The EU could be investing tens of billions of euros each year into activities that damage biodiversity, according to a new report from WWF.
With biodiversity declining at an unprecedented rate around the world, the EU intends to put nature on a “path to recovery” by 2030, in line with global goals.
Finance is a key part of this and the bloc has pledged to raise at least €20bn in nature funding each year by the end of the decade.
However, a new report estimates that EU countries could be spending between €34-48bn each year on projects that can end up damaging biodiversity in sectors such as agriculture, forestry and fisheries.
It is “pretty shocking” to see the potential scale of funding that EU countries are “pouring into harmful practices”, the lead author of the report tells Carbon Brief.
A policy expert, who was not involved in the report, says the findings may increase pressure on the EU to track its harmful subsidies, but criticised some of what the report counted as ‘“harmful”.
Tackling harmful subsidies
There is no standard definition for “biodiversity-harmful subsidies”, but, essentially, they are government incentives that supplement income or lower costs for certain activities that end up damaging biodiversity.
Agriculture, fishery and energy subsidies are most commonly termed “harmful”, but damage can also be caused by subsidies for other sectors, including forestry, infrastructure, transport, construction and water.
Subsidies that harm nature and the environment cost the world around $1.8tn each year, according to a 2022 report from two coalition industry groups – equivalent to the entire GDP of Canada.
There are a number of global goals in place to reduce these harmful subsidies.
The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, the global deal for nature signed at the UN COP15 biodiversity summit in 2022, includes a target to cut biodiversity-harming incentives, including subsidies, by at least $500bn per year by 2030. The target also aims to identify such incentives by 2025, although the EU has so far not done so.
The new analysis finds that the EU is allocating between €34-48bn every year to subsidise activities that harm biodiversity. The table below shows the upper and lower estimates for each sector examined.
| Sector | Lower estimate of biodiversity harmful subsidies (€) | Upper estimate of biodiversity harmful subsidies (€) |
|---|---|---|
| Agriculture and forestry | 31.35bn | 32.57bn |
| Fisheries | 60m | 140m |
| Transport infrastructure | 1.69bn | 14.07bn |
| Water | 1.33bn | 2.09bn |
| Total | 34.43bn | 48.87bn |
This largest proportion of funding comes from the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), the EU’s farming-subsidy programme, which accounts for almost one-third of the bloc’s total budget. (See “agricultural impact” below.)
The subsidies include funds that support “unsustainable” farming, land-use changes, river fragmentation and deforestation, according to the report. It adds that these activities can have knock-on effects on biodiversity, including habitat loss, ecosystem degradation and species extinction.
Prof Alan Matthews, a European agricultural policy expert at Trinity College Dublin, says the findings start a “good debate” about measuring these subsidies. He tells Carbon Brief:
“I see the report as contributing to the pressure on the EU…to actually come up with its own identification of what the subsidies are, so that they can begin then in the next few years to actually reduce them.”
Direct links
The study, conducted by the Netherlands-based economics consultancy Trinomics for WWF, looks at the biodiversity-harming elements of the EU’s long-term budget, the 2021-27 Multiannual Financial Framework.
It focuses on direct financing for the agricultural, forestry, fishery, transport and water sectors that may be damaging to biodiversity. This financing includes grants, loans and direct payments.
It does not look at indirect subsidies, such as tax breaks, or infrastructure investments that disproportionately benefit certain industries, such as tax reductions on fertilisers.
Tycho Vandermaesen, the policy and strategy director at WWF EU and lead author of the report, says there is an overlap between subsidies that damage biodiversity and those that exacerbate climate change, such as fossil fuel subsidies. But the climate impacts were not examined in the report. He says:
“We have taken a very conscious choice here to only look at biodiversity-harmful subsidies because this is one of the most under-highlighted environmentally harmful subsidies – in contrast to climate or fossil-fuel subsidies, which have by now been well researched.”
Matthews notes that the overall findings of the report are in line with previous research, but he criticises some parts of the methodology, such as including a very wide range of direct payments for farmers, as potentially harmful.
In response, Vandermaesen says the assumption on the harmful nature of direct payments for farmers is based on findings in existing studies.
On Monday, the EU Council approved a targeted review of the CAP to assess, among other things, plans to give farmers “greater flexibility” to comply with environmental terms for their direct payments.
The report is clear that there are uncertainties and a lack of up-to-date information on EU spending in some sectors. It says the findings are estimates and that more comprehensive analysis would be required to fully measure these subsidies.
Agricultural impact
Agriculture and forestry receive the most funding for biodiversity-damaging activities out of any sector examined in the report, as shown in the chart below.
The report notes that several EU funds “allocate money in a way that encourages large-scale unsustainable farming or forestry practices”.
These include direct farmer payments based on farm size, which can incentivise boosting industrial livestock numbers and expanding conventional crop production – “both of which harm the environment”, according to the report.
It estimates that around 60% of CAP funding – meaning more than €30bn each year – can be considered harmful to biodiversity.
The current CAP plan, which took effect in 2023 and will remain until 2027, included more environmental measures than previous iterations of the policy. But critics told Carbon Brief in 2021 that the plan was riddled with “loopholes” and unlikely to bring significant change to the sector.
Agriculture accounts for more than 10% of the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions. Globally, the sector is also a key driver of forest loss, causing 80% of deforestation as forest lands are cleared to make space for livestock, palm oil and soya beans.
Looking at other sectors, the report outlines that 5-12% of the European Maritime, Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund – a fishery funding programme – is put towards biodiversity-harmful subsidies.
This is up to 2.5 times higher than the money from this fund aiming to protect and restore biodiversity, the report says.
The report says it is “challenging” to accurately estimate the impact that building transport infrastructure can have on biodiversity, noting that it can fragment habitats and ecosystems. It estimates that the EU spends anywhere between €1.7bn and €14bn each year on roads, railways and other transport infrastructure that could be harmful to biodiversity.
Funds used for certain water infrastructure, such as flood control dams, could also harm biodiversity, the research notes.
Making changes
The report contains a number of recommendations to put an end to these subsidies, including implementing a legally binding framework to phase out biodiversity-harmful subsidies on both EU and national levels. It adds:
“Inclusiveness and social awareness need to be included in the phase-out of biodiversity-harmful subsidies to avoid regions or industries being left behind or struggling with the transition.”
Vandermaesen says that consulting with the impacted sectors and giving a clear pathway to diverting these subsidies is a “really important” step. He adds:
“We do not want to see a situation where, from one day to the next, these subsidies are basically stopped without the involvement of these communities.”
The report recommends diverting the funding instead for public investments to protect and restore ecosystems and to put in place “ambitious” national biodiversity plans ahead of the COP16 biodiversity summit, which is scheduled to be hosted by Colombia later this year.
WWF recently asked European political parties whether they would commit to redirecting fossil fuel and other environmentally harmful subsidies towards the “green transition”. All parties that responded expressed a readiness to redirect these subsidies, but the NGO says that “only a few have committed to enshrining this redirection into law”.
The subsidies report includes a number of case studies of nature-harming subsidies across Europe.
A forest recovery plan in France, financed partly by the EU, has had “adverse effects” on forests, the report outlines. Almost nine out of 10 projects financed by the plan in 2021 and 2022 involved clearcutting of trees, which can weaken ecosystems.
The report details another example in Bulgaria, where farmers were permitted to let animals graze in areas of the country’s national parks to help preserve open areas.
This led to “vegetation being trampled, water being polluted and wildlife being disturbed”, the report says. To mitigate these effects, park administrations requested €760,000 from the country’s EU-funded environment programme.
These examples “illustrate how complex it can be actually on the ground to deliver these positive results”, Matthews says, adding:
“In quite a number of the case studies, actually the subsidies were intended to be positive for biodiversity. But it seems that the way they were implemented…They had these sort of perverse outcomes.”
The post EU spending up to €48bn on nature-harming activities each year, report says appeared first on Carbon Brief.
EU spending up to €48bn on nature-harming activities each year, report says
SYDNEY, Thursday 30 October 2026 — In response to reports that the Albanese government is set to introduce draft legislation this year that would seek to ban data centres in Australia’s suburbs, Joe Rafalowicz, Head of Climate and Energy at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said:
“These reports are a testament to the growing community opposition to these completely inappropriate AI factories that have sprung up across our suburbs, and Big Tech corporations should take heed — the data centre build-out must not happen without the endorsement of the Australian people.
“But the government can’t simply ship this problem out to regional Australia without addressing the fundamental issues with this extractive new industry.
“We’re already seeing a trend of AI data centre proposals moving to the regions, in areas that are more water-scarce, more environmentally sensitive, and next to sources of fracked and coal seam gas to support their massive BYO gas-fired power plans — a pattern we’ve seen play out in the United States.
“From the Beetaloo Basin in the NT to the Western Downs in Qld, we’re seeing a wave of AI data centre proposals that would see new gas fast-tracked to support their massive energy demand, and threaten to completely derail Australia’s energy transition.
“Just as suburban Australians are asking, “what for?”, regional communities like Berry Springs and Dalby do not want dirty data centres setting up shop with absolutely no benefit to their communities. Greenpeace is calling for a moratorium on AI data centre developments until strict and enforceable safeguards are in place to protect our climate and our communities.”
-ENDS-
Media contact
Kate O’Callaghan on +61 406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
AI data centre ban in suburbs would not address fundamental issues: Greenpeace
In the thick of the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan in 2024, the UN climate talks were rattled by what can only be described as a major PR disaster. The BBC, Reuters and The Guardian all carried headlines, attributed to leading climate policy experts, that the COPs were “no longer fit for purpose”.
The articles outlined a series of reforms called for in an open letter signed by 22 eminent scientists and politicians, including a former UN secretary-general and previous UN climate chief, with a further 150 lending their support. The headlines shook confidence in the COP process, just as governments were wrestling over a new climate finance goal.
The Club of Rome – which handled the media relations for the letter – hurried to say that its “constructive, supportive ideas” had been “misinterpreted”. Negotiators kept calm(ish) and carried on, in the end landing the finance goal after some high-stakes drama on the final day.
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Early speakers’ list suggests few powerful leaders will attend COP31
Just 77 heads of state or government are scheduled to address the COP31 climate summit in Antalya, a third less than the COP28 peak -
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To my surprise, when I went back this week to read the letter again, I could not find the offending line about the COPs not being fit for purpose. The Club of Rome has yet to respond to my query about its disappearance.
Whatever happened to the wording, that sentiment has been widely shared. COPs have ballooned in size while the importance of their outcomes seems to have diminished since the 2015 Paris Agreement (with the exception of the 2023 COP in Dubai where countries agreed to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems).
The same on the surface
Two years on from those painful headlines in Baku, has anything changed for the better? You might be forgiven for thinking not. Official decisions are still made by consensus rather than the majority voting some have called for to stop blockers.
Tens of thousands of officials, activists and business execs still scurry around the halls to an ever-growing list of side events, roundtables and dialogues, while deals still come down to rows, all-nighters and jargon-filled texts adopted to rounds of applause.
But it would not be true to say that COPs have completely failed to respond to the very real need to translate the words of the Paris Agreement into action in the outside world.
Global warming is projected to be around 1.3C lower this century than it would have been if the world had not committed to tackle the climate crisis under that accord. Developing countries have a valued space at COPs in which their voices have equal weight in decision-making, unlike in many other international fora. And most importantly, perhaps, there has been a subtle shift, tipping the balance away from negotiating towards doing.
Brazil branded last year’s summit in Belém as the “COP of Implementation”, corralling the sprawling Action Agenda into six axes. This was a bid to impose some structure on the mushrooming efforts between governments, UN agencies, cities, businesses and civil society to set targets and spur faster results on their pet issues, from methane emissions to health and adaptation in conflict zones. COP30 alone saw the launch of 120 “plans to accelerate solutions”.
COP30 roadmaps off the cuff
Meanwhile, as the formal negotiations drew to a close, it was clear that consensus decision-making was evolving into something a little more improvised.
With only around half of all countries on board with the idea of a roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels, COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago announced his team would put one together over the coming year, along with another on how to meet a global goal to halt deforestation by 2030. Those roadmaps will be launched next week, presented and discussed at COP31, though it’s still unclear whether or how they’ll be incorporated into the formal negotiating agenda.
Some leading policy-makers don’t think that matters too much. Speaking to journalists before the Antalya summit, COP30 CEO Ana Toni and Dutch climate minister Stientje van Veldhoven said “coalitions of the willing” can move ahead without needing consensus from the COPs. This, they said, was evident this year at the first global conference on TAFF, co-chaired by van Veldhoven and attended by 60 countries.
“Consensus or no-consensus in the general COP doesn’t make a difference for the choices I have to make in my country to get my country to phase out fossil fuels,” said the Dutch minister. The Netherlands recently became one of the first to publish a national TAFF plan.
COP31 banks on flagship voluntary initiatives
This thinking has permeated the management and expected outcomes of this year’s COP too. Earlier this year, Türkiye, supported by international energy agencies, floated the idea of a voluntary goal to boost electrification to 35% of the world’s final energy consumption by 2035 – and this is now being touted as one of the main results to be expected from Antalya.
Türkiye is also championing a pledge on AI and climate, while co-host Australia is pushing to ease access to climate finance for least developed countries and small island states.
COP31 presidency announces AI pledge as UN climate chief says Big Tech ‘on thin ice’
None of these needs consensus. But with a political cover decision already in the works, as trailed by the COP presidents, they – and perhaps the fossil fuel roadmap – may find a home in the official text if language acceptable to most can be found, giving them them additional weight.
UNFCCC reform process in the shadows
Formal reform is underway too, if quietly. UN climate chief Simon Stiell is leading a review informed by ongoing consultations with a group of 15 well-respected climate policy experts, three of whom signed the open letter in 2024.
Among them is leading Swedish climate and sustainability scientist Johan Rockström who has strong ideas about how to make COPs function better, including a switch to majority voting. He told the same press briefing nothing stands in the way of this, because the rules of procedure for making decisions at COPs have never been formally agreed.
Still, to get away from the default setting of consensus would require agreement on a new system that may be impossible to achieve given the rise in bullying tactics by fossil fuel heavyweights.
Comment: The UN climate process was built for negotiation – now it must support implementation
The deliberations with the high-level policy gurus, as reflected in a summary of June’s session in Bonn, largely echo what’s already happening organically, calling for stronger partnerships and accountability both in and between the Action Agenda and negotiations. It doesn’t mention voting.
A general overview of the reform exercise says that “improving and optimizing the [UN climate] process over the medium to long term… will be critical to fostering trust, enhancing collaboration, and catalyzing increased ambition”.
In the short term, don’t hold your breath for anything concrete on reform at COP31 but watch for signs in what ends up dominating the headlines from Türkiye.
The post Editor’s Desk: COP reform is happening quietly, behind the headlines appeared first on Climate Home News.
Editor’s Desk: COP reform is happening quietly, behind the headlines