Filling the European Green Deal with life

#SaveTheGreenDeal

When Ursula von der Leyen announced that the European Green Deal would be the lead project during her term of office, the level of optimism was high. After all this time, a President of the European Commission had finally made climate policy the focal point of their efforts. Driven by the Paris Agreement and an emboldened climate movement, the course had been set by the new Commission.

The Green Deal offers an excellent framework for a sustainable, viable Europe. The challenge of the day, however, lies in filling it with life. We must ensure that the right measures are undertaken to match and reach the right goals. Brussels must establish the regulatory and fiscal framework. On the ground, in municipalities and regions, the climate goals must be embellished with dedicated projects.

Investments are not the be all and end all, but nothing is going to happen without investments.

The socio-ecological transformation is a century-long task. To modernise our infrastructure in keeping with the principles of climate protection and to provide everyone with prospects for the future, we need public investment as well as enhanced services of public interest. Lean years must not be allowed to follow in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. We need a decade dedicated to modernisation and investment. In keeping with the motto, “A dead planet has no debt”, we need European fiscal policy to swing in a different direction.

The EU’s Recovery Fund is a good start.

Instead of pursuing an anti-investment austerity policy, the EU, for the first time in its history, is responding by ploughing €800 billion worth of bonds into the funding of collective investments. The Fund is laying down a fiscal policy marker. Through the rates of investment in climate protection and digital infrastructure, the Recovery Fund can trigger much-needed investments and help lead the EU out of the Covid crisis.

But the Recovery Fund alone is not a sufficient facility in order to encourage a socio-ecological transformation. We must perpetuate the Recovery Fund and trigger further investments through the EU budget. European fiscal rules must not be allowed to result in privatisations and cutbacks in social programmes. They should take on a more investment-friendly approach.

We will only take command of the climate crisis if we allay people’s fears of change and turn the socio-ecological transformation into a future venture for all concerned. This includes rebuilding our society by creating good jobs with poverty-resistant safeguards. The Green Deal has largely suffered from social blindness up to this point in time. The EU Commission is all but blanking out the social question, while the member states’ conflicts over competences are posing obstacles to achieving a strong social pillar.

For those regions most adversely affected by structural changes or, on the whole, characterised by high levels of poverty and social division, the Green Deal must also deliver socio-political benefits. High wage levels, good services of public interest, and career advancement prospects for all – these should be the goals formulated by the EU member states. We need a new social equality paradigm for the European Union. With this in mind, Germany has a responsibility to ensure that fiscal and socio-political competences are transferred to the EU.

European investments must be sustainable.

And these issues are precisely where the Green Deal is at its weakest. The EU Commission presented its financing strategy for the Recovery Fund in April. Thirty percent of the bonds that it seeks to activate are scheduled to be ploughed into green bonds. By the EU Commission’s own admission, an expression of the Green Deal. But this is far from sufficient! As things stand right now, the EU Commission’s green bonds are already over-subscribed on the financial markets. This interest should be used to enable far more than the allotted 30 percent to be invested in green bonds.

But, even more important than their quantity, is the quality of such bonds. The gas, nuclear energy and the climate-damaging elements of forestry must not become stated climate-friendly investments by the EU Commission, whether through the EU taxonomy or as part of the Green Bond Standard.

The Green Deal was dealt its first major blow just last year during the so-called Common Agricultural Policy reform. What was ‘sold’ as being green turned out to be half-baked solutions allegedly intended to incorporate greater environmental protection into the agricultural industry. Instead of questionable minuscule changes, we need fundamental reforms. The agricultural sector is one of the major contributors to CO2 emissions. In light of this, EU funding must cease to be distributed based on the size of farmsteads; instead, stringent environmental protection measures must be initiated in order to bring about a change in farming practices.

But even the European Climate Law falls short of our expectations, and of what is scientifically necessary. Instead of 60 percent, the EU aims to set a CO2 emissions reduction target of closer to 53 percent. Even though the inaugural EU Climate Law remains a historic opportunity, it runs the risk of falling apart when faced with reality.

European climate policy is a question of staying power.

The EU Commission will be presenting its latest proposals this June, which will also involve reforming the emissions trading scheme by including the shipping and aviation industries, as well as a CO2 levy on climate-damaging imported products. The Green parliamentary group within the EU Parliament is fighting for upcoming climate packages to be worded strongly enough that they can leverage a climate-friendly conversion of our industry. Only through regulatory instruments will incentives be provided that facilitate private investments and change.

Whether the Green Deal succeeds is a question of what happens on the ground.

While we, the European Greens, are continuing to fight for climate-friendly legislative packages, we must begin the implementation process on the ground. Many municipalities and regions have long since set about pursuing innovative ideas. In Brussels and Berlin, we are dedicated to ensuring that the billions emanating from the EU Fund flow into new and specific projects on the ground. By earmarking 30 percent of the EU’s budget to climate protection spending, we are driving climate financing to enable local politicians, entrepreneurs, and climate change activists on the ground to implement smart ideas. Through the spending allocation for biodiversity, we will ensure that EU funding for nature conservation is systematically factored in and does not have to take a back seat to a climate-friendly infrastructure.

Whether the Green Deal will be successful is only partially down to Brussels. The true success of such a venture will be decided on the ground – through smart mayors, ministers or secretaries of state, and innovative entrepreneurs as well as civil society.