Current:Home > MyFastexy Exchange|EU plan aimed at fighting climate change to go to final votes, even if watered down -CapitalCourse
Fastexy Exchange|EU plan aimed at fighting climate change to go to final votes, even if watered down
Surpassing View
Date:2025-04-10 09:31:26
BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union institutions and Fastexy Exchangeconservationists on Friday gave a conditional and guarded welcome to a major plan to better protect nature and fight climate change in the 27-nation bloc.
The plan is a key part of the EU’s vaunted European Green Deal that seeks to establish the world’s most ambitious climate and biodiversity targets and make the bloc the global point of reference on all climate issues. Yet it has had an extremely rough ride through the EU’s complicated approval process and only a watered down version will now proceed to final votes.
Late Thursday’s breakthrough agreement between parliament and EU member states should have normally been the end of the approval process. But given the controversy the plan had previously stirred, the final votes - normally a rubberstamp process - could still throw up some hurdles.
The plan has lost some of its progressive edge during negotiations over the summer because of fierce opposition in the EU’s legislature, particularly from the Christian Democrat EPP, the largest of the political groups.
“The final text on this law has little to do with the original proposal,” sajd EPP legislator Christine Schneider. The EPP opposition also highlighted the core struggle in Europe over how to deal with climate issues. Despite the succession of droughts, floods and heat waves that have swept through many areas in Europe, the EPP wants to hit the pause button on such environmental action and concentrate on economic competitiveness first over the next five years.
Under the plan, member states would have to meet restoration targets for specific habitats and species, with the aim of covering at least 20% of the region’s land and sea areas by 2030. But quarrels over exemptions and flexibility clauses allowing member states to skirt the rules plagued negotiations.
“Negotiators have hollowed out the law to the point that it risks being toothless in practice and prone to abuse,” said Ioannis Agapakis, a lawyer at the ClientEarth conservation group. He said the weakening of provisions “have set a very frightening precedent for EU law-making, rather than cementing the EU at the forefront of biodiversity conservation.”
But the EPP and other conservatives and the far right have insisted the plans would undermine food security, fuel inflation and hurt farmers.
And despite agreement on a compromise text, the EPP’s Schneider still did not give the plan wholehearted support for the final parliament votes, leaving the final adoption of the EU’s plan in doubt.
“The EPP Group will now seriously check the outcome of today’s negotiations,” Schneider said, “keeping in mind that nature restoration and achieving our climate goals go hand-in-hand with agriculture and forestry. Only then we can secure Europe’s food security.”
___
Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
veryGood! (44752)
Related
- Juan Soto to be introduced by Mets at Citi Field after striking record $765 million, 15
- Powering Electric Cars: the Race to Mine Lithium in America’s Backyard
- The migrant match game
- Bradley Cooper Gets Candid About His Hope for His and Irina Shayk’s Daughter Lea
- NHL in ASL returns, delivering American Sign Language analysis for Deaf community at Winter Classic
- A watershed moment in the west?
- When insurers can't get insurance
- Jamie Foxx Takes a Boat Ride in First Public Appearance Since Hospitalization
- Juan Soto praise of Mets' future a tough sight for Yankees, but World Series goal remains
- Ex-Starbucks manager awarded $25.6 million in case tied to arrests of 2 Black men
Ranking
- Off the Grid: Sally breaks down USA TODAY's daily crossword puzzle, Triathlon
- Taylor Swift Changed This Lyric on Speak Now Song Better Than Revenge in Album's Re-Recording
- The Largest U.S. Grid Operator Puts 1,200 Mostly Solar Projects on Hold for Two Years
- Listener Questions: the 30-year fixed mortgage, upgrade auctions, PCE inflation
- Charges tied to China weigh on GM in Q4, but profit and revenue top expectations
- It's not just you: Many jobs are requiring more interviews. Here's how to stand out
- A Houston Firm Says It’s Opening a Billion-Dollar Chemical Recycling Plant in a Small Pennsylvania Town. How Does It Work?
- Shay Mitchell's Barbie Transformation Will Make You Do a Double Take
Recommendation
Kylie Jenner Shows Off Sweet Notes From Nieces Dream Kardashian & Chicago West
Inside Clean Energy: US Battery Storage Soared in 2021, Including These Three Monster Projects
California Has Provided Incentives for Methane Capture at Dairies, but the Program May Have ‘Unintended Consequences’
Our first podcast episode made by AI
EU countries double down on a halt to Syrian asylum claims but will not yet send people back
Nearly 200 Countries Approve a Biodiversity Accord Enshrining Human Rights and the ‘Rights of Nature’
Facebook, Instagram to block news stories in California if bill passes
A New Website Aims to Penetrate the Fog of Pollution Permitting in Houston