BRUSSELS (AP) – Protesters and legislators converged on the European Union (EU) Parliament yesterday as the bloc faces a major vote on protecting its threatened nature and shielding it from disruptive environmental change, in a test of the EU’s global climate credentials.
Spurred on by climate activist Greta Thunberg, hundreds of demonstrators demanded that the EU pushes through a bill to beef up the restoration of nature in the 27-nation bloc that was damaged during decades of industrial expansion.
Inside the legislature in Strasbourg, France, parliamentarians were bracing ahead of today’s vote for a brutal debate over whether to push the plan off the table.
The legislature’s environment committee last month was deadlocked at 44-44 on it. “We urge them to not reject it but vote for the strongest law possible. To mitigate the climate crisis and halt biodiversity loss, we must #RestoreNature,” Thunberg wrote on her Twitter feed.
The bill is a key part of the EU’s vaunted European Green Deal that seeks to establish the world’s most ambitious climate and biodiversity targets and make the bloc the global point of reference on all climate issues.
The plans proposed by the EU’s executive commission set binding restoration targets for specific habitats and species, with the aim by 2030 to cover at least 20 per cent of the region’s land and sea areas.
The EU’s executive commission wants the nature restoration law to be a key part of the system since it is necessary for the overall deal to have the maximum input.
Others say that if the EU fails on the nature restoration law, it would indicate an overall fatigue on climate issues.
