(POP) EU - PESTICIDES - 50% REDUCTION BY 2030

Techniques like crop rotation and highly targeted pest control can help boost yields and protect the environment. Markus Spiske on Pexels.

Hundreds of scientific papers have been published about the threats of pesticide use. Still the movement to get away from them has been challenging. 

Global use of the chemicals nearly doubled between the years of 1990 and 2018, increasing from 2.3 to 4.1 million tonnes, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN.

However, there is a bit of hope in the European Union at least. Just this week, the group of nations proposed binding targets to reduce risky pesticides by 50 percent by 2030. On top of this, they put forth an all-out ban in areas like public parks, gardens, playgrounds, public paths, and ecologically sensitive spots.

“We need to reduce the use of chemical pesticides to protect our soil, air and food, and ultimately the health of our citizens,” European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Stella Kyriakides said in a release. “For the first time, we will ban the use of pesticides in public gardens and playgrounds, ensuring that we are all far less exposed in our daily lives.”

Farmers will be financially compensated for any losses by the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) during the transition for five years. This is especially important as many farms have been built for a pesticide-heavy agricultural system. Though ultimately the plan would offer relief: Prices for synthetic fertilizers have soared over the past year, placing direct financial burdens on farmers who depend on the chemicals for high yields of crops.

“Since the ‘green revolution,’ countries around the world have relied heavily on pesticides to increase agricultural production,” says Laurie Beyranevand, Director of the Center for Agriculture and Food Systems at Vermont Law School. “In many ways, our food system and the ways we produce our food rely very heavily on the use of pesticides—meaning farmers may need training and support for different pest management systems.”

This week’s proposal is a part of the larger Farm to Fork strategy, which is a post-COVID reassessment of the EU’s food system focused on changing production, processing and distribution, consumption, and food waste in order to have a sustainable system and mitigate climate change impacts. 

Farm to Fork itself is part of an even larger goal called the European Green Deal which aims to neutralize greenhouse gas emissions and decouple the economy from resource use.

The milestone proposal could become law as soon as 2023, along with the first biodiversity legislation to be passed in the EU since 1992, when the Habitats Directive came into force which ensured protection of endangered flora and fauna, as well as 200 different types of unique environmental habitats.

Still, not everyone is on board with the plan. French President Emmanuel Macron has been especially vocal about concerns relating to food security, emphasizing a need for “agricultural independence” over sustainability in the light of the food crises associated with the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

These worries, however, aren’t necessarily based in reality. “While many suggest that the food system will suffer dire consequences if farmers are limited in their ability to use pesticides, that represents a false narrative,” Beyranevand says.

There are ways to farm sustainably and continue to feed the world, adds Kathleen Merrigan, the executive director of the Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems at Arizona State University. Integrated Pest Management (IPM), for example, includes a range of techniques like setting thresholds for pest populations before taking any steps to control them, monitoring and identifying specific organisms, implementing tools like crop rotations, and selecting pest-resistant plants.

Controlling pests through highly targeted chemicals or trapping and weeding are a last resort before getting into the more serious stuff. Popular Science - link - Sara Kiley Watson - link - more like this (EU) - link - more like this (pesticides) - link

(TDR) EU AGREES END OF NEW ICE SALES DATE

After months of deliberation by political bodies and the auto industry, the European Union's 27 member nations have agreed on laws that would end the sale of new combustion-engined cars by 2035.

On Wednesday, members of the EU Parliament ended a grueling 16 hours of negotiations in Luxembourg with the formal approval of measures that will affect passenger cars and light commercial vehicles during the expedited transition from gasoline and diesel to electric.

The ban is just one of many measures aimed at reducing CO2 emissions across the EU, effectively cutting 100 percent of tailpipe pollutants from new cars by the middle of the next decade.

Plans to ban the combustion engine in Europe have been talked about for some time. The latest proposal was originally made in 2021 but was met with ongoing resistance by several EU member countries.

Germany, for example, recently said it would not agree to a ban on combustion engine sales and proposed utilizing synthetic fuels to circumvent the environmental impact. 

The ban was also denounced by the Czech Republic and some high-ranking French officials.

When the Italian government suggested that some of the world's most revered exotic brands—namely Ferrari and Lamborghini—be exempted from the embargo, Porsche CEO Oliver Blume chimed in to condemn the idea of any exceptions despite the company investing in a synthetic fuel producer earlier this year. Amendment 121, or as it's better known, the "Ferrari Amendment," will relax the requirements for low-volume brands that produce under 10,000 vehicles annually.

The so-called niche automakers won't be held to the same interim emission reduction targets as other larger automakers and will effectively be granted an extension until the de facto ban goes into effect in 2035. Most notably, this benefits luxury brands like Ferrari, Lamborghini, Rolls-Royce, and others.

Both Germany and Italy petitioned the council to consider future provisions for carbon-neutral alternative energy sources. 

The EU reportedly agreed to consider the use of alternative combustibles, such as synthetic fuels and hydrogen, though limited details in the legislation have only spread uncertainty for the automakers that may plan to make use of these fuels.

This won't be the biggest obstacle for automakers, however. Instead, it will be securing the supplies necessary for battery production. Volkswagen CFO Arno Antlitz says that the automaker foresees a challenge in manufacturing enough batteries by 2035 to make the ban sustainable.

"It's a challenging goal. We think it's doable," said Antlitz in an interview with Reuters. "The most challenging topic is not ramping up the car plants. The most challenging topic will be ramping up the battery supply chain."

The French Minister of Ecological Transition, Agnes Pannier-Runacher, acknowledged that the ban posed "a big challenge" for the auto industry; however, he found that the transition to electrification was a "necessity" given that both the U.S. and China have heavily invested in electrification as the future of personal transport. thedrive.com - link - Rob Stumpf - link - more like this (EU) - link - more like this (ev batteries) - link

(POL) NEW EU LEGISLATION BACKS CLAIMANTS

The European Commission has proposed introducing a right for citizens to claim compensation for health damage caused by breaches of industrial plants’ pollution permits | Denis Charlet/AFP via Getty Images

When Farida T. sued the French state arguing that her bronchitis and her daughter’s asthma attacks were caused by air pollution, she ran into a major hurdle.

The long-term resident of a department northeast of Paris could not prove a direct link between local air pollution levels and the illnesses, leading a local court to rule against her in 2019, citing insufficient evidence.

That burden of proof has made lawsuits like Farida T.'s — only identified by an initial under French legal rules — almost impossible to win in the EU; most people don't even bother to file them.

But that could soon change — at least for a subset of cases linked to pollution from industrial installations that lawyers and NGOs say could pave the way to broader efforts to hold polluters accountable.

In its revised rules on industrial emissions presented in April, the European Commission proposed introducing a right for citizens to claim compensation for health damage caused by breaches of industrial plants’ pollution permits. The revised EU rules would apply to over 50,000 of the largest industrial installations across the bloc, from steelworks to meat-processing plants.

The proposal reverses the burden of proof: Plant operators and relevant authorities will have to prove that their pollution breach is not at the root of the claimant’s health issues.

That’s “really, really crucial,” said Bellinda Bartolucci, a senior lawyer at legal charity ClientEarth.

“If you’re suffering from cancer or any other health damage, you actually only need to demonstrate sufficiently that the breach [of a permit] could have caused this damage. It is then up to the operator to prove that the breach had nothing to do with the harm,” she said.

The proposal — which still needs to survive negotiations between EU institutions — represents a historic step toward standardizing legal redress for the impact of pollution, according to lawyers and campaigners.

It is “completely new” and “can change quite a lot,” said Christian Schaible, policy manager on industrial production at the European Environmental Bureau, an NGO.

The reversal is likely to freak out the industry, which “will find it as difficult to disprove as claimants have traditionally found it to prove,” said Maria Lee, a law professor at University College London. Politico - link - the brilliant Antonia Zimmermann - link - more like this (EU) - link - more like this (lifecycle responsibility) - link - more like this (France) - link - more like this (EU) - link