4 Transformative governance for solidarity-based land stewardship
commitments by the parties to international environmental agreements and goals, such as the precautionary principle, the agreements should specifically promote trade in sustainably produced goods and services and provide for more effective control and dispute-settlement mechanisms. In principle, the WBGU also supports the EU in considering, where necessary, unilaterally introducing border-adjustment measures or expanding certification requirements to back up climate- and environmental-policy frameworks under the European Green Deal. In the longer term, the EU should also work for reforms of WTO law, so that measures to protect global commons do not become the subject of trade disputes (Zengerling, 2020). Possible approaches in this field include corresponding peace clauses or waivers that are clearly limited in time and subject matter, for example exception clauses for national measures to protect specified commons, e.g. climate-change mitigation (Bacchus, 2017) or certain particularly important ecosystems such as the Congo Basin. At the WTO level, the EU could also launch a new initiative to negotiate an agreement on sustainably produced environmental goods and services, which would reduce or abolish tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade in this field. As an intermediate step towards this, the EU should also support the ACCTS negotiations and agreement (Section 4.2.5.2).
ing procedures as described in Section 4.2.4. How such a goal can be meaningfully formulated and made measurable should be the subject of further research. A particular challenge lies in determining a sustainable level of consumption.
A European roadmap for CO2 removal from the atmosphere To prepare and accompany its strategic planning on the future removal of CO2 from the atmosphere, the EU should explore the various approaches for CO2 removal both individually and in interaction in long-term research projects. In addition to further technical development and the question of sustainably realizable potential, particular consideration should also be given to possible repercussions that may result from climatic changes over time, for example, in the case of ecosystem-based approaches such as (re)afforestation. In parallel, effective governance and financing mechanisms should also be developed and scientifically evaluated that take appropriate account of the recommended separation of CO2-emissions avoidance and CO2 removal from the atmosphere, the specific sustainability risks of individual approaches to CO2 removal, and the different (natural and financial) capabilities of the member states; such mechanisms could thus prepare the ground for business models in the field of CO2 removal from the atmosphere that are viable in the longer term (Section 3.1).
4.3.4 Research recommendations
‘Farm to Fork’ – the importance of the Planetary Health Diet for European agriculture A change in agriculture is systemically linked to a change in dietary habits (Section 3.4). How national and global nutrition guidelines relate to societal goals such as healthy eating options, climate-change mitigation or biodiversity conservation is an important subject of research (Box 3.4-8). With regard to the further development of European framework policy on agriculture (Section 4.3.2), the question also arises as to how changes in the average diet, e.g. towards dietary habits involving fewer animal products, would affect agricultural production. The distributional effects of the conversion of the CAP to a Common Ecosystem Policy are a possible accompanying research topic.
262
Reduction of resource consumption as a political objective An absolute target for reducing resource consumption at the EU level should be made measurable and verifiable as a political objective with indicators and monitor-
4.4 Strengthen existing international cooperation and coordination of land stewardship The protection and use of land, including land-use change and land degradation, are not primarily negotiated internationally in a single intergovernmental forum in the way, for example, that climate change and its consequences are dealt with under the Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement. Rather, land use, land-use change and land degradation are subjects covered by many different international institutions, organizations and forums. World summits on the environment and development like the Rio conferences have been important forums in the past. For example, the goal of Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN, Section 2.1.3) gained international consensus in Rio in 2012 (Rio+20). The UN Food Systems Summit scheduled for 2021 is also particularly relevant