI compromise, which was not easy to reach, is set at 310 million tonnes as the Commission propose. But it is also further amplified by additional measures and initiatives at Union and Member State level to support carbon farming, delivering at least 50 million additional tonnes CO2 equivalent of net removals by 2030 at Union level. So this is a way of making sure that also carbon farming is promoted as fast as possible and it is seen as a possibility to increase sinks also in the short term.  The ENVI report would also ensure that EU natural sinks should keep on increasing after 2030, setting both 2030 targets for the LULUCF sector. And it also proposes a soft target for cropland, grassland and wetlands to incentivise changes in agricultural practices.  So I look forward to strong support to negotiate on this basis with the Council for a strong action on climate change in land use.