Europe’s rural land faces many competing demands for the provision of food, energy and timber, as well as environmental and cultural services.
There is scarcely any true wilderness left in the EU, so the ways in which land is managed affects the quality of the environment as well as the character and social fabric of much of rural Europe.
The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) continues to be a major driver of land use and management decisions. Other sectoral policies, such as those promoting renewable energy, protecting biodiversity and regulating water quality and usage have an important influence too.
IEEP seeks to inform and influence the development of the key EU policies that affect the sustainable use of rural land and to encourage the integration of environmental priorities into these policies.
We provide independent policy research, analysis and advice focussing on ways in which farming and forestry can help to protect Europe’s natural resources and the wide range of environmental goods and services which they support.
Highlights
After experiencing the worst summer drought in 500 years and an unusually warm October, EU policymakers should be determined to make the Green Deal a success. The only way to make this happen is to tackle – once and for all – our food system, which is economically, socially and environmentally unsustainable, from the sowing of the plants we eat or feed, to the animals we farm, to our consumption patterns.
The UN Climate Change Champion for COP27, Dr Mohieldin, is right to make agriculture and food system transition the focus of the COP in Egypt this week. So far, the role of industrial agriculture systems in driving global warming has been ominously absent from international climate fora. Yet the issue of reducing industrial meat production – critical for achieving Paris goals – is the big cow in the room at COP27.
For the EU to maintain credibility as a climate leader at COP27, its upcoming Fertiliser Strategy must advance the sustainable farming agenda, not subsidise its fertiliser industry.
In her plans for 2023 addressed to the EU Parliament, President of the EU Commission von der Leyen did not mention the proposal for a Sustainable Food System legislative framework (SFSF). This created speculation about the timeframe of this key proposal which has been put forward as a cornerstone of the EU Green Deal for the agri-food sector. This blogpost, co-signed by members of the Think Sustainable Europe network, underlines the importance of the SFSF to be proposed next year in order to drive a sustainable transition of the EU food system, given the urgency of such a transition.
The European Green Deal (EGD) implementation would make Europe the first climate-neutral continent by 2050 by reducing GHG emissions by 55% compared with the 1990 levels. The agriculture sector will have a key role to play to reach this objective as it is expected to become the single largest emission source in the EU by 2030.
This new report reveals the scepticism of sustainability experts regarding the implementation status of the European Green Deal in the short term, but some cautious optimism post-2024. Based on insights from over 300 experts, the Green Deal Barometer provides recommendations for taking forward the implementation in the current crisis.
On 29 and 30 June 2022, IEEP and IDDRI welcomed members of the Think2030 platform at Sciences Po, Paris to discuss the implementation status of the European Green Deal. This report is a summary of a two-day discussion among national and EU-level policymakers, experts, representatives of civil society and the private sector on how to make the Green Deal a reality.
When Ursula von der Leyen presented one of the most ambitious political projects to date in EU history, aiming at making Europe the first climate-neutral continent, nobody could imagine that just a few months later, an unprecedented pandemic would lock down the whole EU. Yet, and despite strong pushes to derail the European Green Deal agenda as an immediate reply to the crisis, the Green Deal stayed afloat and was even slightly boosted through the national recovery and resilient plans.
Next week, join 200+ experts for the third edition of the Think2030 conference, co-organised by IEEP and IDDRI at Sciences Po in Paris.
Organised during the EU Green Week, this event will look at the impact of the war in Ukraine on the implementation of the Green Deal.
This brief reviews how far EU Member States’ CAP Strategic Plans address dependence on fertilisers and animal feed, and how action in this area could be stepped up before the Plans are approved by the European Commission.
The Think2030 conference is back for its third edition! This in-person event, co-organised by IEEP and IDDRI, will centre the discussion on European Green Deal implementation by 2024 and beyond.
What’s next for the Green Deal? Contribute to the second edition of the European Green Deal Barometer, IEEP’s annual consultation on the implementation status of the Green Deal.
This briefing reviews existing evidence on the impact of environmental degradation on European food availability in the long run, if food systems are to remain as they are. It focuses on climate change, biodiversity loss and soil degradation.
To reduce the impact of the war in Ukraine on global food security, many European actors propose to increase production in the EU, regardless of the associated environmental costs. This blog post intends to refocus the debate on more fundamental concerns highlighted by the food crisis.
In 2021, the European Commission committed to ending the use of cages for farmed animals within the EU before the end of 2023, but no estimate of the costs of compliance with the proposed legislation has been published as yet. This report considers the question of which sources of public funding, EU and national, could be used to aid the transition, alongside the contributions of producers themselves and others in the food chain.
This event co-organised by IBMA Global, IBMA France and IEEP will highlight the opportunities that biocontrol can offer in order to reach the objectives of the European Green Deal and the Farm to Fork Strategy.
This study analyses the water needs of the agricultural sector in France, Spain and Romania and the related public interventions planned in the national recovery plans. Based on the results obtained at the national level, it proposes a set of recommendations and changes needed on farms to adapt to current and future water availability.
Carbon farming refers to sequestering and storing carbon and/or reducing greenhouse gas emissions at farm level. It offers significant but uncertain mitigation potential in the EU, can deliver co-benefits to farmers and society, but also carries risks that need to be managed.
The UK is developing an ambitious agri-food strategy based on a liberalised approach to trade policy tempered with safeguarding important standards. This Think Piece commissioned by WWF UK examines the potential for designing Core Environmental Standards (CES) to agri-food products, including those imported to the UK, and aims to offer new impetus and some practical ideas to bring environmental standards into UK trade policy.
