A program for the Earth: Environmental demands for the 2024 European elections
- Environmental organizations present a program to face current global challenges.
- The climate and ecological crisis threatens food and energy security and must be an EU priority.
- They demand that 2024 be a turning point in policies that protect people and the planet.
The main environmental organizations, Friends of the Earth, Ecologists in Action, SEO/BirdLife, Greenpeace and WWF publish their program for the Earth for the European elections. These are essential environmental and social proposals to ensure the conservation of biodiversity, as well as to prevent further warming of the planet and the multiple current crises from aggravating the problems of security, inequality, poverty and loss of rights.
“Taking the year 2024 as a turning point, we urge all parties, candidates for the European Parliament, and citizens in general, to differentiate structural crises from cyclical crises that should not be resolved by worsening the former. In the era of climate change, with significant geopolitical tensions and serious environmental degradation, the protection of people and ecosystems must be placed first,” declared the directors and director of the environmental organizations.
Since the last European elections in 2019, the planet's environmental situation has only worsened. According to the European Environment Agency, Europe is the continent that is warming the fastest. Extreme heat, which used to be rare, is becoming more common. Drought is spreading in the south of the continent, while catastrophic floods are becoming more frequent. All of this, according to the same agency, endangers food and water security, energy security and financial stability, as well as the health of the population.
Added to the terrible environmental situation is the economic and social crisis caused by the pandemic and, later, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza are added, as well as the reactionary wave of far-right parties.
To fight against all this, environmental organizations demand that political parties take 2024 as a turning point to lead a European Parliament that protects people with policies focused on solving the climate, ecological and social crises, instead of with tanks and military expenses.
The main demands of these organizations are articulated in three large blocks, Climate Emergency, Nature and Countryside, and Economy and Society. They are the following:
Climate Emergency
A decarbonized European Union adapted to climate change. A commitment to a climate neutral EU by 2040, based on 100 % renewable energy, reducing GHG emissions by at least 65 % by 2030 and phasing out fossil fuels (coal by 2030, fossil gas by 2035 and oil by 2040 )
Nature and Countryside
A European Union that restores and protects its nature. Legally binding targets are proposed to protect 30 % of land and seas, and strictly protect 10 % and effective implementation of the Nature Restoration Regulation and the EU Pollinator Initiative.
A sustainable European Union from the field to the table. Transforming the food system, and proposing an ambitious sustainable food systems strategy, including quantitative and binding objectives and a transition towards an agri-food model based on agroecology, with at least 25 % of organic production by 2030.
A European Union without pollution. It is necessary to comply with the new European air quality limits before 2030 and reach the air quality standards of the World Health Organization (WHO). Ambitious and binding targets must also be determined and the necessary investments ensured to achieve soil health, with a strong governance and monitoring framework.
Economy and Society
A European economy to protect people and the planet. Replacing the Stability and Growth Pact with a Resilience and Wellbeing Pact, and doubling current public investment in the green and socially just transition. Additionally, with the phasing out of fossil fuel subsidies and the redirection of funds to climate action and support for vulnerable households.
A European Union with a new socioeconomic model. Participation, citizenship and governance, where an increase in citizen participation and transparency in decision-making is demanded, in addition to the guarantee of access to justice in environmental matters and protection of the right to peaceful protest.
