The EU is not on track to achieve any of its biodiversity targets by 2030, an internal European Commission report warns.
The Joint Research Centre at the European Commission says that, despite setting targets to do so, the EU is unlikely to reverse a fall in bees and other pollinating insects, it is unlikely to cut the use of fertilisers sufficiently and will not manage to stop a deterioration in the conservation of wildlife.
On a raft of other targets, the EU is falling behind, but could still catch up if there is new impetus now.
These includes planting trees at a faster pace if the target of three billion trees by 2030 is to be reached, encouraging the shift to organic farming and protecting more areas of land and sea.
“Regarding the outlook of meeting the (sub)targets by 2030, our evaluation suggests that EU is not on track to meet any of the 13 evaluated (sub)targets, although 9 of these evaluated (sub)targets could still be met should the pace of progress accelerate”, the report authors warn.
The “EU is unlikely to meet the remaining 4 evaluated (sub)targets. However, outlook could not be evaluated due to a lack of data for the 16 remaining (sub)targets”
“In terms of future outlook, the EU is currently off-track to meet any of the 13 sub-targets by 2030 that could be evaluated”, the European Commission admitted.
“The EU may still be able to reach nine of them by 2030, if the pace of change accelerates. For instance, compared with the pace of progress observed so far, the pace in the designation of new protected areas and of transition to organic farming would need to triple to stay on course for 2030.”
The biodiversity strategy targets were a central pillar of the EU’s Green Deal during Ursula von der Leyen’s first term as European Commission president.
But environmental campaigners fear she has lost interest in green projects as world attention has shifted from climate change to worries about security and defence issues.
“The EU Biodiversity Strategy aims to put Europe’s biodiversity on the path to recovery by 2030, for the benefit of people, climate and the planet. Biodiversity and the services it provides support human life and wellbeing by regulating the quality of the air we breathe and the water we drink, as well as providing people with food, energy and medicines.
While major steps have been taken in developing and enacting policy to reduce impacts on biodiversity, they have not yet been enough to halt biodiversity loss and reverse biodiversity decline.”
Meeting the strategy’s targets would require stronger enforcement of existing environmental policies, including the full implementation of the EU Nature Restoration Regulation, the report authors advise.