196 results found for "agriculture" ordered by most recent first
The Commission has set out its initial proposals for the next “Multi-Annual Financial Framework” – the planning period for the EU budget which sets the priorities for spending, and shares out EU money between programmes and Member States. We’ve been examining what’s at stake for the environment, sustainable development, and Europe’s future.
Pollinators are increasingly under threat by human activity. IEEP surveyed national and regional initiatives that help pollinators in ten EU Member States, outlining strategies, successes and gaps.
The final report of an IEEP-led study for the Pacific Community entitled ‘Towards greener taxes and subsidies in Pacific Island Countries and Territories’.
Plastic packaging is increasing in Europe’s food system: new research explores packaging’s role in the supply chain and its impacts on the environment.
Download the IEEP 2018 calendar to stay up to date with the most important dates for European and international environmental policy.
In environmental terms there are at least two ways of looking at the prospects for 2018. Viewed through the rather sober lens of EU process, it has the look of a project completion and tidying up period with limited long term impetus to the last full year of the current European Parliament and Commission.
European countries have developed a wide range of policies to encourage climate mitigation through land use “sinks”; but as the land use sector is brought fully into the EU’s climate targets, policies will need to be more ambitious, and more focused on results.
Moving the CAP towards a focus on performance is a positive step towards aligning agriculture payments more seriously with the delivery of environmental and climate outcomes. But is there a need to ensure that the environmental priorities identified are sufficiently ambitious and that Member States are held accountable?
IEEP's new paper, "Ideas for defining environmental objectives and monitoring systems for a results-oriented CAP post 2020", suggests a way forward.
A new evaluation of the Common Agriculture Policy’s Pillar 1 greening measures for the European Commission, led by IEEP on behalf of Alliance Environnement, found that overall the greening measures have led to only small changes in management practices, except in a few specific areas.
Pollinator insects are essential to ecosystems and agriculture, but their populations are in decline. How can this issue be tackled in Europe? Your chance to reply.
The European Parliament’s first reading opinion on the recast of the Renewable Energy Directive, moves some steps forward in the debate on sustainable use of biomass for energy in Europe. However, the devil is in the (considerable) detail set out in the adopted text.
There is mounting interest in biomass to provide heat, power and, transport fuels but also as a basis for alternative products for replacing plastics, and other fossil fuel derived commodities. How can the bioeconomy and the bioenergy sector evolve to deliver sustainable, coordinated and efficient use of resources?
In a published letter to The Guardian, IEEP's Alan Buckwell argues it is incorrect to describe payments to farmers who manage land for biodiversity and the ecosystem services it provides as "subsidies".
Join PEGASUS stakeholders to discuss delivering environmental and social benefits from agriculture and forestry in a changing policy context.
The Final Conference of the PEGASUS project will take place in Brussels on Wednesday, 7 February 2018 (9:00-17:00). The event will summarise of the results of over 3 years of research on concrete ways to enhance the provision of public goods and ecosystem services by agriculture and forestry, and what this means for policy and practice.
Registration is available here.
This briefing is intended as the first in a series explaining policy instruments available and the opportunities for soil protection as part of the iSQAPER research project.
If caring for the planet starts from the ground, then caring for the planet starts with farmers, foresters and all others who manage and use the EU’s soils. It follows that the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), as a major driver of the decisions made by Europe’s 12 million farmers, is critical to securing responsible, long term management of our soils and related ecosystem services.
The European Commission launched its long expected Communication on ‘the Future of Food and Farming’ on 29 November. Read IEEP’s initial reaction.
The first meeting of the EU Stakeholder Platform for the European Climate Foundation's (ECF) Agriculture net-zero 2050 projectwill take place on the 29th of November in Brussels. Event will discuss the main climate-related drivers of change in the agriculture and land using sectors. Building on the discussions, subsequent phases of the project will investigate what possible transition pathways could look like and what would need to change to enable them to be realised in practice.
It is clear that the 2030 Agenda will not be achieved without a more circular economy.
If all citizens of the world were to have the same consumption patterns as European citizens by 2050, the resources of two planets would be needed. Ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns - through a circular economy - will have positive knock-on effects for a number of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
While the stand-off on agriculture is continuing between developed and developing countries within climate negotiations, there is a growing consensus among experts that agriculture --and more generally the land use sector--needs to rise at the top of UNFCCC agenda.