Greenpeace against the common agricultural policy and the immobility of the EU

Greenpeace has criticized the European Union for not having adequately addressed the issues concerning the impact of farms on the climate, especially with regard to dairy production and the effect of meat. 

A new study, promoted by the EU Department of Agriculture on the climate impact of the common agricultural policy (CAP) and remained unpublished for more than a year, provided to the WWF and Greenpeace some new critical elements, leading them to request the free vision and disclosure of the same. According to the data, agriculture is responsible for around 10% of greenhouse gas emissions in Europe, but the lack of strong politics by the Commission is hindering the struggle to reduce them. 

The study calls into question the effectiveness of the current CAP subsidy rules that allow farmers to grow on wetlands and peat bogs and to erect "permanent grasslands", releasing large volumes of carbon dioxide as they do so. 

Imke Lübbeke, chief at WWF’s European policy office for the climate and energy, said: «You couldn’t make it up. The EU commission has been talking about climate urgency while sitting on a report which shows how little farming policy is doing for the climate and how much more it could and should do. At best it is a case of one hand not knowing what the other is doing. At worst, it is deliberately harming climate action and our commitment to keep the temperature rise to 1.5C, as the Paris agreement says». 

The CAP doesn’t require states to record how many grasslands are ploughed, the paper can only estimate the cost of emissions reductions under the policy at €274 per tonne of CO2 equivalent. 

Marco Contiero, director for the Greenpeace’s EU agriculture policy, said that «this study shows once and for all that the CAP is failing to tackle agriculture’s contribution to climate breakdown. In particular it has proved unable to address the detrimental role that meat and dairy farming and consumption play».