The new EU environmental action program must be given a real bite to carry out the necessary actions, says Rebecca Humphries.

Rebecca Humphries is Public Affairs Manager at the WWF European Policy Office.

This is a question I am asked regularly: why is the 8th Environmental Action Program important? Could he ever really improve environmental policymaking in the EU? Current discussions are raising hopes that the 8th EAP might just be a turning point – if we get a few key things right.

EU environmental action programs are legally binding frameworks adopted jointly by the European Parliament, the Commission and the Member States. Their past iterations mainly focused on environmental policies that needed to be put forward.

However, the 8th EAP, currently being negotiated in trilogues, comes at a critical moment: it must chart a solid course to address pressing environmental challenges through 2030, such as the need for significant emissions reductions, and stopping and reversing the loss of nature.

The EU’s environmental goals, even if they are enshrined in laws such as the Water Framework Directive or the Birds and Habitats Directives, are undermined by other EU policies that lead rather to environmental degradation, such as harmful agricultural or energy subsidies.

For example, despite clear commitments from the EU in terms of climate action, taxpayers still subsidize investments in fossil fuels to the tune of 50 billion euros per year! This not only directly contradicts the 7th EAP pledge to phase out environmentally harmful subsidies, but it also directly undermines the EU’s climate goals.

Fossil fuels have no role in a climate neutral Europe, so it’s impossible to believe that we continue to support this dirty industry. In this next iteration, the EAP must therefore stipulate specific timeframes and a clear process for the phase-out of all harmful subsidies.

General objectives are clearly not enough. Instead, EU institutions must now agree on concrete mechanisms that will actually bring about change, such as requiring systematic environmental impact assessments of all new policies and legislation in order to assess fully their consequences – including the cost to society if no action is taken!

Indeed, this “cost of inaction”, if correctly assessed, will often greatly exceed the projected “burdens” that a new initiative creates. On climate change alone, it is estimated that each year of postponing action costs the global economy $ 5,000 billion, making the investments necessary to achieve even comparatively very ambitious climate goals.

The devastating floods and forest fires this summer are a case in point.

Some say that such measures go beyond the scope of an EAP. But what is this program for, if not to give us the means to achieve the long-term goal of “living well within the limits of the planet”? All the actions to achieve this goal are absolutely relevant!

Overall, the 8th EAP should provide the impetus for the EU to move away from the current unsustainable model, towards a welfare economy centered on what really matters to people: health, education. , nature and well-being.

To achieve this, we need a new compass to assess these important areas and then prioritize them in policy making. This requires new, more holistic indicators that measure well-being, rather than just GDP growth, to inform policy decisions.

As the EU institutions negotiate an agreement on the 8th Environment Action Program, they must seize this opportunity to commit to real policy coherence, including clear accountability and adequate follow-up .

Only then will we have a chance to realize the ambitions of the European Green Deal and achieve our stated objectives in terms of climate neutrality and biodiversity. Simply repeating the vague promises of past programs will not be enough.