On Tuesday 19 March, members of the European Parliament’s Environment Committee reacted to the European Commission’s presentation of its communication on climate risk management (see EUROPE 13369/11).
As Kurt Vandenberghe, Director-General of DG Climate Action, pointed out in his introduction, this communication is an initial response to the study carried out by the European Environment Agency to assess the EU’s climate risks (see EUROPE 13368/11).
While the first MEP to speak, Ljudmila Novak (EPP, Slovenian), acknowledged the Commission’s efforts and welcomed the hope that adaptation measures could bring, others were more critical.
Nils Torvalds (Renew Europe, Finnish) criticised the Commission’s general approach, which “does not meet the requirements, because you do not know what we are doing and how we are acting”. He called on the Commission to improve its own governance, which he described as “siloed” and “risky” for climate policy.
Several other MEPs, including Grace O'Sullivan (Greens/EFA, Irish), Jutta Paulus (Greens/EFA, German) and Delara Burkhardt (S&D, German), condemned the inconsistency of this communication with the Commission’s recent decision to remove climate measures from the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) (see EUROPE 13372/3).
Ms Burkhardt asked: “How can we develop this agricultural policy in the future if we keep going backwards and removing measures?”
Javi López (S&D, Spanish), for his part, welcomed the exhaustive work done in recent years on climate change mitigation, but called for a package of measures and a solid legal structure specifically for adaptation. “Climate issues need to be on the agenda of major European summits (...) We need a legal structure for adaptation. We can’t be content with a simple communication”.
On this point, Mr Vandenberghe replied that as the Commission is approaching the end of its term of office, it could not present a dedicated work programme, but that it seemed important to get across a message about the seriousness of the impact of climate change.
He also said that he understood the criticism regarding the proposals to simplify the CAP, but recalled the fact that some areas of agriculture, suffering from serious economic difficulties, needed a certain degree of flexibility. In his view, this does not mean “a return to ‘business as usual’”, as the Commission is putting in place financial incentives to ensure that the agricultural world respects its “green” commitments.
With regard to the international dimension of climate change adaptation, he used this exchange to explain that on 1 April a new task force would be set up within DG Climate Action, dedicated to carbon market diplomacy “to explain to the rest of the world the cost-effective measures represented by emissions trading and carbon pricing”. (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)