To: Environment Ministers of EU Member States Cc: Commissioners for Environment, Climate, Agriculture and Health and Consumer policy and the Chair of the European Parliament Environment Committee Concerning: Input to the EU Environment Council Meeting, Luxembourg, 17 October 2016 Brussels, 12 October 2016 Dear Minister, On behalf of the European Environmental Bureau, I am writing to share with you our views on some of the issues on the agenda of the forthcoming EU Environment Council. I invite you to take our concerns into account during final official level preparations as well as at the meeting itself. 1. Effort Sharing Regulation 2016/0231 (COD) The EEB welcomes the Commission s proposal for a new Effort Sharing Regulation and the opportunity for a first debate on this among Environment Ministers after the EU helped to ensure a timely ratification of the Paris Agreement. That said, the level of climate ambition the EU is currently negotiating with the Commission s proposal falls desperately short of what is needed for the world to have a fighting chance to meet the Paris Agreement s goals. In the light of the success of the Paris agreement, commit to going beyond the at least 40% target of the October 2014 Council Conclusions and increase ambition by including a trajectory to at least 95% emission cuts by 2050 supported by, as a minimum, 45% reductions in the non-traded sectors by 2030; Strengthen the compliance mechanisms and include a 5 yearly review and ratchet mechanism; Reject and close loopholes that could drastically reduce the environmental integrity of the EU effort, in particular from setting the wrong baseline, inclusion of forestry offsetting or through surplus ETS allowances. See Annex 1 for more detailed comments.
2. Inclusion of greenhouse gas emissions and removals from land use, land use change and forestry into the 2030 climate and energy framework 2016/0230 (COD) The EEB welcomes the Commission s proposal to bring the LULUCF sector into the EU s climate framework. It is however essential that these proposals lead to significant emission reductions in the sector itself and do not serve to provide loopholes for other sectors. It should also be stressed that this proposal will not be sufficient to ensure the sustainability of bio-energy that would be promoted under a new Renewable Energy Directive. Raise the ambition level for the LULUCF sector by going beyond the no debit rule and ensure that the EU increases its sink capacities, using robust, simple and transparent accounting rules based on historic rather than projected future baselines; Ensure the environmental integrity of all LULUCF activities, in particular by requiring positive impacts on nature and biodiversity and promotion of wetland preservation and restoration. See Annex 2 for more detailed comments. 3. Sustainable Water Management The EEB welcomes the initiative by the Slovak Presidency to organise a political debate on sustainable water management and adopt Council Conclusions as a timely reminder for Member States to press ahead with the ambitious implementation of the Water Framework Directive, in particular those Member States which still need to finalise their second round of River Basin Management Plans. Support a significant stepping up of the ambition and speed with which Member States implement the Water Framework Directive in order to achieve the goal of good water status by 2027 for Europe s surface water and groundwater; In particular, ensure that the new River Basin Management Plans set the framework and conditions for energy, agriculture and infrastructure developments. See Annex 3 for more detailed comments. 4. Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) The EEB welcomes the proposal to adopt Council Conclusions for the 13 th Conference of the Parties (COP) under the CBD and the progress that has been made in the implementation of the Strategic Plan till 2020. At the same time, the fact remains that biodiversity continues to be lost at alarming rates, requiring a doubling of efforts in particular through the mobilisation of financial resources. In this context, we would like to reiterate our deep concern about the continued delay by the European Commission to announce the outcome of the Fitness Check of the EU s flagship conservation policy, the Birds and Habitats Directives. 2
Seize the opportunity of the forthcoming COP 13 to significantly increase the ambition in implementing the Strategic Plan, in particular by ensuring that all parties adopt national targets in line with the 20 Aichi Targets, and stepping up the financial contribution in line with the Global Strategy on Resource Mobilization from 2012 and its global targets on doubling the total amount in 2015 compared with the identified global baseline, maintaining this until at least 2020; Insist that the European Commission immediately publishes the outcome of the Fitness Check of the Birds and Habitats Directives. See Annex 4 for more detailed comments. Thank you in advance for your consideration of these points. Yours sincerely, Jeremy Wates Secretary General 3
ANNEX 1 Effort Sharing Regulation Acknowledging and welcoming the success of the swift ratification of the Paris Agreement by the European Union, the EEB wants to recall the urgent need to back up these commitments with effective and ambitious action to pursue efforts to limit global warming to 1.5. Binding national targets in the Effort Sharing framework have proven to be effective and key for coordinated climate action in Europe. We fully support this approach and urge Member States to ensure that all sectors contribute and are given guidance to embark on a path compatible with at the very least 95% emission cuts by 2050. Europe s contribution to the global effort will be judged by ambition of the overall package and the environmental integrity of the 2030 Effort Sharing Regulation (ESR). In light of the climate science and urgency of limiting emissions, the overall EU target of least 40% domestic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 compared to 1990 is clearly inadequate and must be increased. The ESR together with the greenhouse gas emissions and removals from land use, land use change and forestry, covers the majority of the EU s total emissions. Any provisions that contradict the environmental integrity will undermine the credibility of the ESR as a whole. This specifically includes the risk of weakening the ESR framework by using outdated starting points, providing for surplus EU ETS allowances or using forestry offsets instead of initiating low-carbon developments by all sectors. Increase ambition to be consistent with climate science and the Paris Agreement by including a trajectory to at least 95% emission cuts by 2050 supported by, at a minimum, 45% reductions in the non-traded sectors by 2030; Include 5-yearly review and ratchet mechanisms, allowing the EU and national climate targets to be upwardly revised every 5 years; Strengthen compliance by reverting to annual compliance checks; Start counting from the right point, either on the basis of the actual 2020 emissions, or the 2020 targets, whichever is lower, in order to avoid a situation resulting from the current proposal whereby countries that fail to meet their 2020 targets are rewarded for noncompliance; Close loopholes that undermine the low-carbon transition and bring the risk of not achieving the 2030 target in the ESR sectors. Limiting the new flexibilities while strengthening the intra- EU flexibilities can provide a more fair and effective regulatory framework while safeguarding its environmental integrity as follows: o Reject the use of forestry offsets that undermine climate actions in other sectors: carbon removals from forests should be promoted in addition to, not instead of, the efforts to cut emissions, especially since they are not permanent; o Do not allow surplus ETS allowances to stall the transition of the non-traded sectors;. since the ETS allowances will be subtracted from the country s auctioning volumes, significant amounts of scarce financial resources are foregone; Put efficiency first and reinforce the synergies between European climate, energy and sectoral legislation. EU energy efficiency measures, for example those that stimulate improvement in the energy performance of buildings, support Member States ability to meet their climate targets in the most cost-effective way and are crucial to achieving the necessary emission reductions in the ESR sectors. 4
ANNEX 2 Inclusion of greenhouse gas emissions and removals from land use, land use change and forestry in the 2030 climate and energy framework The EEB welcomes the proposal to regulate emissions and removals in the land sectors and to bring these sectors into the EU s climate policy framework. These sectors should contribute to the EU s efforts to fight climate change in their own right and be accounted for in a coherent way with the other sectors. The mitigation efforts in the LULUCF sector should be in addition to the emission reductions in other sectors and the removals from the sector, especially from forestry, should not be used to replace and offset emissions in the non-ets sectors. The EEB further highlights that the LULUCF proposal will not be sufficient to ensure that only low carbon bioenergy will be used and supported under forthcoming Renewable Energy proposals. Due to the persistence of loopholes in the accounting of forest management, emissions from forest bioenergy can still go unaccounted and the accounting is not consistent with other sectors. In addition, even if the emissions are accounted for, this is not sufficient to ensure that the optimal emission reductions measures are taken with bioenergy use. Safeguards need to be placed on the renewable energy policies driving the use of bioenergy to ensure that, in addition to meeting broader sustainability requirements e.g. in relation to biodiversity, bioenergy use truly does deliver emission savings, taking into consideration emissions that occur due to biomass harvesting in the land and forest sectors. Raise ambition in the LULUCF sector and go beyond the no-debit rule so that the EU at least maintains or actively increases its sinks in line with the implications of the pathway towards limiting global warming to 1.5 ; Support robust accounting rules that are transparent, simple, comparable and are based on historic rather than projected future baselines; Include safeguards to ensure that all LULUCF activities, especially afforestation, have a positive impact on nature and biodiversity; Make wetlands a mandatory accounting category for all Member States and incentivise their restoration and conservation. Peatlands and wetlands have high conservation value and are large carbon stores. Their restoration and conservation should be incentivized. 5
ANNEX 3 Sustainable Water Management The EEB welcomes the Slovak Presidency s efforts to raise sustainable water management into the political discussion through the organization of a ministerial conference and preparation of Council conclusions on water management. The EEB emphasizes that effective implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) and the Floods Directive (FD) would solve most of the water related problems in Europe, including water quality problems, floods, water scarcity and adaptation to climate change. Member States have taken significant steps forward in this respect in the last decade; however, there are still significant gaps in the implementation of the abovementioned Directives. Increase the ambition and speed up the process of implementing the WFD and the FD in the Member States and ensure the necessary financing of the measures needed to reach good status of all waters in Europe; Urge Member States that have not yet approved their second River Basin Management Plans and first Flood Risk Management Plans to immediately complete them, ensure the coordinated implementation of those plans and further ensure that river basin and flood risk management planning is also coordinated with other planning instruments, especially spatial and land use planning; During the implementation of the WFD and FD, put ecosystems and biodiversity first and prioritize green solutions and natural water retention measures over grey infrastructure; Pay specific attention to the integration of water protection in other sectors such as agriculture, industry, energy, transport and fisheries; Ensure that water pricing policies are in place in the Member States and that they provide adequate incentives to use water resources efficiently; Ensure that new investments and developments do not compromise the achievement of the WFD and FD objectives; Ensure that water management goals are defined in the spirit of the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, following a holistic approach to all related goals (nature, biodiversity, agriculture, energy, climate, cities etc.); Fully commit to the European Commission initiative on the Environmental Implementation Review, and discuss and solve systemic implementation problems of environmental acquis at a high political level; Work together with European Commission on assessing the implementation of the WFD so far and base any discussion on the WFD review on the results of that assessment; In case of competing water uses, consider demand management as a priority and aim at reducing water consumption; Support water reuse as a WFD measure but only where it contributes to water efficiency and does not increase net water use. 6
ANNEX 4 Thirteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 13) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) The EEB welcomes the proposal to adopt Council conclusions on the Thirteenth Meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 13) to the CBD. We recognise the progress made on the global level to implement the Strategic Plan on Biodiversity 2011-2020 and the 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets. However, the EEB also recalls that the midterm assessment in Global Biodiversity Outlook 4 showed that despite the efforts and achievements made so far, the progress in the implementation of the 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets is insufficient. The Heads of State and Finance Ministers should be brought to the understanding that without a substantial increase in the financial resources to implement the Strategic Plan on Biodiversity and without phasing out harmful subsidies, the loss of biodiversity will not come to an end. The conservation of biodiversity, restoration of ecosystems and sustainable use of natural resources are an integrated part of the UN 2030 global goals on sustainable development and a prerequisite to ensuring health and prosperity globally. COP 13 represents an opportunity for Parties and amongst them the EU to raise the level of ambition in the implementation of the Strategic Plan on Biodiversity, to find solutions to the remaining challenges and to agree on means and tools to support national implementation to reach the targets by 2020. Finally, it is essential that the European Commission provides clarity as soon as possible about the future of its flagship biodiversity policies, the Birds and Habitats Directives, and ends the continuing delay in publication of the outcome of the Fitness Check. Encourage Parties to take further action to scale up and accelerate national implementation efforts in line with the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 and related Resource Mobilization Strategies; Call on Parties which have not yet done so to adopt national targets in line with the 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets and to promote cross-sectoral involvement in the development of national biodiversity strategies and action plans (NBSAPs), and designate NBSAPs as national policy instruments to be implemented across sectors; Step up the financial contribution substantially and call for other donor Parties to do so in line with the Global Strategy on Resource Mobilization from 2012 and its global targets on doubling the total amount in 2015 compared with the identified global baseline, maintaining this until at least 2020; Encourage all Parties, especially beneficiary Parties, to report their financial needs in time to increase transparency and to provide baseline information for future planning, and also call on Parties to substantially step up their national biodiversity related funding from all sources; Call on Parties to raise the level of obligations in the COP 13 Conclusions, especially regarding mainstreaming of biodiversity into sectors, planning and legislation and to ensure that more sectors are integrated in the Cancun Declaration on Mainstreaming the Conservation and Sustainable use of Biodiversity e.g. extractive industries such as oil and ga,s mining, energy, infrastructure, manufacturing, and commercial and residential construction; Insist that the European Commission immediately publishes the outcome of the Fitness Check of the Birds and Habitats Directives. 7