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By Sharon Kimathi, Energy and ESG Editor, Reuters Digital
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Hello!
Another day, another protest by farmers in Europe. This week, Spanish farmers blocked major roads with tractors and burning tyres, disrupting access to port terminals as anger spreads in Europe’s countryside against high costs, bureaucracy and competition from outside the European Union.
Ahead of this year’s EU parliament elections, farmers have taken to the streets demanding fewer green rules, and politicians cannot afford to ignore them.
Across Europe, farmers, including in Germany, France, Italy and Belgium, have been holding protests, which in some instances have turned violent.
They say EU rules to protect the environment make them less competitive than farmers in other regions such as Latin America and the rest of Europe. They also complain about what they say are increasingly obscure bureaucratic measures.
Also on my radar today:
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Spanish farmers stand next to burning tyres as they block access to the Castellon port in Castellon, Spain. REUTERS/Eva Manez
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To appease farmers protesting against low food prices and high EU environmental standards, the EU loosened environmental regulations last week on fallow land while France paused a national pesticide reduction policy.
“There is a clear backlash on the agriculture part of the Green Deal,” said French EU lawmaker Pascal Canfin. “But there is no backlash for the rest,” he said.
The overall EU ‘Green Deal’ vision for tackling climate change remains intact, supported by more than two dozen laws passed over the last five years to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change.
The policies already in place are unlikely to be withdrawn. But the EU’s recent attempts to fold broader environmental policies into this package have faltered.
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In the last few months, EU countries and lawmakers have scrapped or weakened new laws on industrial pollution, cutting pesticide use and restoring damaged nature.
In fact, an EU proposal on Tuesday tested the political mood.
The European Commission recommended an ambitious goal to cut net greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by 2040. Click here for a Reuters story on the full details of the proposal.
A previous draft of the EU target, seen by Reuters, had said agriculture would need to cut non-CO2 emissions (from livestock and fertiliser use) 30% by 2040 from 2015 levels to comply with the overall climate goal. That was removed from the final draft. Agriculture contributes more than 10% of the EU’s total greenhouse gas emissions.
Additionally, the EU said it will try to build trust through dialogue, including with farmers, before deciding its next emissions-cutting target, the bloc’s climate chief said, as Brussels reckons with the sector’s protests ahead of EU elections.
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The proposal kicked off political debate on the target, but it will be up to a new EU Commission and Parliament, formed after European Parliament elections in June, to pass the final target.
Polls show more seats could go to far-right and right-leaning parties opposed to climate policies. EU officials say backing for ambitious green laws has also been eroded among EU states by recent elections in Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
The apparent concession to farmers did not satisfy many right-wing members of the EU’s parliament who said the Commission’s green targets would constrain lifestyles and the economy.
“The farmers are revolting in Europe and the European Commission is coming with further unrealistic ambitions,” said Alexandr Vondra, from the Eurosceptic European Conservatives and Reformists Group, criticizing what he called a drive to “force people to have a different lifestyle.”
Climate campaigners by contrast criticized the absence of an emissions target specifically for agriculture as short-sighted, saying delaying action would expose farmers to more destructive droughts and floods fuelled by global warming.
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Miguel Minguet shows grains of bomba rice in his barn in Sollana, Valencia. Farmers say their harvest of bomba rice has been affected by EU green rules in Spain. REUTERS/ Eva Manez
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- A Spanish rice variety traditionally used to make paella is under threat from a fungus after the European Union banned a pesticide farmers said they relied upon, in another example of how the bloc’s environmental rules are angering growers.
- Diversity & Inclusion: The head of Norway’s $1.6 trillion sovereign wealth fund, one of the world’s largest investors, said he was concerned about growing signs of a backlash against the drive to bring diversity at the top of U.S. organizations.
- Australia will introduce laws giving workers the right to ignore unreasonable calls and messages from their bosses outside of work hours without penalty, with potential fines for employers that breach the rule.
- LGBT issues: Pope Francis said he sees “hypocrisy” in criticism of his decision to allow priests to bless same-sex couples, possibly his most strongly worded defense of the move. “Nobody gets scandalized if I give my blessings to a businessman who perhaps exploits people, and this is a very grave sin. But they get scandalized if I give them to a homosexual,” Francis told Italian Catholic magazine Credere.
- India plans to protest against the European Union’s proposed carbon tax on imports of steel, iron ore and cement at the next meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) later this month, saying it would emerge as a new trade barrier, two government sources said.
- Workplace harassment: SpaceX is being investigated by a California civil rights agency over allegations that the rocket and satellite maker and CEO Elon Musk have failed to address rampant discrimination and sexual harassment against female employees. The company has denied wrongdoing.
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Commenting on reports that UK’s Labour party is set to scale back its £28 billion a year green pledge, Mike Childs, head of policy at the environmental charity, Friends of the Earth said:
“Green investment doesn’t just deliver for the planet; it also benefits our health and economy. Cutting it would be short-sighted and cost the country dearly.
“The UK is already lagging behind in the race to manufacture green steel, build electric vehicles, and develop giga-battery factories. Thousands of jobs are at risk if we don’t match the investment the US and the rest of Europe are making in these industries.
“A comprehensive home insulation programme is desperately needed to help the millions of people left shivering in heat-leaking homes. This would slash bills, cut energy waste and benefit the economy.
“For years UK climate action has been undermined by dither, delay and lukewarm support from the government. We urgently need real political leadership to confront the climate crisis and seize the huge opportunities that building a greener future would bring.”
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Farmers’ protests have mounted across the European Union recently, as Sustainable Switch reported on French and Belgian farmer protests last week, while today’s focus featured the Spanish farmer action. But what about the rest of Europe?
Farmers blocked the Dutch-Belgian border and occupied roads in Greece last week, while a Polish union announced plans to shut border crossings with Ukraine as European protests over prices and red tape spread.
In Portugal, tractors blocked at least three roads linking Portugal to Spain last week, as farmers staged slow marches in several places.
Italian farmers also protested over red tape and cheap imports from outside the EU headed towards Rome in convoys of tractors on Monday, while their colleagues in the north led a cow through the streets of Milan.
Click here for a Reuters explainer on why the farmers are protesting.
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Displaced Palestinian teen, Hussam Al-Attar, works on wind turbines he uses to light up his shelter, tent camp in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
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Today’s spotlight shines a light on the electrical ingenuity of a teen known as ‘Gaza’s Newton’.
Using two fans he picked up from a scrap market and rigged to some wires, teenager Hussam Al-Attar has created his own source of electricity to light up the tent where he and his family are living after being displaced by Israel’s assault on Gaza.
In recognition of his ingenuity, people in the surrounding tent camp have given him a nickname: Gaza’s Newton. “They started calling me Gaza’s Newton due to the similarity between me and Newton,” said 15 year-old Al-Attar.
“Newton was sitting under an apple tree when an apple fell on his head and he discovered gravity. And we here are living in darkness and tragedy, and rockets are falling on us, therefore I thought of creating light, and did so.”
More than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are now crammed into Rafah, on the southern edge of the strip by the fence separating it from Egypt.
The Al-Attar family have attached their tent to the flank of a one-storey house, allowing Hussam to climb onto the roof and set up his two fans, one above the other, to act as tiny wind turbines capable of charging batteries.
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- Feb. 9, Zahony, Hungary: Hungarian farmers protest with their tractors lined up near the Hungarian-Ukrainian border against the EU’s extension of the preferential trade regime with Ukraine which suspends duties for grain, which farmers say threatens their livelihoods.
- Feb. 9, Poznan, Poland: Polish farmers plan to hold a protest in Poznan, with organizers saying they want to gather as many as 1000 tractors.
- Feb. 9, Kyiv, Ukraine: Working Group of international figures Wallstrom is co-chairing with Andriy Yermak, head of office of Ukraine, gathers senior figures from international policy and environmental activism, including the likes of Mary Robinson and Greta Thunberg, to work on three main goals: assessment of environmental damage caused by the war, accountability for crimes against the environment and helping Ukraine with green recovery after the war.
- Feb. 9, Banja Luka, Bosnia: The business event “Balkan Solar Summit” opens, bringing together energy companies and experts from across the region to discuss the switch from fossil fuels to green energy.
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