Despite its environmental and climate ambitions for the EU, the ‘Green Deal’ has one major shortcoming: the lack of systematic integration of fundamental rights into its policies and legislation. This is the point made by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) in a report published on 15 January, which calls for an approach based to a greater extent on human rights.
According to the document, persistent inequalities compromise the objectives of the European Green Deal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030 and to achieve climate neutrality.
And with good reason: as the FRA points out, in 2022, more than 41 million EU citizens, or 9.3% of the population, were not able to afford adequate heating.
This energy poverty, which affects 20.1% of low-income households and 24% of people with disabilities, demonstrates the limits of the temporary measures put in place.
Moreover, on the labour market, while the green transition is creating opportunities - particularly in the sectors of new technologies and ecosystem services - it is not preventing inequalities from widening still further.
Women, who occupy a large proportion of jobs in precarious sectors such as services, care or trade - often indirectly affected by the economic restructuring of the green transition - and low-income workers, who are often migrants and work in carbon-intensive sectors such as transport or construction, are particularly vulnerable.
Marginalised populations, such as the Roma, are also exposed to greater risks of social and environmental exclusion.
To address these issues, the FRA recommends integrating fundamental rights into the design and implementation of EU funds, such as the Social Climate Fund, in order to combat energy poverty. The EU should also create a strengthened monitoring framework, including indicators to measure the impact of climate policies on fundamental rights.
Broader participation by citizens and civil society in drawing up climate policies is advocated.
Finally, to ensure that no-one is “left behind” in the green transition, the FRA is also calling for simplified access to justice, “complemented by robust legislative and policy measures”.
The report: https://aeur.eu/f/f5q (Original version in French by Nithya Paquiry)