Committee on the Environment, Climate and Food Safety Joint meeting Joint Committee Procedure (Rule 59) of ENVI - PECH
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ENVI European Parliament
Follow its sittingsPierfrancesco Maran
Okay, time to start with the session that is only the ENVI committee. We adopt the new agenda of the ENVI committee. If there are no objection, the draft agenda can be adopted without modification.
Please, colleagues, interpretation as before is available in 21 languages and the meeting will be webstreamed. We have the same substitute as before and we had that Mr. Arnotoglu substitute Papandreou Nikos, Bajada substitute Merit Maji. We will now begin the voting session with the vote on political agreement reached with the Council on the proposal for a basic regulation of the European Chemical Agency. Before proceeding, we make a test vote. So I open the test vote.
I close the vote. Everything is okay. So we can now proceed with the vote. It's a single roll call vote. I open the vote.
I close the vote. And it's adopted, 68 in favor, one against, one abstention. Congratulations.
Let's proceed to the vote on the INSPIRE Directive, which is part of the environmental omnibus simplification package. We start raising our hands with compromise number 1. Who's in favor? Who's against? Who abstains?
Adopted. Amendment 86. Who's in favor? Hold on, it's some pages later. Who's in favor?
Who's against? Who abstains? Rejected. Compromise number 2. Who's in favor?
Who's against? Who abstains? Adopted. Amendment 39. Who's in favor?
Who's against? Who abstains? Rejected. Amendment 40. Who's in favor?
Who's against? Who abstains? Rejected. Amendment 41. Who's in favor?
Who's against? Who abstains? Rejected. Final vote by roll-call vote. The vote is open.
The vote is closed. And it's adopted: 58 in favor, 9 against, 3 abstentions.
Now we move to the vote on the Market Stability Reserve. We start with the rejection, the proposal of rejection, it's a roll call vote, I open the vote. I close the vote. 8 in favor, 63 against, the proposal of rejection is rejected. We can now proceed on the vote, compromise number 2, raising our hands, who is in favor?
Who's against? Who abstain? Adopted. Compromise number 1, who is in favor? Who's against?
Who abstain? Adopted. Final vote by roll call vote, the vote is open. The vote is closed.
It's adopted, 43 in favor, 21 against, 6 abstentions. Now we have the final vote for today concerns an objection to a Commission regulation raising maximum residual levels for flupiradifurone. Unfortunately, we were not able to hold a debate on this objection, that is why we don't remember exactly the name of flupiradifurone. This is because it relates to an RPS measure with a curtailed scrutiny period and the deadline for Parliament to object already expires on 22 of September. The September plenary is the last opportunity for a plenary vote on this objection, so this ENVI meeting was the only vote at which it could be addressed.
So now let's proceed with the vote, it's an electronic vote. I open the vote. I close the vote. And it's adopted, 39 in favor, 25 against, 6 abstentions. Thank you.
Now we close our voting session and we will go on with our work at 9:00 AM.
We are now moving for our annual exchange of view with Mrs. Leena Ylä-Mononen, Executive Director of the European Environment Agency. Those annual exchanges are a good opportunity to take stock of the work that has been carried out by the EEA and discussing upcoming activities. Mrs. Ylä-Mononen, it's always a pleasure to have you in the ENVI committee, so you have the floor for your introductory remarks.
Leena Ylä-Mononen
Thank you, Chair. Good morning.
Thank you also for this opportunity to reflect on the pressing environment and climate challenges. I also want to outline some of the recent and upcoming work of the European Environment Agency that is relevant in addressing these challenges. This summer has been a brutal reminder of what we can expect both here in Europe, the world's fastest warming continent, and across the globe. Exceptionally high temperatures have been recorded and a strong El Niño phenomenon is building in the Pacific. The predictions point to sharply increasing threats and more extreme weather to come.
Last week, UNEP reported that we are clearly on the way to overshoot 1.5 degrees Celsius ceiling. How much and how long, that will be critically important for our common future.
Already this summer, we have seen record-breaking heatwaves, massive wildfires, severe droughts, and these have caused significant impacts: loss of lives, injury, impacts on the quality of life of European citizens, and they have also disrupted agriculture, transport and energy infrastructure. I'm actually sure that each one of you know people affected, directly or indirectly: people in villages destroyed by wildfires, people with businesses disrupted due to major waterways dried out, farmers losing their crops because of severe drought. Economic damages from extreme weather in Europe are now averaging around 50 billion euros per year and they are accelerating rapidly. We know that the cost of inaction far outweighs the cost of adaptation. Extreme weather is also adding to geopolitical and economic pressure Europe is facing.
Therefore climate and environment must be at the heart of Europe's competitiveness and security agendas. Investment in climate and environment policies improves energy security, food security, mitigates the impact of economic shocks and saves lives.
But even with the best mitigation efforts, our climate will continue to change. We need to be absolutely focused on delivering all the initiatives set in motion under the European Green Deal and those under this this Commission mandate. Decarbonising our systems, mitigating and adapting to climate change, building clean energy, restoring nature and transitioning to an innovative and clean circular economy. Our agency is working on all these topics and we have demonstrated that the climate and environment challenges are all interlinked and that they are also linked with the wider societal, economic and security challenges of our time. And that therefore we need systemic, cross-cutting solutions to address those challenges, not piecemeal, sub-optimal fixes.
This is also where cascading benefits and opportunities are to be found, such as reduced air pollution and public health benefits from decarbonisation, or thriving clean-tech businesses on renewable energy, water resilience and climate adaptation, or the quality of life and economic benefits derived from restoring nature for climate resilience. Our agency has recently published several significant pieces of work highlighting these kind of cross-cutting policy-relevant issues and pointing to practical, real-world solutions.
These include key reports on circular economy, climate resilience, and issues like protein diversification. We have published a briefing on the compound benefits of renewable energy sources, another one on artificial intelligence and sustainable consumption, and a briefing on twin green and digital transitions to name just a few. You may remember that last autumn we launched the big five-year report Europe's Environment 2025, and soon we will publish two thematic flagship reports bringing together new reported data, analysis, and assessment. First, by the end of the year, we launch the State of Europe's Seas report. It is based on the information reported by Member States under the third Marine Strategy Framework Directive reporting cycle, and it will support the implementation and future development of EU marine policies, including the said directive, the European Ocean Pact, and broader biodiversity restoration and zero pollution objectives.
Second, early 2027, we will publish the State of Nature report.
This will be a comprehensive assessment of the condition and trends of Europe's protected habitats, species and birds. It will provide an evidence base for tracking progress towards the objectives of EU's Nature Directives, Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 and the Nature Restoration Regulation. And for identifying where further action is needed. I also want to mention the second edition of the European Climate Risk Assessment, or EUCRA 2, planned to be ready in 2028, but we are already full speed working on it. It will assess and highlight risks, but also focus on solutions.
It also serves as a good example of how research, research that is funded under the Horizon Europe, directly informs policymaking in Europe. It is now becoming clear what the future with accelerated climate change will look like. Threats to food and water security, public health, infrastructure, social cohesion. All these underline the fact that action on climate and environment must be at the heart of Europe's competitiveness and security agendas. Nature itself is the buffer we rely on to mitigate climate impacts.
And without a stable climate and functioning environment, without investing in the resilience to face the unavoidable climate extremes, without these we will be neither competitive nor secure.
For our part, our agency will continue working to provide timely inputs to the evolving policy and political landscape. And in line with our mandate, we will also continue to support our member and cooperating countries. I am delighted to inform you that this year we have welcomed both Moldova and Ukraine to the EEA family. And this brought our country network to a total of 40 countries. We are also prioritizing an ambitious digitalization strategy to support both the EU policy making and the countries themselves.
We see an increasing request from policy makers and stakeholders for on-demand intelligence and insights alongside the traditional publications and reports. But this requires us to integrate environmental data services and to strengthen our digital and AI, artificial intelligence, capabilities. We want to continue providing cross-policy insights based on both reported data and on Earth observation data. Our ambition is to equip policy makers, including you, the European Parliament, and the public, with more timely, easily accessible and actionable environmental intelligence. At the same time, we want to reinforce EEA and its country network's role as Europe's trusted provider of environmental data and knowledge.
And all these considerations must feed into the ongoing negotiations around the multiannual financial framework. The right investments need to be made if we are to safeguard our environment and all the critical services and safeguards it provides. And adequate funding is also needed to continue providing the data and knowledge. Data and knowledge that Europe needs to design and refine policies and track progress, and to inform European citizens, businesses, and other stakeholders. Finally, let me reiterate, our agency remains at your disposal, ready to offer any specific support you may need, as far as we can.
So please feel free to reach out to us anytime. So thank you for your attention. I'm really looking forward to the discussion. Thank you.
Pierfrancesco Maran
Thank you so much. Now we open the discussion with our contact person. Pär Holmgren is substituted by Rasmus Nordqvist. Rasmus, you have the floor for three minutes. Thanks.
Rasmus Nordqvist
Thank you, Chair. And yes, unfortunately Pär Holmgren couldn't be here, so I will raise some points on his behalf.
But first, let me start by thanking you for coming here and not least also the collaboration. And I think the point you made today on the interlink between the environmental, the biodiversity and climate challenges, that crisis, but also the interlink in some of the solutions that we actually can see that solutions in one field is actually good for all the other fields as well. So thank you for restating this. It's not new, having followed your work for a long time. On behalf of Pär, I want to especially raise two questions.
First is on the Arctic, because one thing is what happened in Europe this summer and which has happened year after year, but also the Arctic is warming three to four times faster than the global average. So we really see an extreme challenge there. And the Commission is updating the EU Arctic policy this quarter. The agency's last dedicated Arctic assessment was in 2017, which is some years back now. So what we would like to know is what role do you see for the EEA in assessing the Arctic environmental and climate, and can you provide any details on the upcoming update to the Arctic assessment?
And then a point you were mentioning yourself on digitalization. I mean, yes, I mean, what stakeholders increasingly need is on-demand intelligence, the options to get data directly and the granularity and moment they need it, rather than just waiting for the next flagship report, even though we love reading them as well. And it, it looks like your digital capability strategy points in that direction, but could you perhaps elaborate a bit more on how far the agency can actually go in becoming a live knowledge service rather than the publisher of, of the good reports, so we, so we can learn a bit more about that also for the work here in the house. Thank you.
Pierfrancesco Maran
Thank you. Now we leave the floor to the political group representative for two minutes. We start with the S&D, César Luena, for two minutes.
César Luena
Pues muchísimas gracias, presidente. No deja de ser significativo... Gracias, presidente. No deja de ser significativo, querida directora, que el primer grupo de la Cámara, el Partido Popular Europeo, ni siquiera venga a su comparecencia. Eso a mí me parece significativo.
Cuatro cosas muy rápidas. Mire, según los científicos, esta misma semana hemos podido ver del panel internacional de Naciones Unidas, y vienen a decir que estamos muy cerca de posicionarnos ante un punto de no retorno en relación al calentamiento del planeta y al nivel de temperaturas. Entonces, no solo como directora, sino como experta, ¿qué opina usted? Es decir, claro, decir que no estamos a tiempo de solucionar el cambio climático es complejo, pero me gustaría que usted nos diera su opinión. Mire, a pesar de la evidencia, usted lo ha dicho, de lo que ha pasado este verano, no deja de haber cierta inconsciencia, ciertos retrocesos que se resumen en una palabra: los que no han venido aquí a la comparecencia, negacionismo.
Porque fíjese, en esta Cámara tenemos normativas sobre ómnibus medioambiental para recortar las directivas y reglamentos del mandato anterior que desarrollaban el Pacto Verde Europeo. Tenemos el reglamento para reducir las emisiones de coches y furgonetas. Tenemos la amenaza para reabrir directivas del agua, de hábitats, de aves. Claro, ¿cómo contempla usted este panorama? Adaptación y resiliencia.
El marco se presenta en octubre.
¿Qué debe contener ese marco de resiliencia y adaptación? Me refiero a obligaciones, financiación, planificación. Por cierto, ¿cómo utilizar la aplicación de la Ley de Restauración de la Naturaleza, ahora que están presentando los planes, para que la Ley de Restauración de la Naturaleza no sea solo de protección y restauración de la biodiversidad, sino que también podamos utilizarla en el marco de adaptación y resiliencia? En definitiva, ¿qué hacer para reducir los riesgos? Termino, gracias presidente.
Entiendo que puedo utilizar algo del tiempo que sus señorías conservadores no han empleado. Tenemos en los próximos meses la COP del clima, la COP de biodiversidad. Ante este panorama, ¿qué papel cree usted que debe tener la Unión Europea? Porque hemos dejado de tener ese papel líder de tirar, digamos, con ambición del resto de países. Pero es la oportunidad.
No lo sé, como le decía al principio, si es la última, pero desde luego que es una oportunidad. Gracias presidente.
Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy
Yes, thank you Chair and apologies for coming in late.
Fortunately my assistant did listen to you, so I'm just going to going through the summary of what you've said. My my question is basically a very simple one and that is that what we see happening is a greater divide between what scientists are telling us, whether it's climate change or loss of biodiversity or other ecological threats that are coming towards us, and what the politicians are doing with that. And I see that even the Paris Agreement, which we applauded 11 years ago, is not well set in stone as we hoped in December 2015.
My question, and I know it's a political one and that's a difficult question for you, but how can we try to lower that gap and that politicians and not just politicians, but society at large is listening more carefully to what our scientists are telling, even if it's a story that is maybe not very appealing because it means that we have to take measures that are not always on the short term the nicest things to do. So maybe you can elaborate on that. And again, I know it's a very difficult question for a scientist because it forces you to step into the more political arena, but I think it's the key question we have to face all together. Thank you.
Pierfrancesco Maran
Thank you, for the Greens, Rasmus Nordqvist, on his personal point of view now.
Rasmus Nordqvist
Yes, many hats, same green heart. This time around, circular economy, something we have also talked about before. And my first is, I mean, we've seen the very slow movement of circular material use, I mean, over the last 14 years, and we have a target of doubling by 2030. So, and I know that your reports have highlighted that policies have been too focused on waste and recycling. But I mean, can we quantify how far prevention and resource reduction would actually take us in this context?
Then as well on financing is something you have looked into, and you point to a financing gap for up to 1.2 trillion euros by 2040 when it comes to the investment needed. But you also flag that it's actually very difficult to establish what's actually being spent. So is it possible to get a more certainty on actual and planned investments? Is that something that you can actually do with the data that is available or you look into? And then, I mean, coming from the fashion and textile business, I think it's been tremendously interesting to read your report on textiles, of course, because it's a business I know, but there's also other very important industries when it comes to circular transformation.
Because we can point to the problem in what we have done, but how far can we go with the right policy?
And here I think specifically of the construction. I would like to know if that's something you plan to look more into, the construction sector. And then in more general, just with the circular economy act coming up, how do you plan from the agency to also help and facilitate the work that has to go on in the various institutions after the presentation from the Commission? And also before, there's still work to be done there. Thank you.
Catarina Martins
Muito obrigada, senhor presidente. Queria começar por lhe agradecer muito a intervenção inicial que fez e a exposição clara que fez sobre os perigos que estamos a atravessar. Este ano morreram 14 mil pessoas na União Europeia com a onda de calor, tivemos as maiores evacuações com os fogos desde a Segunda Guerra Mundial. No meu país, em Portugal, o rasto da Christine ainda se vê com toda a destruição, seguramente se há ameaça às populações são mesmo as alterações climáticas. Mas também vivemos num momento em que a União Europeia não só recua no seu projeto de transformação para responder às alterações climáticas, como ainda por cima parece pôr em causa que essa transformação possa ter uma competição com a segurança das populações na sua agenda bélica e militar.
E o que eu ouvi dizer e tão bem que restaurar a natureza é o que torna os territórios mais resistentes e tem de ser uma prioridade, queria colocar-lhe duas questões sobre duas políticas absolutamente contraditórias na União Europeia por um lado e uma outra que está a começar e que me parece que precisa do seu olhar, muito brevemente.
Com as as o regulamento para as matérias-primas críticas nós estamos a ver a abertura de minas na Europa, Portugal, o norte de Portugal sobretudo e a Galiza são muito sacrificados por isso mesmo em que as regras não estão a ser cumpridas, não há avaliações transfronteiriças, as comunidades não são ouvidas, estão a ser destruídas paisagens, territórios agrícolas riquíssimos sem que se perceba o que é que ganhamos verdadeiramente com aquela mineração. Por outro lado também e ao mesmo tempo estamos a ver megacentrais de produção fotovoltaica ou de produção de energia eólica a destruírem árvores, a destruírem paisagens contra as comunidades o que aliás está a criar um problema democrático muito importante que é as comunidades não percebem porque é que a transição lhes dá alguma coisa de bom e portanto levantam-se contra a política climática. E a verdade é que nós sabemos que a transição não tem de ser feita assim, não é sequer transição, é uma apropriação dos recursos de todos por uns poucos. E chego à minha última pergunta brevemente, sei que já não tenho tempo, bases de dados enormes, megacentrais de bases de dados na Europa. Não há nada que as justifique.
Ninguém sequer pode falar de autonomia estratégica europeia. Estão a ficar com a água, com o sol, estão a aquecer e a piorar a qualidade de vida de forma extraordinária às populações. E eu pergunto-me se está a analisar o que está a acontecer e o que é que tem para nos dizer sobre isso.
Estamos a entregá-las nas mesmas mãos americanas que já têm tudo.
Pierfrancesco Maran
Thank you for the catch-the-eye. I have two requests, we start, three. We start with Christophe Clergeau.
Christophe Clergeau
Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Madam. My question is about exposome. We have in this Parliament an exposome coalition with MEPs coming from different groups, from EPP to the Greens. And we just approved in this committee a few minutes ago the result of a trilogue about ECHA basic regulation.
And in ECHA basic regulation, we introduced a formal support to the One Health task force between the agencies. And we asked for an enlargement of the scope of the mandate to One Health and exposome. So I think these two approach are very complementary. So my question is how your agency contributes. I know you do a lot, but if you can recall that.
And how you could strengthen your contribution because there is no specific agency in charge of highlighting the link.
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