Votes in the European Parliament on ESR and LULUCF

NGOs call on their governments for ambitious climate change commitments on the EU ESR day of action + update on the votes in the EP

On 7 June, NGOs called on their governments for ambitious climate change commitments on the Effort Sharing Regulation, which is currently undergoing the EU co-decision process. NGOs called for action on all sectors covered by the ESR: transport, buildings, waste and agriculture. IFOAM EU participated to this day of action because agriculture should do its fair share to reduce GHG emissions and should not be exempted from any meaningful targets.

IFOAM EU has been closely following the two dossiers – the ESR and the LULUCF (Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry) – during the legislative process in the Parliament.

For the ESR dossier, the vote in the Parliament’s Agriculture Committee took place on 3 May and the approved opinion significantly waters down the Commission’s initial proposal. The vote in the Parliament’s Environment Committee, the lead committee, which took place on 30 May, brought better results, with an improvement of the Commission’s proposal and the LULUCF flexibility reduced to 190Mt. The plenary of the European Parliament voted on the final proposal on 14 June. The targets in the report it adopted are close to the original Commission proposal and keeps the LULUCF flexibility at 280Mt. Another key point in the report is the introduction of an early action reserve for Member States allowing countries to transfer some of the surplus generated from the current period to the upcoming one after 2020. The report was sent back to the Environment Committee by the plenary, so that the Rapporteur gets a mandate to start first reading negotiations with the Council.

The vote on LULUCF in the Agriculture committee took place on 30 May. It amended the Commission’s proposal in an undesirable way. Namely, the draft report gives Member States the space to set their forest reference levels with no historical references required. This would allow Member States to hide GHG emissions linked to increasing harvesting of forests, at a time when many countries plan to increase forest exploitation for bioenergy purposes. IFOAM EU is calling for honest and transparent accounting rules and wants that the real impact of land use and forestry on the climate is accounted for. The vote in the Environment committee on LULUCF will take place on 11 July.

For more information, visit IFOAM EU’s climate change page.