The majority of MEPs believe that the summer’s devastating droughts and forest fires are a manifestation of climate change and that the EU must provide a robust response.
This is what they asked the European Commission and the EU Council on Tuesday 13 September in a debate obtained by the Greens/EFA on ‘Consequences of drought, fire and other extreme weather phenomena: increasing the EU’s efforts to fight climate change’.
“Climate change continues to affect many people dramatically, for example in Pakistan and Bulgaria, where people are facing devastating floods, or in France, Portugal, Greece and Spain, which have been particularly hard hit this summer by large-scale fires”, said European Parliament President Roberta Metsola (EPP, Maltese) at the opening of the session.
The consequences for nature, risks of food insecurity, water shortages: according to the Czech Minister for European Affairs, Mikuláš Bek, will affect all countries. He provided assurances that the Czech Presidency of the Council would make great strides in the ongoing inter-institutional negotiations on the ‘Fit for 55’ legislation and in the preparation of COP27 in Egypt, where the EU will ask “to double the funding for adaptation in developing countries by 2025”. “The economic and energy crisis should not prevent decarbonisation”, he said.
EU Environment Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevičius stressed the importance of implementing the EU’s 2021 climate change adaptation strategy and strengthening European prevention and response capacity to forest fires, as informally agreed by the relevant EU27 ministers. He said that risk assessment work had been started with the European Environment Agency to identify sensitive areas in Europe with a view to implementing anticipation tools. The future EU directive on soil health, presented in June, and the sustainable water management plans, which the Commission recommends the adoption of, will be “allies”.
In the light of the debate, the solutions advocated differ between the political groups.
At the EPP, Herbert Dorfmann from Germany highlighted the potential of innovation to prevent the consequences of extreme weather events for agriculture: “investments can be made in storage facilities, cross-border water management, deployment of new technologies for irrigation”. In his view, the security of the food supply is at stake.
Criticising “scientism and illusory technical solutions such as surface water storage”, Benoît Biteau (Greens/EFA, French) called for “solutions that have the merit of tackling the causes of climate change”, such as restoring nature, enhancing its resilience, recreating wetlands, restoring soils or planting trees.
María Soraya Rodriguez Ramos (Renew Europe, Spanish) would like to see “the creation of an EU civilian force with volunteers and professionals operational throughout the year”, evaluated and a plan for restoring burnt areas adopted. For Tiemo Wölken (S&D, German), “the drought of 2022 is historic and has its roots in the climate crisis”. In his view, the EU’s mitigation targets (a reduction of at least 55% of its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030) “cannot be an empty promise. More wood and fossil fuels cannot be burned”.
Mathilde Androuët (ID, French) called on decision-makers to “get away from ideology, invest in Canadairs and reinstate the 5,000 French firefighters who were suspended because they were not vaccinated”. Calling the use of climate change as a cover for “political negligence” a “hoax”, she said: “What have you really done to reforest, to increase urban green spaces, to prune trees, bushes and copses to dry up the flashpoints, to protect the soil?”(Original version in French by Aminata Niang)