What do Lake Vico in Italy, the pesticides authorisation process in France, and the river Ems in Germany all have in common? They are all linked to industrial agriculture, the impact of which has been the subject of recent court cases across the European Union. Laura Hildt explores the role of litigation in shaping a brighter EU food and farming system. 

In courts across the EU, governments are increasingly found in breach of their obligations to ensure clean and healthy water, proper risk assessments of pesticides, stable habitats and adequate greenhouse gas emission reductions. While these cases highlight local issues, they are part of a broader picture of litigation which showcases the systemic problems with the EU’s approach to agriculture.

The EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) – Europe’s dedicated farming budget – is not working for farmers or the environment. Countless reports, studies and recent protests have demonstrated that beyond doubt. In fact, by looking at what is happening in the courts, we see that the CAP – by funding business as usual – funds a system that is leading EU governments to breach the law.

The CAP on paper 

On paper – or rather, in law – the CAP has multiple objectives, including reducing greenhouse gas emissions, halting biodiversity loss and effectively managing natural resources such as water, soil and air. It is, after all, a third of the EU’s budget.

When national governments implement the CAP, they must show how their plans to spend CAP money at national level achieve those objectives, including long-standing environmental obligations. Makes sense to not give out vast amounts of public money in a way that pollutes drinking water and makes governments fail their legal obligations to ensure that same water is safe and clean. Right? And yet, that is what is happening with the CAP.

The reality 

Governments are spending public money on a system that leads them to breach the law – which results in them spending even more of the public’s money to clean up the mess. More and more courts across Europe are finding governments in breach of the Nitrates Directive, the Water Framework Directive, the Habitats Directive and even their climate obligations. All fuelled by the continued funding of intensive agricultural practices such as the excessive spreading of manure on our soils, heavy pesticides use and industrial-scale animal rearing.

Taking action 

Who wins in this? Well, no one really. Except, those with vested interests, like Big Agri and the 20% of industrial ‘farms’ which receive 80% of the CAP budget. They make short-term profits by clinging on to the status quo, at the expense of the public – who pays the price to clean up the mess afterwards. Farmers themselves are amongst the first to be hit by the impacts of the climate, biodiversity and pollution crises – which is why they too are turning to the courts. Hugues is a Belgian farmer who is suing TotalEnergies for its contribution to the climate crisis and the impact it is having on his farm and his livelihood. Extreme weather events, such as heat waves, droughts and extreme rainfall have harmed his crops, his ability to feed his animals, and his income and workload. This has pushed Hugues to take action by turning to the courts to seek an order that TotalEnergies, one of the most-polluting companies in the world, repairs the damage inflicted and to phases out fossil fuels to prevent further damage. And this is far from the only example.

Over at Lake Vico in Italy, the surrounding area around the lake is covered with intensive hazelnut plantations that are subjected to large amounts of pesticides and fertilisers, which ultimately run-off the land into the lake. The result: the local inhabitant’s water supply has become undrinkable due to eutrophication (excessive plant growth due to nutrient run off, in this case red algal blooms which release toxins) and overall degradation of a protected habitat. Following action from ClientEarth and Lipu (BirdLife Italy), Italy’s court ordered the region to take appropriate measures to fix the situation.

A similar case exists for the Ems river, located in a region at the centre of meat production in Germany. To protect drinking water sources, EU law establishes a 50 mg/l limit of nitrates in groundwater. In the Ems region this figure is dramatically exceeded, and many even call for the limit to be lowered  to protect human health. German NGO, Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH) took to court, which ruled in their favour and ordered the regions of Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia to take effective measures to reach the limit value of 50 mg/l in all Ems ground water bodies as quickly as possible, and to reverse the harm done.

An essential tool 

It should not require going to court to get safe drinking water, healthy ecosystems and agricultural climate targets that align with international, EU and national legal obligations and the science. Yet, it seems like these cases are necessary, particularly while there is a broken CAP that continues to lock our agricultural system into paying to pollute rather than making the polluters pay.

That is why we are gathering cases related to agriculture, like that of Hugues, Lake Vico and the river Ems, to demonstrate the systemic failures that sit behind these local problems, as illustrated in each court case. With more and more courts finding governments to be in breach of their long-standing obligations, the pressure is rising to move away from this woefully failing CAP and toward a brighter future of EU food and farming.

Originally published at Laura Hildt “Legal ground: the growth of agriculture litigation,” in META European Environmental Bureau (25 July 2024) at  bit.ly/47MKFdJ

The way we talk about the problem has shifted dramatically over time.

by ERIK BLEICH,  ELI RICHARDSON and  NOAH RIZIKA

JUNE 5, 2024

Cartoon by Tom Toro

Almost two decades ago, Al Gore’s 2006 documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” raised awareness of the problems associated with what was then commonly called “global warming.” Although most people had moved away from referring to the heating of our planet as the “greenhouse effect,” we were still a few years from adopting the term “climate change,” a more accurate though less evocative label, as the leading descriptor of our profound environmental challenges.

The words we use to characterize our climate concerns can influence how we view the issue, and as a consequence, the actions we take. As data scientists, we recently studied the evolution in terminology by examining 79,134 articles that mentioned key climate terms in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and USA Today between 1980 and 2023. This review allows us to not only understand the terms most commonly used in the media but also to see whether their usage tracks the terminology favored by scientific experts and the general public.

We were struck by the long-term evolution in the relative prominence of “greenhouse effect,” “global warming,” and “climate change.” But what really stood out was the sudden emergence in late 2018 of more dramatic language like “climate crisis,” “climate emergency,” and even “climate apocalypse.” Looking beyond the media, we found that this surge of alarmist language parallels the framing of environmental issues by experts but has not yet become commonplace among the broader public — at least not as measured by internet search data.

How terms changed over time

Although the first mention of “global warming” was in a 1975 scientific study, throughout the 1980s, “greenhouse effect” was still more commonly used by the four newspapers we analyzed. It wasn’t until 1989 that “global warming” became the term of choice in these mainstream outlets, as illustrated in the graphic below.

By 2009, “climate change” had surpassed “global warming” in the four newspapers. This terminological transition was championed as early as 2005 by the National Academy of Sciences as a more accurate way to describe the phenomenon. It may also have reflected the increasingly politicized nature of climate issues, driven in part by the oil and gas industry’s intensive campaigning. A 2011 study demonstrated that using the term “climate change” rather than “global warming” at the time resulted in a 16% increase in Republicans endorsing the phenomenon as real.

Interestingly, it wasn’t until the summer of 2015 that Google searches for “climate change” outpaced those for “global warming,” as shown in the graphic below. This suggests that the media do not have an immediate, overwhelming effect on the terms used by the public. Indeed, it can take years for a new term to seep into public consciousness and be reflected in everyday language.

The sudden rise of “climate crisis”

The media is much quicker to adopt new terminology. In late 2018, “climate crisis” and related terms, including “climate emergency,” “climate catastrophe,” “climate apocalypse,” “climate breakdown,” and “planetary emergency,” suddenly appeared in the media. These emotive terms are qualitatively different from the phrases used since the 1980s. Why did they break through at that time?

Global activism likely contributed to this sharp rise. In August 2018, Greta Thunberg launched her Fridays for Future campaign. In the U.S., organizations such as the Sunrise Movement grabbed headlines through high-profile protests that drew sustained attention. They helped to frame the issue as an emergency requiring immediate action. As Thunberg said in her December 2018 COP24 speech, “We cannot solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis.”

She was not alone in this view. In February 2019, climate journalist David Wallace-Wells penned an opinion piece for the New York Times entitled, “Time to Panic,” in which he argued that “climate change is a crisis precisely because it is a looming catastrophe that demands an aggressive global response, now.” Other journalists also embraced this perspective, especially in the U.K., where the Guardian changed its house style guide in May 2019 to favor terms like “climate crisis.”

This rapid evolution in newspaper language closely tracks expert discourse. In addition to global environmental movements, late 2018 saw the publication of a special U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report that, for the first time, quantified the time we have left to act to avoid catastrophic damage. Scopus, a prominent database containing a diverse array of scientific studies, shows a year-on-year doubling between 2018 and 2019 in scholarship that used “climate crisis” and “climate emergency,” and then a quadrupling of such terms between 2019 and 2020.

The convergence of a push from activists and a shift in expert views turned awareness of what seemed to be distant consequences into a time-sensitive crisis. But that doesn’t mean that the public has adopted these terms as their own. Google searches for “climate change” still outpace those for “global warming” by a significant degree. As the graphic below shows, even when comparing the relatively less common “global warming” to “climate crisis,” there are strikingly few people searching for the more urgent term.

If the lag in general usage of “climate change” compared to “global warming” is any indication, we may simply have to wait a few more years for “climate crisis” and its analogues to become common search terms. Use of these more dire words will likely affect public perception of the issue and the resulting sentiment on climate policy. The question is how.

Climate communications scholars are divided on the impact. Some studies point to the use of terms like “crisis” and “emergency” leading to distrust of news sources. Other studies, however, find no impact of the terms on a person’s willingness to engage in climate action. Alternatively, framing climate concerns as an existential threat has also been shown to generate strong emotions that motivate people to act on behalf of the environment.

This is critical because by any tangible metric, the planet is indeed experiencing a climate crisis. Carbon dioxide levels are unprecedented in the modern era, dozens of species are going extinct every day, and damages from increasingly common weather disasters are rising. The 10 hottest years on record all occurred in the last decade.

In ancient Greek, a “crisis” meant a turning point — one that might spur people to action. By embracing the “climate crisis” in this spirit, we just might provide an impetus that leads us to a better future.

Erik Bleich is the Charles A. Dana Professor of Political Science at Middlebury College, where he directs the Media Portrayals of Minorities Project lab that uses data science techniques to analyze contemporary issues. Eli Richardson is a 2024 Middlebury College graduate who specializes in climate topics. Noah Rizika is a 2024 Middlebury College graduate with experience in conservation research and carbon footprint analysis. Both recent graduates are members of the Media Portrayals of Minorities Project lab.

Tom Toro is a cartoonist and writer who has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010.

Originally published in Yale Climate Connections (5 June 2024) at  https://bit.ly/4e5apnH

To reduce emissions, improve population health, and restore the natural world

Dear councillors,

Congratulations to all new and returning county and city councillors across Ireland.

We write to you all as concerned healthcare workers and students. The effects of the combined climate and nature crisis are already having negative effects on people in Ireland. Extreme weather, poor diets, inactivity, air and sound pollution, and lack of access to nature are all negatively affecting population health.

Ireland has already experienced a number of major flood events around the country over the last decade, and climate change is anticipated to further increase the risk of floods. We have only started to see the effects of heatwaves. Almost 2000 people die prematurely due to poor air quality in Ireland every year. Our unsustainable, unhealthy diets are causing enormous harm to people of all ages. A large proportion of the Irish population do not get enough exercise, and given Ireland’s lack of thriving nature, access to nature remains poor.

These are all issues you as councillors can address.

Your five-year term will take us within months of 2030, the year in which we will have to have reduced our emissions by 50%. The next five years will define our lifetimes. Climate action is not some future issue. It is on your shoulders now.

We call on you to act. We call on you to take action to reduce emissions, improve population health, and restore our shared natural world. Now that you have been elected to local government, you each have the power to deliver on the following actions:

1. Transport: Facilitate a rapid modal shift away from fossil-fuel powered individual modes of transport to active and public transport. Wider footpaths, protected, wide mobility and cycle lanes and expanded bus, LUAS and train networks are urgently needed to make this possible.
2. Green and Blue Spaces: Improve urban access to nature through tree planting, linear parklets, and new or improved parks. Support rural forest regeneration and nature restoration. Improve Ireland’s water quality and improve the access and quality of our blue spaces.
3. Sustainable Development: Promote and support initiatives such as 15-minute cities, energy efficient buildings, retrofitting, and sustainable building practices. Incentivise local businesses to adopt sustainable and green policies. Build sustainable and climate resilient communities.
4. Food System: Create a more sustainable, environmentally friendly food system. Move towards a healthier, more plant-based diet. Reduce food waste. Support farmers to transition to more sustainable practices.
5. Air Quality: Prioritise safe, clean air. Introduce ultra-low emissions zones and clean air zones. Expand the National Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Network. Improve access to active and public transport.

These are turbulent political times. But we urge you not to reject science, not to ignore peoples’ health. The actions outlined above can contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation, support biodiversity, improve air quality, reduce fuel poverty, and improve population health.

There are 949 of you. You might come from different backgrounds and have different political views, but you all have one thing in common: you live on this planet.

Le meas,

Irish Doctors for the Environment Registered charity number: 20205893.

Originally published at ide.ie/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IDE-Letter-to-Councillors.pdf

Happy 50th Anniverary!

Set up in 1974, the EEB is the largest network of environmental citizens’ organisations in Europe. Initially the Bureau was developed as a by-product of the European community economic integration but slowly evolved to an independent policy organization covering all aspects of environmental issues and European environmental law.  The European Council adopted, for example, more than 600 pieces of environmental law between 1970 and 2013, exceeding one act every month.

It currently consists of over 180 member organisations in 40 countries, including a growing number of networks, and representing some 30 million individual members and supporters.  It is headquartered in Brussels, and funded by the OECD, the UNEP, the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme, the Climate Works Foundation, and EU member state governments.

The EEB advocates for progressive policies to “create a better environment in the European Union and beyond through agenda setting, monitoring, advising on and influencing the way the EU deals with environmental problems.”  Such work focuses on a wide variety of issues, including climate change, biodiversity, pollution and waste prevention.

The EEB is seen as an umbrella organization that is open to NGOs active in dealing with the environment.  It includes a broad range of national members including the following from Ireland: An Taisce – The National Trust for Ireland; Feasta: the Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability; FIE – Friends of the Irish Environment; IEN- Irish Environmental Network; IWT- Irish Wildlife Trust; SWAN- Sustainable Water Network; VOICE – Voice of the Irish Concern for the Environment; and Zero Waste Alliance Ireland.  The following organizations from the United Kingdom are members of the EEB: Green Alliance; LINK – Scottish Environment Link; Population Matters; RSPB – Royal Society for the Protection of Birds; The Restart Project; and, Woodland Trust.

“EEB runs working groups with its members, produces position papers on topics that are, or EEB feels should be, on the EU agenda, and represents its members in discussions with the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council.”

The EEB also reaches out to other groups, networks and campaigns that are focusing on specific issues and challenges, including mercury contamination and energy-related Coolproducts, as well as broader pan-European matters such as access to Justice, the Aarhus Convention and Sustainable Development.

As part of its engagement with others concerned about the protection of our environment, “The EEB supplies quality information to the public, its members and the European institutions through articles, reports and papers. It offers expert comment, analysis and recommendations on most of the latest environmental issues.”

In selecting which issues to address, the EEB evaluates a variety of criterion such as the impact a specific policy has on the environment, the EEB’s potential to make a difference on a policy level, public and media concern, or a project’s potential to get funded.

There are numerous academic publications that document environmental issues from highly technical perspectives.  But many of those deeply engaged in environmental issues, including individual members of the many organizations belonging to EEB, need clarity as much as details.  And one of the most important contributions of EEB has been been its commitment and success in presenting complex environmental issues in ways that are both accessible and accurate.

The EEB has provided that function for 50 years and we look forward to more of the same for another 50 years, and beyond.

Sources:

EU  Organisations, European Environmental Bureau bit.ly/3VlSHpv

Henning Deters, “European environmental policy at 50: Five decades of escaping decision traps?” Environmental Policy and Governance (Sept 2019).  bit.ly/4bL3sXA

Brittany Demogenes, “Best Climate Practice EU: The European Environmental Bureau,” Climate Scorecard (May 10, 2021). bit.ly/4dTlqJq