A transformation of land use as part of the European Green Deal 4.3
4.3 A transformation of land use as part of the European Green Deal The EU is a supranational community to which – unlike other multilateral alliances and collaborations – its member states have transferred sovereign powers allowing it to control the implementation and enforcement of Union law in the member states. This globally unique community of shared laws and values is largely in a position to set the legal framework for transformation instruments and processes as defined in Section 4.2. In the WBGU’s understanding of transformation, the EU can to some extent be seen as a hybrid between the ‘proactive state’ and ‘global cooperation’. The EU can strengthen sustainable land stewardship in particular with its legislative competences for agricultural, environmental, climate and energy policy (Articles 43(2), 192 and 194 of the TFEU) and for setting up a common internal market and the convergence of laws between the member states (Article 114 of the TFEU). This applies both to land located within the EU and to the environmental, social and economic telecouplings emanating from the demand and production structures of the EU as a significant global economic area. The European Commission’s European Green Deal (European Commission, 2019c) has generated political momentum to set a new course towards an EU-wide and global land-use transformation. Section 4.3 deals with basic demands on the implementation of the European Green Deal for more sustainable land stewardship. Measures for implementation should be designed in the spirit of a global land transformation and possible multiple benefits between different environmental and socio-political challenges (Section 4.3.1). In particular, changes to the CAP will be needed to implement the multiple-benefit strategies proposed by the WBGU. In the medium term, its narrow focus on area-based direct payments and income orientation should be abandoned. The CAP should be developed coherently with other measures of the European Green Deal to become an effective lever of sustainable land stewardship and, to this end, transformed into an overarching regulatory system for the sustainable use, restoration and conservation of ecosystems and ecosystem services in the EU (Section 4.3.2).
4.3.1 Gear the European Green Deal towards multiple benefits The European Commission defines the European Green Deal as ”a new growth strategy that aims to transform the EU into a fair and prosperous society, with a modern, resource-efficient and competitive economy where there are no net emissions of greenhouse gases in 2050 and where economic growth is decoupled from resource use. It also aims to protect, preserve and enhance the EU’s natural capital [...]” (European Commission, 2019c:2). Not so much a growth strategy but rather the European Commission’s political flagship initiative for a Great Transformation, the European Green Deal also has the potential to trigger a turnaround in land stewardship. The success of the ambitious goal of greenhouse-gas neutrality by 2050 will depend, among other things, on whether the EU deals responsibly with its own and its global impact on land resources. To this end, follow-up strategies and packages of measures must be ambitiously designed and implemented by the EU and, in particular, by the member states. The EU and the member states should not be guided by an overarching goal of climate neutrality, but should always treat CO2-emissions avoidance and CO2 removal from the atmosphere separately in their planning and measures, and take account of the different climate-policy functions performed by the two approaches (Section 3.1).
Protection of ‚natural capital‘ as a key objective in the European Green Deal The protection, preservation and enhancement of ‘natural capital’ within the EU is explicitly included in the definition of the European Green Deal. In particular, the starting point is to tackle the climate crisis and to achieve climate neutrality in the EU by 2050 (von der Leyen, 2019). The draft regulation of the European Climate Change Act brings the binding nature of this target closer (European Commission, 2020i). Climate-change mitigation and climate adaptation are key fields in which there is a great need for action, and climate-change mitigation is a central dimension of the trilemma in the sense of this report. In particular, the topic of CO2 removal from the atmosphere by ecosystem-based approaches should play an increasing role in the future (Section 3.1). At the same time, the EU needs to be brought onto a sustainable path not only in terms of climate policy. Given their multifunctionality for climate-change mitigation, biodiversity conservation and food security, land resources inside and outside the EU must also be conserved in the long term and their condition improved. The European Green Deal should therefore be used to exploit the multiple bene-
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