Can the EU choose green over grey?

Press Release

Can the EU choose green over grey?

[6th October, Brussels] - Green group EEB has criticised the European Commission’s new proposal for the Cohesion Policy for choosing incremental change over radical reform.

The policy, which is meant to support integration between member states and is the second largest spender of EU funds, does have ecosystem protection and restoration as one of its priorities but EEB says it contains insufficient safeguards that will ensure countries will invest adequately.

EEB says much greater, greener strides are required if we are to halt and reverse loss of biodiversity by 2020 - the objectives agreed by EU leaders in the new Biodiversity Strategy in 2010.

“This is about protecting the very system people rely on for their survival. Cohesion and rural development funding should be used to support Europeans, for example through large-scale ecosystem restoration projects, improvement of ecosystem services such as clean drinking water, and to support investments in the EU’s conservation network Natura 2000,” said Sarolta Tripolszky, EEB biodiversity policy officer.

While EEB welcomes the inclusion of environmental protection including biodiversity in the policy, it is concerned that member states will be more likely to continuing spending money on concrete, supporting grey rather than green infrastructures.

Tripolszky continued: ”Large scale EU funding support for construction projects has wreaked economic havoc by inflating construction bubbles. It is essential this mistake will not be repeated by re-directing these funds into safer priorities such as ecosystems.”

According to the green group, the European Commission could have ensured an investment in ecosystems by making biodiversity an obligatory investment priority for all European regions or through ring fencing funds, as proposed for climate mitigation and adaptation.

The EEB points out that it is now up to the European Parliament and Council to improve the regulation in this regard. Numerous projects across the EU have shown that this could create lasting jobs and save billions of euros for European taxpayers [1].

Now that biodiversity has been confirmed as a funding priority under the second largest chuck of the EU budget, it is absolutely essential that when the Commission brings out its proposal on the CAP, the biggest slice of the EU budget, this will actually constitute a big step in the right direction.

Read NGOs briefing

Contact:

Sarolta Tripolsky, Policy Officer: Biodiversity, Soil Protection & Water, +32 (0) 2 289 10 93, sarolta.tripolszky@eeb.org

Editor notes:

[1] Investing in biodiversity under Cohesion can support:

1. Achievement of carbon savings at low cost: large scale ecosystem conservation and restoration is a cost-effective alternative to reach climate change goals. For example restoration (e.g. re-wetting) helps degraded peatland to retain the huge amount of carbon its stores and even to become significant carbon sinks. Restoring peatland is a major carbon storage opportunity, but failure to protect Europe’s peat bogs in Germany, Ireland, Poland, Scandinavia and the United Kingdom would result in the release of carbon dioxide equivalent to that produced by an additional 40 million cars on Europe’s roads. Similarly, converting arable land to
grassland (e.g. to widen a floodplain) or to forest increases carbon storage.

→ Example: a restoration of 30 000 ha of peatland in Trebetal, Germany has resulted in up to 300 000 t CO2 emissions reductions per year with average cost of 4-12 €/t CO2. On average, the abatement cost for the gas industry project is 40€/t CO2, for coal-gas fuelled switch 70 €/t CO2, and for CCS 70-120 €/t CO2.

2. Lessen the impacts of climate induced disasters: restored ecosystems can help reduce the negative effects of climate induced natural disasters. For example widened, reopened floodplains can store more floodwater and thus increase flood security of adjacent settlements. Similarly, restoring forests and other natural vegetation in mountains will soak up heavy rainfall and thus prevent quick flooding of rivers downstream and landslides. Restoring green spaces in or near cities can lessen the negative effects of heat waves. Natural risk prevention and mitigation is in most cases cheaper than technological solutions.

→ Example: the cost-benefit analysis of increasing flood security at the Scheldt River, Belgium, has showed that an intelligent combination of ecosystem-based and technical measures delivers highest flood-security at lowest cost. Authorities will invest in restoring 5000 ha of wetlands.

3. Create jobs – restoring degraded ecosystems creates local jobs which, by their very nature, can’t be outsourced. The restoration of large scale ecosystems requires work and creates jobs similar as in the “normal” construction sector. Rehabilitated landscapes and protected areas are a source of tourism and local product development. A new study supports the estimate that investing the necessary 6 billion EUR annually into the Natura 2000 network alone could create 180,000 jobs, without counting wider employment effects in sectors depending on healthy ecosystems.

→ Example: in North Rhine-Westphalia, regional level river restoration was linked to the re-integration of long term unemployment of people into the job market. The project aimed to achieve the objectives of the Water Framework Directive and provided some 100 job places over the duration of 10 years. Local and regional
medium-sized businesses profited by renting out building machinery, selling building materials and construction planning and execution.

4. Provide valuable ecosystem services: ecosystem services created by all N2000 sites in the Netherlands are estimated to deliver benefits amounting to €4.5 billion/year (or 4,000 EUR/ha/year), while the government only spends an estimated 315.4 million EUR/year on the network. The benefits arise in particular through recreation and tourism, but also wider ecosystem services, such as carbon storage or water purification. Cohesion Policy investing in Natura 2000 areas could help create such benefits also in the less developed parts of Europe contributing to local economic development and human well-being.

→ Example: restoration of 2,236 km2 of floodplains along the Lower Danube (Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria) has been mapped and would cost €50 million. The flood protection, water purification and tourism benefits would reach €112 million.

5. Protect coastal cities vulnerable to climate change – Sedimentation in coastal areas is critical to allow them to protect themselves against rising sea levels. Restoring coastal wetlands that will ‘collect sediments’ and the river systems that deposit sediment from ongoing erosion can help to adapt to climate change.

→ Example: in Liguria, 15 km of the coast is subject to erosion threatening the coastal city of Ventimiglia. This occurs due to the natural sediment delivery of the River Roja that was stopped by the construction of dams at the turn of the 20th century. Structural Funds were used to create a natural-like costal defence system and to move Roja sediments to the estuary again. This has been more efficient and durable than the earlier used engineering solutions.