After an unexpectedly bitter political battle, European lawmakers on Wednesday passed a bill that would oblige European Union countries to restore 20 percent of all degraded natural areas within their land and sea borders.
The measure, a key element of the Union’s Green Deal environmental initiative, was adopted by 336 votes in favour, 300 against and 13 abstentions. It now goes to a committee made up of representatives of the EU executive, Parliament and national governments.
Negotiations on a final version could take months. But Wednesday’s vote in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, means the Union now has a fundamental obligation to enact the measure into law.
The bill passed by Parliament was a modified version of the original proposal. Lawmakers had tabled more than 2,300 amendments, an unusual number, and accused each other of spreading disinformation. The law initially fell through three committee votes after long, late-night sessions.
A day before the final vote, scores of environmental activists, including Greta Thunberg, faced off against angry farmers on tractors from across Europe in the scorching heat outside Parliament in Strasbourg.
Farmers are a key constituency in Parliament’s largest group, the centre-right European People’s Party, which has led opposition to the bill. Along with smaller far-right groups, they said the proposed policy would jeopardize food production, cause inflation to spike and harm farmers already harmed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Party leader Manfred Weber on Tuesday reiterated his call for the European Commission, the bloc’s executive branch that proposed the measure, to withdraw the bill and draft a new proposal. The majority of MPs voted against his motion.
Environmental experts, community groups and many companies dismissed claims that the policy would affect food production. More than 6,000 scientists from several European universities, including Oxford, Athens and Zurich, said in an open letter last month that these claims “not only lack scientific evidence, they are even contradictory”.
They argued that in the long run, climate change and the destruction of nature posed the greatest threat and that the proposed policy would ensure sustainable food production.
Wednesday’s final score was met with a standing ovation from supporters, with many MPs hugging and cheering.
“It’s a great social victory,” said César Luena, a Spanish lawmaker and one of the leading proponents of the bill. “It’s good for everyone. Because if there are healthy ecosystems, then the economies that depend on those ecosystems will themselves be healthy.”
Restoring degraded land can not only help mitigate climate change, but is also critical to addressing a global biodiversity crisis that is putting an estimated one million species of plants and animals at risk of extinction. In December, nations around the world agreed on 23 targets to tackle biodiversity loss, with Europe pushing for ambitious action in the negotiations. One of the goals committed nations to restore at least 30 percent of the planet’s degraded land, freshwater and marine areas by 2030.
The new Nature Restoration Act, while toned down to 20 percent, is one of the first examples of governments beginning to translate their commitments into policy.
In recent years, Europe has been struggling with the consequences of climate change: record heat, droughts and floods swept across the continent, claiming thousands of lives. Heat waves, in particular, are increasing in frequency and intensity faster than in almost any other part of the planet, including the western United States.
More than 61,000 people died from extreme heat in Europe last year, according to a study published this week in the journal Nature Medicine, and researchers predict the coming months could get even worse. Around 30,000 people have been displaced in northern Italy this year by the worst flooding in over a century.
Supporters of the draft law claimed that in the long run Europe has no choice but to restore biodiversity if it wants to sustain food production and meet a binding target of net greenhouse gas emissions across the Union by 2050.
The European Commission described the Nature Restoration Act as essential for the future of Europe. Saving the continent’s deteriorating natural spaces, 81 percent of which are described as “in poor condition,” is vital to prevent ecosystem collapse, the executive body said.
“We need nature to tackle the climate crisis, absorb carbon, cool cities and towns, keep water dry and stave off flood damage,” said Frans Timmermans, the Union’s environment policy chief, last month. “We must help nature restore itself if we are to achieve our already agreed goals.”