€100B in E.U. Spending Fails to Reduce Emissions in Ag Sector, Audit Finds

A spe­cial report from the European Court of Auditors (ECA) says that more than €100 bil­lion of European Union agri­cul­tural fund­ing aimed at mit­i­gat­ing cli­mate change has not done much to reduce green­house emis­sions from the agri­cul­tural sec­tor.

According to ECA, the cli­mate change man­age­ment meth­ods sup­ported by the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) had not led to a decrease in green­house gas emis­sions since 2010.

The audi­tors also con­cluded that about 50 per­cent of total E.U. cli­mate spend­ing from 2014 to 2020 had done noth­ing to reduce green­house gas emis­sions over that period. In addi­tion, they said that the for­mer CAP did not have solid incen­tives for peo­ple and busi­nesses to engage in cli­mate-friendly prac­tices.

“The E.U.’s role in mit­i­gat­ing cli­mate change in the agri­cul­tural sec­tor is cru­cial because the E.U. sets envi­ron­men­tal stan­dards and co-finances most of the Member States’ agri­cul­tural spend­ing,” said Viorel Ștefan, mem­ber of the European Court of Auditors who wrote the report.

“We expect our find­ings to be use­ful in the con­text of the EU’s objec­tive of becom­ing cli­mate-neu­tral by 2050,” he added. ​“The new Common Agricultural Policy should have a greater focus on reduc­ing agri­cul­tural emis­sions, and be more account­able and trans­par­ent about its con­tri­bu­tion to cli­mate mit­i­ga­tion.”

The audi­tors issued the report after exam­in­ing and ana­lyz­ing the cli­mate change mit­i­ga­tions prac­tices set out by CAP from 2014 to 2020. These mea­sures aimed to reduce green­house gas emis­sions from chem­i­cal fer­til­iz­ers and manure, live­stock and land use.

They also checked whether the incen­tives were more effec­tive than the mea­sures set out in the pre­vi­ous CAP, which ran from 2007 to 2013.

The audi­tors found that live­stock emis­sions account for more than half of the green­house gas emis­sions attrib­uted to agri­cul­ture, adding that the CAP did not reg­u­late live­stock num­bers or pro­vide ade­quate incen­tives to reduce them.

According to the audi­tors, this explained why the emis­sions have not declined since 2010 despite the E.U. ear­mark­ing €103 bil­lion for cli­mate mit­i­ga­tion.

However, the audi­tors acknowl­edged that the new CAP passed by the E.U. Agricultural Council in June might improve the sit­u­a­tion. The new CAP has more strict envi­ron­men­tal require­ments for farm­ers who want to receive fund­ing.

Each coun­try must sub­mit a national strate­gic plan for its share of fund­ing. All pay­ments will be tied to how well ben­e­fi­cia­ries fol­low envi­ron­men­tal rules, includ­ing reduc­ing green­house emis­sions by 55 per­cent by 2030.

With these new require­ments, the archi­tects of the pol­icy aim to shift money from inten­sive farm­ing to pro­tect­ing nature and pro­mot­ing bio­di­ver­sity, all of which they hope will help lower green­house gas emis­sions.

Olive grow­ers across the con­ti­nent are expected to be among the ben­e­fi­cia­ries of the new CAP. In 2016, the International Olive Council esti­mated that for every liter of vir­gin olive oil pro­duced ​“in a mature semi-inten­sive orchard with an aver­age crop yield,” there is net car­bon seques­tra­tion of 8.5 kilo­grams.

“Olive oil pro­duc­tion helps to com­bat global warm­ing by absorb­ing more atmos­pheric CO2 than it pro­duces and fix­ing it in the soil and bio­mass,” the IOC said.

• European Court of Auditors
• European Commission
• International Olive Council