The agriculture sector holds a lot of power within the European Union, receiving around one-third of the bloc’s total budget.
But, amid rising production costs and lower incomes, farmers have been voicing their frustrations on streets across the EU over the past few months.
These protests have resulted in promises for more funding and loosened rules from both the EU and individual countries.
Agriculture has become a “particularly sensitive subject” among EU politicians ahead of the European parliamentary elections in June, says Politico.
Earlier this month, Carbon Brief travelled to Amsterdam and Brussels to discuss these issues as part of a reporting trip organised by Clean Energy Wire, an EU-focused news service for climate and energy journalists.
Reporters spoke to academics, policymakers and farmers about the upcoming European elections and the future of farming across the bloc.
In this Q&A, Carbon Brief explores what these elections could mean for EU agricultural policy, the impact of the recent farmer protests and the possible pathways for farming in Europe.
- How important are climate and farming in the European parliament elections?
- What concessions have been made in response to the EU farmer protests?
- What does the future look like for EU agriculture?
How important are climate and farming in the European parliament elections?
The European parliamentary elections occur every five years. Voters across the EU will head to the polls over 6-9 June to elect 720 members of the European parliament (MEPs).
Each EU country is allocated a certain number of seats in parliament based on population size, from a minimum of six MEPs (Cyprus, Luxembourg and Malta) to a maximum of 96 (Germany). Candidates in each country are elected based on proportional representation.
The centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) won 189 out of 705 seats in 2019 – the highest portion of any group. The Greens/European Free Alliance (Greens/EFA) boosted their number of seats from 50 in 2014 to 74 in 2019.
This so-called “green wave” was particularly notable in Germany, where the Greens/EFA received more than 20% of the vote.
Climate change and the environment were key issues for voters in 2019, according to Eurobarometer surveys after the elections. Agriculture, on the other hand, was not listed as a main priority issue for people casting their ballots across the bloc.
Analysis of opinion polls and previous EU election results by the European Council on Foreign Relations, a foreign and security policy thinktank, suggested that this year’s results will “see a major shift to the right in many countries”.
The analysis, released in January, said that anti-European populist parties could top the polls in nine countries, including France, Italy and Poland. They could rank second or third in other places, such as Germany, Spain and Sweden.
Similar polls emerged ahead of the last election.
In the early days of 2019, Der Spiegel reported that public opinion researchers “believe that right-wing populists could end up with 20% of the EU-wide vote”.
These parties made gains in some countries in 2019, including Hungary, Italy and France, but, as the Guardian noted after the election, “a promised populist surge turned out to be more of a ripple” across the EU.
Recent analysis from the Jacques Delors Centre, a European thinktank, suggests that the “notion of a broad green backlash” in this year’s parliament election is “largely overblown”.
Based on an online survey of 15,000 people in Germany, France and Poland, they found that the majority of voters want more ambitious climate policy and would support “a raft of concrete measures” to cut emissions.
But a “sizeable minority” of people said they are against more ambitious climate policies – around 30% of people surveyed in Germany and Poland and 23% of those surveyed in France.
The chart below shows the percentage of people in each country who believe that the negative effects of climate change already affect them and their family, will do so in the future or will not affect them at all.
Rightwing parties have seen an increase in support in some recent national European elections. In Portugal’s parliamentary elections earlier this month, the centre-right won and support for the far-right also surged, the Financial Times reported.
There are a wide range of other votes happening in Europe this year, including legislative elections in Austria and federal elections in Belgium.
In the Dutch general election last November, the far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) won the highest number of seats in parliament. Coalition talks have been strained, with unresolved issues around finance and policy differences dividing the parties, but discussions remain ongoing.
The party gained support by “harnessing widespread frustration about migration”, according to BBC News. The housing crisis was also a key issue for voters, while farmers and people living in rural areas were concerned about proposed nitrogen-reduction plans.
Following a court ruling in 2019 that previous plans to tackle nitrogen emissions were not sufficient, the Dutch government re-developed these plans. In 2022, the government set targets to cut nitrogen pollution by as much as 70% in some parts of the country by the end of this decade.
Most of the country’s nitrogen emissions come from livestock and the construction sector and a voluntary “buy-out” scheme for farms is among the measures aimed to cut emissions. This would compensate farmers who choose to close their farms if they are located near nature reserves.
Protests kicked off in 2019 in response to the possible nitrogen-reduction measures and demonstrations have continued over the past few years. These frustrations were among the reasons the populist Farmers-Citizen Movement (BBB) won the biggest share of seats in the Dutch provincial elections last March.
This party was set up in 2019 after a surge in farmer protests over nitrogen-reduction plans and fears of the impact they would have on farming.
Months out from the European parliament elections, it is still unclear how these issues will affect the final results.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has voiced support for farmers in her campaign to continue leading the commission. She recently said that her party, the EPP, “will always be by the side” of farmers.
The Guardian reported that von der Leyen “has made climate concerns a lower priority” since announcing the re-election bid in February. But the EU’s climate commissioner, Wopke Hoekstra, recently told Politico that the bloc must “focus just as much, and probably more” on climate action in the years ahead.
Hoekstra’s comments followed a climate risk report from the European Environment Agency that outlined the “major challenges” the continent faces from extreme heat, drought and floods.
Bas Eickhout, a Dutch MEP in the Greens/EFA party, tells Carbon Brief that he believes the next parliament’s five-year term is “quite crucial, [with] this rise of right-wing populism and, at the same time, the attacks on the green deal” – the EU’s climate policy package.
Mohammed Chahim, the vice-president of the Social and Democrats Group and another Dutch MEP, tells Carbon Brief that he is “very concerned” about the future strength of EU environmental policy, but believes that parties can “find common ground under which we can continuously improve competitiveness” for farmers at the same time.
What concessions have been made in response to the EU farmer protests?
Since the end of last year, farmers have been protesting in several countries across the EU.
The protesters have many concerns, including competition from cheaper imports, environmental regulations and the rising costs of energy and fertiliser.
The complaints from farmers differ from country to country, as highlighted in Carbon Brief’s recent analysis of the key demands from farmer groups in 12 countries.
Many relate to environmental issues such as climate change, biodiversity and conservation, but others relate more to trade policy. Farmers in several countries are protesting against proposed measures, such as a trade agreement that is still being finalised between the EU and several South American countries.
In some countries, protesters are calling for more action on climate adaptation. For example, in Greece, farmers are asking the government to implement measures to prevent farmland from being damaged by flooding and other extreme weather.
In other countries, farmers are calling for fuel subsidies to continue and for fertiliser and pesticide restrictions to be reconsidered.
In several eastern European countries, farmers have raised concerns about Ukrainian grain imports. Farmers in countries surrounding Ukraine have been arguing for months that they “can’t compete” with the price of these imports.
The protests in France were largely halted in February after the government promised more “cash support” and withdrew a planned agricultural fuel tax increase, said Le Monde.
The French government also suspended national efforts to halve the use of pesticides by the end of this decade, the Daily Telegraph reported, which environmentalists described as a “major step backwards”.
On 31 January, the European Commission pushed back rules requiring farmers to set aside some land for biodiversity. This measure, which was due to take effect this year, was postponed.
Earlier this month, the commission proposed to review some terms of the EU farmer subsidies, including making this now-postponed land measure voluntary instead of mandatory when it takes effect.
The review is aimed to reduce paperwork for farmers and allow “greater flexibility for complying with certain environmental conditionalities”, the commission said.
Von der Leyen said in a statement that the EU’s agricultural policy “adapts to changing realities”, but continues to focus on “the key priority of protecting the environment and adapting to climate change”.
The commission president also scrapped a proposal to halve pesticide use.
This was an “absolute symbolic act” considering it was already “killed in parliament”, Dutch MEP Mohammed Chahim tells Carbon Brief. Last November, MEPs rejected the pesticide proposal, leaving it with an uncertain future.
What does the future look like for EU agriculture?
Agriculture generates around 25-30% of global emissions; in the EU, the figure averages about 10%. Global livestock emissions alone account for almost one-third of human-caused methane emissions, according to the UN Environment Programme.
At the same time, agriculture is particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Drought can wither crops, extreme heat can kill livestock and floods can damage soil quality.
The EU has put forward plans to both reduce agricultural emissions and make the sector more resilient and sustainable for the future.
The “farm-to-fork” strategy, a policy plan forming part of the wider green deal, was proposed in 2020 as a way to make food systems “fair, healthy and environmentally friendly”. The plans under this strategy include measures to reduce fertiliser use, increase organic farming and provide more consumer information on “healthy, sustainable” food choices.
However, around half of the actions promised under this strategy have fallen by the wayside, Euronews reported on 19 February.
The next European parliament term will have a number of key agricultural issues to tackle including a reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, the EU farmer subsidy system, before 2027.
Earlier this year, the EU launched a “strategic dialogue” to bring together farmers, retailers and other stakeholders to discuss the future of EU agriculture. A report on the outcome of these talks will be given to the commission president this summer outlining a “common ground for the future of the union’s agri-food sector”.
Looking more globally, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization last year released a “roadmap” to change agrifood systems and end hunger without exceeding the 1.5C global temperature limit.
There is an “urgent need” to reform agrifood systems, the report said, in order to meet climate goals and improve food security.
It listed a number of global targets, including reducing livestock methane emissions by one-quarter by 2030, halving food loss and waste at retail and consumer level by 2030 and reaching net-zero deforestation around the world by 2025. A recent Nature Food comment piece criticised elements of this report.
Given that the future of agriculture is still being resolved on an EU and global level, Dutch MEP Bas Eickhout says it is not surprising to see farmers protesting over their concerns. He believes, however, that the protesting farmers “throwing manure on the street” are the “extreme voices” being amplified. He told Carbon Brief in Brussels:
“There are a lot behind who are not putting their manure here on the Berlaymont building. They are not happy, but they’re not protesting.”
He said that farmers need to receive more profits from the wider food chain, adding:
“[There are] a lot of producers, a lot of consumers and a couple in the middle that have the power. That’s where the profits are. There are enough profits in the food chain, but they are not ending up at the farms…[it is a] fundamental economic problem that is happening.”
John Arink, an organic farmer, recently spoke to Carbon Brief and other media outlets on his farm near the village of Lievelde, in the east of the Netherlands. (Read Carbon Brief’s Cropped newsletter from last week for more on Arink’s farm.)
He wants to see a future with less intensive farming and more outdoor space for animals to grow. He said:
“In Holland, we have some kind of a mantra that says the intensive way of producing milk and meat is very efficient. But it is not when you calculate all of the indirect dues of materials and energy, it shows that the intensive way of farming is very inefficient.
“Maybe from the financial point of view it can be efficient, but we have to look at it in the ecological way. And from that point of view, it’s very inefficient to produce so intensively.”
The post Q&A: The impact of farmer protests on the EU’s upcoming parliamentary elections appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Q&A: The impact of farmer protests on the EU’s upcoming parliamentary elections
The head of the United Nations has called on all countries to deliver plans for phasing out their production and consumption of fossil fuels, as rising oil prices and climate shocks threaten energy and human security.
In his farewell speech to the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in New York on Tuesday, outgoing UN Secretary-General António Guterres for the first time urged “every government to adopt a national plan to transition away from fossil fuels” aligned with limiting warming to 1.5C. The plans, he said, should include “clear timelines and protection for affected workers and communities”.
“We know fossil fuel interests won’t step aside on their own. For decades, Big Oil has treated the atmosphere as an open sewer – and cashed in on the consequences,” Guterres told diplomats in his speech opening the leaders’ segment of the assembly, also calling out the industry’s windfall profits after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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COP31 electrification pledge leaves out clean power commitment
Campaigners and experts say the goal’s effectiveness in reducing emissions may be limited unless countries agree to meet it using only clean energy -
Climate change and energy transition rise up national security agenda
Leaders highlighted the national security risks posed by global warming and fossil fuel dependency at New York Climate Week
At last year’s COP30 climate summit in Belém, a group of about 80 governments led a failed push to develop a global roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels. Brazil instead proposed to draft a voluntary report that will be presented this year ahead of COP31 after countries and organisations submitted their views to the process.
Governments first agreed to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems at COP28 in Dubai in 2023, but have since failed to agree at UN climate talks on how to move forward with that commitment, as efforts to do so have been effectively blocked by large fossil fuel-producing countries.
France, Netherlands issue plans
A few countries have moved forward with their own transition plans. France launched the first one at an international conference on the issue in April and the Netherlands followed suit this month. Not being major fossil fuel producers, both European nations aim to end their coal, oil and gas consumption by 2050, although the Dutch plan was criticised for not setting specific phase-out dates for the dirty fuels.
Adão Soares Barbosa, climate ambassador from Timor-Leste and chair of the Least Developed Countries (LDC) group in the UN climate negotiations, told a press briefing on Tuesday that last year’s discussions on shifting away from fossil fuels need to continue at COP31, adding that developed countries should lead the way with transition plans and curb their use of fossil fuels.
“We are expecting that we can make a request to major-emitting countries to limit emissions from this sector,” he said. “For LDCs, we’ll also try to reduce fossil fuel use, but it will depend on national circumstances.”
Samoa’s lead negotiator Anna Rasmussen said small island states have outlined their energy transition plans in their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) – countries’ plans for meeting the Paris Agreement goals – but added “we’re still waiting” for climate finance to help implement those plans.
Despite the global push to clean up the energy mix, countries leading climate talks are themselves also expanding fossil fuel production. COP31 co-presidents Australia and Türkiye have both recently given the green light to mine and drill more coal, oil and gas, and still depend on fossil fuels for 60% and 56% of their electricity production respectively.
Fossil fuel expansion threatens COP31 hosts’ credibility, experts warn
COP30 host nation Brazil has also persisted with its plans to explore potential new oil reserves near the mouth of the Amazon River – a region known as the Equatorial Margin.
These are moving ahead despite President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announcing last year at the Belém climate summit that the country would develop its own fossil fuel phase-out plan. This is still under development with little information about its progress and may be hampered by elections next month.
“We have achieved our self sufficiency in oil and will continue to explore the potential of new reserves, such as those in the Equatorial Margin,” Lula said in his speech to the UNGA on Tuesday. “But we will not abandon the environmental agenda,” he insisted. “We will move forward with the roadmap for the decarbonisation of the Brazilian economy.”
Transition far cheaper than status quo
Speaking at the main Climate Week NYC venue, Mads Christensen, executive director of Greenpeace International, said given the fast-shifting cost dynamics for both fossil fuels and renewables, countries should revise their existing energy plans because they are now out of date.
Gas power generation now costs around 150 euros per megawatt compared with around 50 euros for solar with battery storage – making the latter two-thirds cheaper.
“If these plans were updated, I think we would have a much faster transition because it simply makes good financial sense,” he said.
Tzeporah Berman, founder and chair of the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative, told Climate Home News that the Santa Marta process for transitioning away from fossil fuels (TAFF), launched at April’s conference, could help countries discuss, design and develop their national roadmaps, as well as mobilise the international cooperation required to actually deliver them.
“Many countries want not only national roadmaps but a global roadmap off the highway to hell,” she added. “A global plan is necessary to ensure the rules aren’t rigged against those who want to do the right thing and so all countries can make credible commitments.”
The second TAFF conference will be held in the Pacific island nation of Tuvalu next spring, co-chaired by Ireland. In New York, Tuvalu’s climate minister Maina Vakafua Talia called for stepped-up efforts to tackle the fossil fuel use that is threatening his country’s “demise” by driving global warming.
“The world is running out of time, and so I ask every government to come to… Tuvalu with solutions – real solutions, not false solutions – for us to ensure that we have a pathway and a way forward,” he urged.
The post UN chief urges countries to adopt fossil fuel transition plans with timelines appeared first on Climate Home News.
UN chief urges countries to adopt fossil fuel transition plans with timelines
COP31’s flagship initiative to accelerate the electrification of the world’s economy has been criticised for failing to include a commitment to produce the power from clean energy.
Governments that sign the voluntary pledge at this year’s UN climate summit will commit to increasing electricity’s share of total energy consumption to 35% globally by 2035 in line “with pathways consistent with keeping 1.5C alive”, the text unveiled by the Turkish presidency on Tuesday says.
While the document says that the electrification goal is “complementary to efforts to expand renewable energy and improve energy efficiency”, governments are not explicitly asked to commit to producing the extra power with clean sources and driving down greenhouse gas emissions.
The text instead says the “use of clean electricity” will vary according to national circumstances. Fossil fuels are not mentioned by name, although the pledge cites the COP28 Global Stocktake decision, which called for “transitioning away from fossil fuels” in energy systems.
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Climate change and energy transition rise up national security agenda
Leaders highlighted the national security risks posed by global warming and fossil fuel dependency at New York Climate Week -
Fossil fuel expansion threatens COP31 hosts’ credibility, experts warn
Türkiye and Australia are pushing coal, oil and gas at home with no national timeline for their own fossil fuel phase-out
COP31 president Murat Kurum said earlier this month that the push to make electrification more “widespread” – through measures like the rollout of electric vehicles and heat pumps – will “automatically” lead to a reduction in the use of fossil fuels.
But many campaigners disagree, criticising the proposed pledge for failing to give an explicit signal on the fossil fuel transition.
Lack of clarity on energy sources
“Let’s not let electrification become the Trojan horse of our times, used to hide new fossil fuel consumption rather than promote renewable energy,” Claire Smith from civil society umbrella group Beyond Fossil Fuels said in reaction to the pledge’s publication.
She added that the commitment will only help address the climate crisis if electrification is powered by a flexible energy system where solar and wind are complemented by enhanced grids and storage.
The pledge’s text says that the electricity goal should be supported by “diverse and sustainable energy sources”, but it stops short of explaining what these sources are.
Alden Meyer, an international climate policy expert and senior associate at think-tank E3G, said the details of the pledge matter to how effective it will be in helping bring planet-heating emissions down.
“It has to be clean, and we haven’t got enough clarity on a guarantee that it will be a decarbonisation move,” he told Climate Home News.
China’s industrial engine starts to break its fossil fuel habit
According to an annual electricity review from energy think-tank Ember, in 2025 renewables edged ahead of coal power for the first time in 100 years. Continued growth in solar and wind pushed the share of renewables above a third of global electricity generation to just under 34%, compared with coal at 33%, it said.
Janet Milongo, energy Transition lead at CAN International, said success cannot be measured simply by how much of the world’s final energy consumption becomes electric.
“We must ask what generates that electricity, who has access to it, who owns the infrastructure, and whether it is helping communities transition away from fossil fuels,” she added.
Electrification alone can’t meet climate goals
Analysis published by the IEA on Tuesday, alongside the pledge, found that it would already be cost-effective to raise electricity’s share of global energy use from 23% today to around 33% with existing technologies, putting the COP31 goal “within striking distance”. Based on current policies, however, the share reaches only about 30% by 2035.
Hitting the 35% target would cut fossil fuel importers’ import bills by around $400 billion a year by 2035, the IEA said. At the higher prices caused by the conflict in the Middle East, that saving rises to more than $500 billion.
Speaking at New York Climate Week on Tuesday, IEA executive director Fatih Birol said the agency’s figures show that in 2026, about 80% of all new power plants built will run on renewables, with a few percentage points coming from nuclear power and the rest from fossils fuels. “So therefore, electrification itself will lead reduction of the [greenhouse gas] emissions,” he added.
However, the IEA warned in its new report that electrification “by itself is not enough” to meet the world’s climate targets. It noted that, if “low-emission” sources of power continue to simply grow in line with current policy scenarios, that would be only just enough to cover the extra demand from electrification, driving a modest decline in emissions.
Matt Webb, associate director of global clean power diplomacy at E3G, said the pledge is a “welcome signal of leadership” and can help COP31 be a “critical moment” for countries to double down on the energy commitments made at COP28.
But to secure the full benefits of electrification, he added, it is essential that we “urgently clean up” by speeding up the rollout of renewables and developing credible national plans to transition away from fossil fuels.
The post COP31 electrification pledge leaves out clean power commitment appeared first on Climate Home News.
COP31 electrification pledge leaves out clean power commitment
People around the world have donated almost $90 million to a government-led campaign to help Nepal recover from its recent devastating Himalayan flood, according to a Nepali climate negotiator, even as the UN chief slammed the tiny amount of money in a new fund to deal with such disasters.
Individuals and companies from Nepal and abroad have chipped in from $5 to “many millions” of dollars to the Prime Minister’s Disaster Relief Fund, Manjeet Dhakal, an advisor to the poorest countries at UN climate talks, told an event on Monday focused on early warning systems.
The prompt and substantial response from the public contrasts with the slower, more limited support that is potentially on offer from the UN’s new Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD), set up by governments to compensate developing countries for climate disasters.
Comment: Human security relies on adapting to the world’s new climate reality
Over three weeks have passed since Nepal’s finance and environment ministers asked the FRLD board to take an urgent decision to allocate funding to help Nepal protect people and restore essential services in the wake of the disaster, which caused around 1,450 deaths and left more than 5,000 people missing.
“Time is of the essence,” the ministers wrote in an appeal to the FRLD on August 31, which was swiftly followed by a letter from a group of developing-country board members urging the FRLD board’s co-chairs to organise an extraordinary meeting to come up with a response.
Loss and damage fund hesitates
Yet, despite informal online meetings, the co-chairs have yet to convene a meeting with the power to allocate funds. The board’s next scheduled meeting begins on December 15.
Dhakal said on Monday that the request has “received some positive response, but still there is some discussion ongoing about how to respond to that”.
“If they can’t respond in a timely manner, then is [the fund] fit for purpose in terms of disasters that the world would be facing in the coming years? The scale and intensity of these disasters is increasing,” he said.
With just $820 million pledged to it by rich countries and not all of that yet delivered, the FRLD has earmarked just $350 million to spend in its initial phase and without further contributions could run out of money next year.
Because of these limited funds, and a huge number of requests for funding totalling nearly $3 billion, the FRLD has said it will only give out a maximum of $20 million to each project for now. It has yet to approve funding for any projects.
Dhakal recently told The Nation magazine that this amount was just a “symbolic gesture”. Nepal’s government has estimated the costs of recovery and reconstruction at $4.8 billion, with homes, roads, bridges, hospitals and hydropower stations in the affected area needing to be repaired and rebuilt.
“Ridiculously small” funding
In a speech to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, the body’s outgoing Secretary-General António Guterres criticised the “ridiculously small” level of funds made available by wealthy governments to the FRLD. Developed countries should “make the loss and damage fund work at scale”, he said.
The Portuguese diplomat told world leaders that when he travelled to Nepal three years ago, he had “sounded the alarm on accelerating glacier melt, warning that the rooftops of the world are caving in”.
“Some dismissed it all as overstating dangers, but as tragic events have shown, impacts are arriving sooner, hitting harder, and spreading further than many anticipated,” he said.
A recent study by scientists with the World Weather Attribution group found that climate change contributed to the rock-ice avalanche which sparked a huge flash flood along a river valley on the Nepal-Tibet border.
Speaking at a separate event in New York on Monday, leading climate scientist Johan Rockström highlighted those findings on the role of global warming in the Himalayan disaster.
“This will be potentially the first poster-child case of a loss and damage invoice, because here we have a proven case of a catastrophe which would not have occurred if it hadn’t been for human-caused climate change,” he said.
The post As loss and damage fund stalls, Nepal crowdfunds flood relief appeared first on Climate Home News.
As loss and damage fund stalls, Nepal crowdfunds flood relief
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