Right-wing politics in the EU is setting climate action back, even as the continent burns. Here’s how EPP and the far-right have undermined forest and climate policy just in the last few days.
1. Swedish & Finnish PMs want to log their way out of the climate crisis
The Prime Ministers of Swedish and Finland (both EPP) have written to the President of the European Commission (also EPP) asking to be let off the hook for their climate commitments. Sweden and Finland are going to miss their 2030 targets for carbon stored in forests and other lands. The letter blames climate warming and forest pests for degrading forest carbon uptake, ignoring that overlogging also plays a role including (for instance in Finland) harvesting 200-year-old trees to burn in powerplants. They worry that meeting carbon sink targets would mean “a much decreased harvest” that “would severely affect the supply of timber” and apparently “that cannot be a viable option”. It seems “viable options” can only mean more logging, rather than a stable carbon sink and a stable climate.
Their “solutions” include “greater recognition of substitution effects so we can harness the full potential of forest products”. But cutting forests to benefit the climate is silly, especially when the wood is used to make paper cups and toilet paper or burned for energy. Even with more durable wood products, EC scientists have found that increasing harvesting just sucks carbon out of forests and doesn’t reduce emissions.
The PM letter signals even more attacks on nature are coming: “In order to safeguard our climate work, without hampering our economies, we would like to highlight the need for a post-2030 legislation that takes into account the realistic potential of LULUCF removals and their inherent uncertainties.” In other words, they’re ready to throw forests and nature and carbon sink restoration goals under the bus.
2. It’s that time of year again – giving deforestation a free pass
Last year the European Commission yielded to EPP and corporate pressure to delay the Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) by a year. Naturally, it having been nearly a year, it’s now time to delay it again.
A key reason given by the Commission, we kid you not, is that the IT system might be a bit slow Apparently, another year is needed to turn it off and on again. EPP were delighted, triumphantly announcing that “EPP delivers”.
Delivers what? This delay means more forests will be lost, including in the EU itself, where primary and old-growth forests are still being converted en masse into plantations. And during that delay, be assured the EPP and other anti-nature parties will work to gut the EUDR further, including by trying to use the EU “omnibus” regulation to re-open the EUDR text and classify the whole of Europe, the USA, etc, as “no-risk” countries for deforestation and degradation.
3. Killing off the Forest Monitoring Law
Far-right MEPs (ECR, Patriots, and ESN) just killed off the Forest Monitoring Law (FML), and EPP block-voted right along with them. The result was greeted by a round of applause. EPP then proclaimed that “today, the EPP Group protected foresters from unnecessary paperwork by rejecting the Monitoring Framework for Resilient European Forests” – even though foresters would not have had any paperwork whatsoever, and are likely to see the value of their forests dropping by up to 50% this century due to climate change. These politicians reject using satellites to monitor forest impacts from fire, disease, wind-damage, and invasive species – satellites the EU public has already bought and paid for.
This year a million hectares burned during a record EU wildfire season. Killing the Forest Monitoring Law means there will be more damage to forests and agriculture and more deaths from fire, floods and heat-stroke, because the health of forests, and the risk of disaster, is not being monitored in a coordinated way. But EPP’s bonfire of environmental legislation continues, even as the continent burns. How well they serve their voters!
