The EU’s law to restore nature was given the green light by the European parliament this week.
The long-awaited “nature restoration” law aims to repair the EU’s damaged ecosystems over the next few decades.
The final vote on the law came amid farmer protests across the EU and, in response, rollbacks of some of the bloc’s other environmental plans.
The law became a focal point for misinformation in recent months and saw strong levels of opposition from different groups.
It passed through a final parliament vote on 27 February, with 329 votes in favour, 275 against and 24 abstentions – a larger margin of approval than a knife-edge vote last summer.
It now needs to be approved by the council of the EU before it can take effect.
In this Q&A, Carbon Brief explains the aims of the nature restoration law, the challenges it faced, its scientific backing and what it will mean for climate change and biodiversity loss in the EU.
- What is the EU nature restoration law?
- Will the law help the EU meet its climate and biodiversity goals?
- What is the scientific backing behind the law?
- What are the most contentious parts of the nature restoration law?
- What has been the reaction to the EU’s nature restoration law?
What is the EU nature restoration law?
Proposed in June 2022, the nature restoration law is seen by the European Commission as a key part of meeting the EU’s climate and biodiversity goals.
It aims to restore at least 20% of the EU’s land and sea areas by 2030.
Within this wider goal, countries need to restore 30% of habitats covered by the new law (including forests, rivers and wetlands) that are already degraded by 2030. This increases to 60% by 2040 and at least 90% by 2050.
Sabien Leemans, a senior biodiversity policy officer at WWF EU, says the law is a “very big opportunity” for nature – and a rare one in terms of EU policy. She tells Carbon Brief:
“It is comparable to the habitats directive that was adopted in the early 90s – more than 30 years ago. It’s not like in the climate sphere that you have legislation coming up every year or every couple of years.
“For nature, with a proposal that would really impact how we use land and sea in Europe, I think this is really historic and [it is] not happening even every decade.”
The law is intended to work alongside other environmental policies on a range of issues, including birds, habitats, water and invasive alien species. Its goals also align with the new EU 2030 forest strategy, which intends to protect and restore forests across the bloc.
The law states that EU countries should, “as appropriate”, prioritise restoring habitats that are “not in good condition” and also located in Natura 2000 sites – an EU network of protected areas containing at-risk species and ecosystems – until 2030.
These areas are “essential” for nature conservation, the law says, and there is an existing EU obligation to ensure that Natura 2000 areas are covered by long-term restoration measures.
EU countries will need to submit national restoration plans to the commission to show how they plan to deliver on key targets, with requirements for monitoring and reporting on their progress towards those goals. Leemans tells Carbon Brief:
“The member states will choose where they will restore, what they will restore, how they will restore. And together the national restoration plans need to add up to the targets.”
More than 110,000 people and organisations responded to an online public consultation on the proposal in early 2021. The results showed “overwhelming support” for legally binding targets, with 97% of respondents in favour of general EU restoration targets across all ecosystems, the commission said.
The law scraped through a parliament vote in July 2023, which saw elements of the text “watered down”. (See: What are the most contentious parts of the nature restoration law?)
After further negotiations, the commission, parliament and council of the EU provisionally agreed the terms of the new law in November 2023. This passed through the final parliament vote on 27 February 2024.
There was a “last-ditch attempt from rightwing parties” to reject the law in this vote, the Guardian reported. The centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), the largest political group in the parliament, voted against the law alongside “far-right lawmakers”, the newspaper said.
Civil society organisations such as the European Environmental Bureau and Friends of the Earth Europe celebrated the EU parliament passed the law “despite EPP & far-right’s attempts to block the text”.
Politico noted that the proposal’s “narrow survival underscored broader trends likely to hamper green lawmaking” after the upcoming European parliament elections in June.
The law still has to be adopted by the council of the EU before it can take effect. This is usually a formality, but Deutsche Welle reported that “it is not guaranteed and some recent EU policies have faced blockages and delays because of domestic pushback”.
The parliament’s lead negotiator on the proposal, César Luena, said the EU can now “move from protecting and conserving nature to restoring it”.
Will the law help the EU meet its climate and biodiversity goals?
The commission’s original proposal for the law said that “more decisive action” is needed to achieve the EU’s climate and biodiversity goals, adding that the bloc “has so far failed to halt the loss of biodiversity”. It said:
“The outlook for biodiversity and ecosystems is bleak and shows that the current approach is not working.”
Global and national targets are in place around the world to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss. But, currently, greenhouse gas emissions are still rising and biodiversity is declining at a level described by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) as “unprecedented”.
Despite the fact that many elements have been weakened since the first proposal, the law is intended to be one part of several solutions needed to bridge this gap between goals and action. Leemans tells Carbon Brief:
“It’s quite clear from all reports that we are still losing nature. More than 80% of the natural habitats in Europe that are listed on the habitats directive are not in a good condition. So there is really a lot of work to do.
“It’s really important to protect nature…But it’s not enough – you also need to start restoring nature where it has been lost and bring it back.”
The EU’s 2030 biodiversity strategy sets out the bloc’s plans to protect nature and improve ecosystems.
Healthier ecosystems would have a range of wider benefits, including being more resilient to climate change, reducing the impact of extreme weather and helping to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. Currently, 26% of the EU’s land and 12% of marine areas are protected.
Romina Pourmokhtari, the Swedish climate and environment minister, says the nature restoration law will hopefully help the EU “rebuild a healthy level of biodiversity, fight climate change and meet our international commitments under the Kunming-Montreal agreement”.
The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) is a set of goals and targets aiming to “halt and reverse” biodiversity loss by the end of this decade. It includes a target to conserve 30% of the world’s land and 30% of the ocean by 2030. (See Carbon Brief’s recent Q&A on progress one year since the framework was agreed.)
The map below, taken from a 2023 study, shows the existing European network of protected areas under strict protection (light blue), not-strict protection (yellow) and new protected area corridors (dark blue). EU countries are shown in dark grey. The level of the protection is based on categories from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The areas under the strictest protection have minimal presence of humans.
According to an impact assessment study published by the commission earlier this year, the economic benefits of restoring a number of different EU ecosystems – including peatlands, forests and lakes – by 2050 range at around €1.86tn, compared to the estimated €154bn cost of these actions.
The report added that, in a number of ways, the “climate mitigation benefits alone outweighed the cost of restoration action required”.
What is the scientific backing behind the law?
The scientific rationale for the EU’s nature restoration law is laid out in the commission’s impact assessment study, which considers both ecosystem restoration needs and the financing needed to implement such targets in the EU.
About 80% of habitats in the EU have “bad” or “poor” conservation status, and only 15% are in “good” condition, according to the European Environment Agency’s (EEA) 2020 “state of nature in the EU” report.
More than half of peatlands – including bogs, mires and fens – and half of dune habitats are in bad condition, the report says. Coastal habitats have the smallest area remaining in good condition.
The chart below, taken from the report, shows the percentage of habitat in good (green), unknown (grey), poor (yellow) and bad (red) condition.
As a result of the degradation of habitats, many species across the EU are in decline.
For example, pollinators are crucial for food production, but one in three bee and butterfly species are in decline, according to the council. It points out that €5bn of the EU’s annual agricultural output “can be directly attributed” to those species, but about half of the areas where pollinator-dependent crops are grown “do not provide suitable conditions for pollinators”.
The EEA assessment provides a map of the conservation status in the EU habitats, shown below. Regions in red have “bad” conservation status, regions in yellow are classified as “poor” conservation status and green areas have a “good” conservation status.
During a webinar hosted by the European Geosciences Union at the end of last year, Damien Thomson, a political advisor working within the European parliament, said the law is “largely scientifically based, but there’s room for improvement”.
In the webinar, Thomson emphasised that the commission considered the scientific merit of the legislation, but said that the scientific evidence did not hold equal weight to the political voices in the parliament.
The EU set its first nature restoration target in 2010, as part of the EU biodiversity strategy to 2020. That strategy contained a target aimed to restore “at least 15% of degraded ecosystems” by 2020.
However, the bloc did not achieve any of the six targets set out in that strategy, the impact assessment found. It stated that the restoration target was hindered by several issues, such as the lack of legally binding targets and the “ambiguity” as to which ecosystems and restoration activities it was referring to.
The new restoration law stems from the EU biodiversity strategy for 2030, which aims to establish legally binding targets to restore “significant areas of degraded and carbon-rich ecosystems by 2030”.
The strategy aims to legally protect a minimum of 30% of the land, including inland waters, and 30% of the sea in the EU by 2030. It additionally set a target to ensure that 30% of EU species and habitats reach “a favourable conservation status” and to restore at least 25,000 kilometres of free-flowing rivers by that date.
It adds that the commission and the EEA will guide countries to “select and prioritise the species and habitats for restoration measures”.
The restoration law also acknowledges that the GBF requires that at least 30% of degraded ecosystems worldwide – including terrestrial, inland water and marine and coastal ecosystems – should be “under effective restoration” by 2030.
However, the law ultimately required restoration of 20% of the EU’s lands and seas by 2030.
In a joint statement after the final vote, BirdLife Europe, ClientEarth, the European Environmental Bureau and WWF EU said they were “relieved that MEPs listened to facts and science, and did not give in to populism and fear-mongering”. The statement added:
“Now, we urge member states to follow suit and deliver this much-needed law to bring back nature in Europe.”
What are the most contentious parts of the nature restoration law?
One of the main objections against the new law was around restoration requirements for drained peatlands used for agriculture and came from political and farming groups.
Specifically, member states are required to establish measures to restore organic soil in 30% of agricultural lands lying in drained peatlands by 2030.
This can be achieved by a range of actions, which include converting cropland to permanent grassland, establishing peat-forming vegetation or fully rewetting drained peatlands to allow padiculture – sowing of crops on peatlands or on rewetted peats.
The initial proposal was intended to reach 50% of such areas by 2040 and 70% by 2050; however, the final regulation slashed those percentages to 40% and 50%, respectively.
This target faced political resistance from conservative parties, who argued that the law would threaten the livelihoods of farmers and fishers, decrease food production and push up prices. These groups raised a “relentless campaign to bring down the text”, Euronews reported.
The European People’s Party (EPP) also sought “to drastically reduce the scope of [the] plans for” peatland restoration and was “against the conversion of agricultural land for other uses”, including restoring peatlands, Deutsche Welle reported.
In response to these concerns, member states “added flexibility” to targets linked to the rewetting of peatlands and green urban spaces into their proposal, according to Euronews.
The outlet reported that Pourmokhtari, the Swedish minister, said the country’s presidency of the council had “listened carefully to all member states who had different concerns and remarks on the proposal”.
Another target that spurred strong political objection was the restoration of forest ecosystems.
The final law mandates member states to “achieve an increasing trend at national level of at least six out of seven” forest indicators, which include traits such as the amount of non-living woody biomass in standing and lying deadwood, organic carbon stocks, forest connectivity and tree species diversity.
By June 2031, EU countries need to inform the commission about their progress on restoring nature between when the law takes effect and 2030.
After this, countries need to report progress at least every six years. The first draft of the law had proposed assessments every three years.
Countries also must, by June 2028, report other information to the commission, including details around which areas will be restored.
The law says that when considering forest and other ecosystem restoration actions, countries “shall aim to contribute” to the EU’s existing goal to plant at least 3bn trees across the bloc by 2030, prioritising native tree species and adapted species.
Nordic countries “had previously pushed back against previous forestry-related targets” and were expected to oppose the nature restoration law, a parliamentary representative told Euractiv.
Sweden, for example, was “believed to be opposed” to the targets of forest management contained in the law, Euronews reported.
Opposition parties accused Finland’s government of a “failure to protect national interests” and pointed out that the law would be costly, the Helsinki Times reported in November. Riikka Purra, chairperson of the right-wing populist Finns Party, said:
“We won’t stand by pillaging Finnish forests a lot, but also not for pillaging them a bit less.”
In response, Finland’s prime minister, Sanna Marin, said her country would accept the proposal if it included amendments and met “Finland’s overall interests”, the outlet said. It added that the government was pushing for the restoration measures to be “voluntary for land owners”, since forest policy “falls strictly” within national policy.
Following negotiations by the EU parliament, commission and council last year, a statement from WWF said the law had been “watered down”, with “disappointing” exemptions and “excessive flexibility” on some requirements.
Despite this, Leemans believes the law will lead to improvements for European ecosystems. But, she adds:
“The key will be the implementation.”
What has been the reaction to the EU’s nature restoration law?
Since the law was first proposed in 2022, it has received support from a range of groups, including wind energy and solar power associations, hundreds of scientists, dozens of major companies, an EU organic farming representative group and NGOs such as WWF, BirdLife International and Greenpeace.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature called on the EU to adopt the law and Wetlands International Europe, a non-governmental group of wetland preservation organisations, said the law will help to “secure the future of our vital wetlands”.
Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was among a group of climate activists calling for a strong nature restoration law outside the European parliament building in Strasbourg last July.
There were two key opponents to the proposed law – the major agricultural lobby group Copa-Cogeca and the EPP.
The EPP made a number of debunked remarks about the law, including that it would “turn the entire city of Rovaniemi” – the alleged “hometown” of Santa Claus – into a forest.
The party also claimed that the targets will lead to a “global famine” alongside higher food prices and increased imports of “unsafe food that does not meet EU standards”. These claims have been rebutted by a number of experts.
An open letter signed by 3,000 scientists in June last year pushed back on claims that the law will harm farmers and threaten food security. The letter says that these kinds of claims “not only lack scientific evidence, but even contradict it”, Reuters reported.
“Green-minded” lawmakers, scientists and environmental groups said the EPP was opposing nature and climate policies to “score political points in rural constituencies” in the upcoming parliament elections, Politico reported last November.
In a correspondence to the scientific journal Nature, Dr Kris Decleer, a researcher at Belgium’s Research Institute for Nature and Forest, and Prof An Cliquet, a researcher at Ghent University, wrote that opponents to the law were “influenced by lobbyists in favour of intensive agriculture, fisheries and the forestry industry, who say that the law would cut jobs and undermine food and energy security”.
Many farmers will be directly impacted by the nature restoration law and it featured among the concerns of farmers protesting across the EU in recent months (see Carbon Brief’s analysis of how these protests relate to climate change).
The commission’s impact assessment for the law said that the farming, forestry and fishery sectors are likely to be most impacted through, for example, lost income from less intensive extractive management in forestry. However, it also said that these sectors stand to benefit in the long-term, as they will be more resilient to extreme weather and reduce the risks of pest outbreaks as a result.
There are also farm-related exemptions in the law, including an option to halt certain targets for agricultural ecosystems in case of any “unforeseeable and exceptional events outside of the EU’s control and with severe EU-wide consequences for food security”. This was added to the text in November last year. (See: What are the most contentious parts of the nature restoration law?)
The law includes further leeway for countries to potentially set lower restoration targets for certain ecosystems in specific circumstances.
Leemans, from WWF EU, tells Carbon Brief that criticisms from the EPP and others were “mainly misinformation, and really on an unprecedented scale”. She says:
“We’ve never seen such an aggressive campaign against a legal proposal coming from the commission. It was really putting the [EU] Green Deal in jeopardy because the nature restoration law is the biodiversity pillar of the Green Deal, and it’s really a very important piece of the puzzle.”
She adds that while the EPP may claim it is “protecting or defending the farmers’ concerns”, she believes “they are doing the opposite”. She says:
“All science tells you the same – it’s healthy ecosystems that need to be in place to ensure food security. Agriculture needs healthy soils, needs water retention, needs flooding and drought prevention, pollination and all this depends on healthy ecosystems.
“It’s very cynical to tell people that you’re defending farmers and actually blocking one of the solutions for farmers.”
The post Q&A: What does the EU ‘nature restoration’ law mean for climate and biodiversity? appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Q&A: What does the EU ‘nature restoration’ law mean for climate and biodiversity?
Ten days of extreme heat killed 2,305 people in a sample of 12 European cities last month, with almost two-thirds of those deaths caused by climate change’s intensifying effect on heatwaves, new research estimated on Wednesday.
The early summer heatwave, which sparked wildfires and health warnings from Spain to Turkey, was between 2 and 4 degrees Celsius hotter than it would have been without climate change, according to the study by the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM).
“These numbers represent real people who have lost their lives in the last days due to the extreme heat”, said Imperial College London climate scientist Friederike Otto.
“If we continue to follow the wishes of the fossil fuel industry and delay serious mitigation [emissions-cutting] further, more and more people will lose their lives for the financial benefit of only a tiny rich influential minority,” she told reporters during a conference call.
Separately, a report by the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service said last month was the hottest June on record in Western Europe.
Otto highlighted the researchers’ rapid work in calculating the role of climate change in the overall death toll, which she hailed as a first.
Rapid attribution study
Previously, such research has taken months. A study into Europe’s 2022 heatwave, which found that climate change was responsible for just over half of the 68,000 deaths, was published a year later.
The new study has not been peer-reviewed, a sometimes lengthy process where other scientists evaluate the research, Otto said, adding that the methods it used to attribute deaths had undergone peer review and been approved.
She said publishing studies quickly is important because the immediate aftermath of a heatwave is “when people talk about it”. That is also why the researchers focused on a sample of just 12 cities, she said, making their analysis more manageable.
Previous studies from the World Weather Attribution group, which Otto co-leads, have only estimated how much hotter climate change has made a heatwave. Otto said she wanted to translate this into numbers of additional deaths because a temperature increase of a few degrees Celsius “might not sound very much”.
Otto said the reason the first study like this was carried out in Europe is because scientists have established the relationship between heat and deaths better in Europe than elsewhere. But there are parts of southern Africa, Asia and the USA where this relationship has been established by scientists, she said, so “we will probably do this again in other parts of the world”.
But LSHTM climate professor Malcolm Mistry, warned that carrying out this kind of study across the world would be “very challenging because not every public health authority wants to give out the mortality record reports for research purposes”. This data on deaths is key to establishing how many people are killed by a certain increase in temperature.
Silent killer
The study did not attribute any individual death to climate change and heat is generally not listed on death certificates. Most people who died had health problems exacerbated by the heat, and more than half of them were aged over 85.
Heatwaves are a “silent killer” because the deaths mostly take place in homes and hospitals, away from public view, and are rarely reported, said Pierre Masselot from the LSHTM.
But media reports have blamed last month’s soaring temperatures in some specific cases, such as the death of 48-year old builder who collapsed while laying concrete in 35C heat in the Italian city of Bologna, and a 53-year old woman with a heart condition who died in Palermo. Climate Home has spoken to relatives of people who died during extreme heat in Saudi Arabia and the Gaza Strip.
Otto said that too many media reports about heatwaves include photographs of children eating ice cream and happy people playing on the beach. “That’s a massive problem”, she said, although she added that more articles were now referring to the role of climate change in driving heatwaves.
The researchers behind the study said ways to cope with extreme heat included installing air conditioning, improving government heatwave warnings, planting more trees, building more parks, insulating buildings and painting roofs white.
“But at the end of the day,” said Masselot, “all these measures won’t probably be as efficient as just reducing climate change altogether [by] reducing our greenhouse gas emissions.”
The post Scientists hail rapid estimate of climate change’s role in heat deaths as a first appeared first on Climate Home News.
Scientists hail rapid estimate of climate change’s role in heat deaths as a first
When it comes to the most important thing to curb climate change – moving away from planet-heating fossil fuels – governments have done enough negotiating, and their focus now should be on putting what they already agreed into practice, Brazil’s COP30 president told Climate Home.
That does not require repeating language in new UN texts or even consensus among countries about how to transition from coal, oil and gas, although they could choose to design a roadmap for that energy shift at this year’s climate summit in the Amazon, André Aranha Corrêa do Lago said in an exclusive interview.
“We’ve all already decided that we’re going to transition away from fossil fuels. What can be done in the negotiations is, for example, to decide that there will be a timeline or rules for how this transition will be made – whether it will be one type of country or another, which of the fossil fuels will come first etc,” he said, speaking in Spanish on a video call from Rio de Janeiro.
The comments from Brazil’s top climate diplomat, who is vice-minister for climate, energy and environment at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, build on a proposal floated by the country’s environment minister last month in response to a question from Climate Home.
Brazil’s environment minister suggests roadmap to end fossil fuels at COP30
Speaking to journalists in London, Marina Silva said COP30 could result in a roadmap setting out what a “planned and just transition to end fossil fuels” – as agreed at the COP28 Dubai summit in 2023 – should look like.
“Perhaps we can come out of COP30 with a mandated group that can trace the roadmap for this transition,” she added.
Corrêa do Lago noted in the interview that Silva “left it open in her statement whether [a roadmap] will be something negotiated or something that will be built”, adding that “several countries” believe such a plan would first require a formal COP decision to produce one.
The COP30 president emphasised that while this is up to governments, “we can’t keep the world waiting for negotiations to move forward” before acting to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems.
“It’s not true that it depends on that. There’s already enough approval from countries. Individual countries can do it because implementation isn’t by consensus. Implementation is that each country does what it thinks it can do,” he explained.
The UN Secretary-General and many researchers have argued that implementing the energy transition in a “just, orderly and equitable manner” requires industrialised countries which are historically the biggest carbon polluters to move first in cutting fossil fuels, with developing countries that need to tackle poverty and a lack of energy access following later.
Brazilian officials, for example, when asked about recent auctioning of oil exploration licences have said that global demand for oil is still increasing – and there is a need to debate how to move away from this and other polluting fuels in a fair and organised way.
COP to stay in Belém despite tricky logistics
Brazil has grabbed the spotlight, for both positive and negative reasons, for deciding to hold the annual UN climate summit in the Amazon region, whose forests store massive amounts of carbon but are constantly under threat of being cut down for timber, agriculture or mining.
Corrêa do Lago said President Lula’s “original idea, the symbolism of holding [COP30] in the Amazon, remains very strong” – and he rebutted the idea that part or all of the climate conference could be moved from the Amazon city of Belém due to growing concern about a lack of suitable and affordable accommodation for the more than 50,000 delegates expected there.
The climate negotiations veteran conceded that there had been “several requests and suggestions” about shifting the main talks to bigger and more accessible cities such as Rio de Janeiro – a hotly debated topic in the Brazilian press.
“But the decision is to do it in the best possible way – that is very well, in Belém,” he said.
He added that a long-awaited official online platform to help participants find reasonably priced accommodation in the city is due to be launched on July 15 and he expected more apartments would be made available for rent.
At June’s mid-year talks in Bonn, African nations, small island states and the least-developed countries said they had written to the COP30 presidency warning they might not be able to attend the negotiations due to the high cost of lodgings and travel.
“Regarding the management of hotels and rooms, there has been a positive reaction from the authorities and local population,” Corrêa do Lago said. “Soon, people will realise that the situation is much better than they imagined and that they will want to come.”
This week, the COP30 team announced that construction to expand and improve the Outeiro Port Terminal – where two cruise ships will house around 6,000 delegates – would be completed by mid-October.
Pessimistic outlook for public climate finance
Another pressing issue for negotiators once they reach Belém is where to find more money for climate action in developing countries, to meet the new 2035 goal agreed in Baku last year.
After tense talks, which almost collapsed over the amount rich countries were prepared to put on the table, two key targets were set: $1.3 trillion a year from all public and private sources, including $300 billion raised by donor governments.
Developing countries wanted far more of the headline $1.3 trillion to be public money provided as grants and cheap loans. But Corrêa do Lago said this was unlikely to happen.
“We need to explain the limits of the funds, of multilateral cooperation, and where this money can really come from,” he told Climate Home.
The COP30 and COP29 presidencies are currently working on a roadmap that will outline ways to deliver $1.3 trillion annually in climate finance by 2035, with input requested from finance ministers.
UN expects climate finance roadmap to offer “clear next steps”
The COP30 president said this report – due to be published before the Belém talks – would be “independent”, without “legal value”, and would serve as a basis for further discussions among governments. He emphasised that national needs for finance will vary – and some countries will require more public funding than others depending on how they are viewed by private investors.
Still, he warned against the “huge simplification” that even the core $300-billion climate finance goal could be met entirely from public funding, “especially in the context where a wealthy country has withdrawn and other rich countries are investing in defence”.
The United States under fossil fuel-enthusiast Donald Trump has given notice it will withdraw from the 2015 Paris Agreement to tackle climate change and has cut off most development aid and climate funding for poorer countries.
While the US technically remains part of the Paris pact until January 2026, and has not quit the underlying UN climate convention, Corrêa do Lago said his team had yet to receive any indication of whether the US government will attend COP30.
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COP30 president: Transition from fossil fuels can start without climate talks
A proposal by the Marshall Islands and Colombia calling for a transition away from fossil fuels at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) failed to make it into the council’s declaration on climate change and human rights issued on Tuesday.
At a meeting in Geneva, the 47 member countries of the UNHRC held annual discussions on its annual resolution which encompasses various issues relevant to human rights, from conflicts to gender and education.
This year, the UNHRC issued a resolution on human rights and climate change, calling on countries to deliver “deep and rapid cuts in global emissions” to minimise climate change impacts. It also urges states to meet the recently adopted $300-billion-a-year climate finance goal by 2035.
On Monday, the Pacific island state and Colombia proposed an amendment calling on countries to achieve emissions cuts “by transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner”, replicating the language agreed at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai.
But after closed-door negotiations, both countries removed the divisive draft proposal, clearing the way for the resolution to be adopted by consensus.
Top Latin American court upholds right to “healthy climate”, urges fossil fuel control
The Marshall Islands’ ambassador to the UN, Doreen Debrum, said during the Council session that her country “places a high premium on collaboration, dialogue and consensus – and we were willing to recognise this by withdrawing our amendment”.
“We look forward to working with all members of the Council – including our co-sponsors and the core group – to ensure this important issue continues to receive the attention it deserves,” she added.
“Frustrating” resolution
Sébastien Duyck, senior attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), welcomed parts of the UNHRC resolution, such as a call for finance to address loss and damage from climate impacts, but said the outcome on fossil fuels was “extremely frustrating”.
“Some of the fossil fuel-producing countries are hellbent on delaying and rejecting any step that will help send political messages recognising the need to transition away from fossil fuels,” Duyck told Climate Home News. “It increases the disconnect between this resolution and the actual policies that we need to see.”
COP30 president: Transition from fossil fuels can start without climate talks
UN Special Rapporteur on Climate Change and Human Rights Elisa Morgera said “we can’t talk about protecting human rights from climate change without talking about – and taking urgent action on – phasing out fossil fuels.”
Morgera recently presented a report to the UNHRC about the need to decarbonise economies in order to meet international human rights obligations. The report says the fossil fuel phase-out “should be understood as an important precondition for the right to development and the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment”.
Since the adoption of the Dubai deal in 2023, governments have struggled to repeat explicit mentions to the fossil fuel transition in texts adopted by other international summits. Last year, at COP29 in Baku, Saudi Arabia opposed all mentions to fossil fuels in the conference decisions.
Still, for Duyck, the UNHRC debate shows there is growing pressure from governments to call out fossil fuel production at international talks. “This is really becoming a topic in itself. Some countries are no longer willing to keep their head in the sand,” he added.
The post UN Human Rights Council fails to call out fossil fuels after decision cuts mention appeared first on Climate Home News.
UN Human Rights Council fails to call out fossil fuels after decision cuts mention
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