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In mid-December, hundreds of fed-up Germans driving tractors rolled into Berlin and parked in long lines against the imposing sandstone columns of the Brandenburg Gate. The yellow vests worn by many have now become a trademark of European populism. They honked their horns and brandished signs stating that the German government had declared war.
Facing a budget deficit, the country’s centre-left leaders have decided to scrap tax breaks on agricultural diesel, saving the government around 900 million euros ($1 billion) and reducing climate There may also be a benefit to volatility. —But it would cost individual farmers as much as 20,000 euros ($21,500). Many producers and ranchers saw the cuts as a last resort against a series of events already making their lives difficult, including inflation, the war in Ukraine, and new environmental regulations. Protests soon spread across the country, mainly in the form of tractor blockades.
Then it erupted across the continent. In recent weeks, roads and city squares in nearly every country in the European Union have been blocked by farmers angry over a raft of regulations, including policies aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. Earlier this month, EU officials who met in close proximity to demonstrators clashing with police in Brussels backed away from plans for the bloc’s first goal of reducing climate pollution, particularly from food production.
Policy analysts told Grist that the protests revealed how difficult it is for governments in Europe and around the world to rein in agricultural emissions. Agriculture accounts for about 10% of climate pollution in Europe and the United States, and climate scientists broadly agree that curbing these emissions is key to curbing global warming. The EU’s withdrawal of agriculture-specific climate targets highlights the need for a well-planned “just transition” – a transition to climate-friendly agriculture that does not ignore farmers’ economic needs. said Tim Benton, who leads the agricultural research. Environment at Chatham House, a London-based think tank.
“Farmers are increasingly tired of being told they’re the bad guys and bad stewards of the land, and that they’re seen as the ones responsible for the emissions from the food system,” Benton said. “If you’re going to make a transition, you’ve got to bring people along.”
In response to the populist yellow vest protests that erupted in France in 2018, farmers from Spain to Slovenia blocked highways with tractors and left huge piles of soil and fertilizer in front of government buildings. They threw eggs and firecrackers at police and set up hay bales and tires. burning. Farmers have countless grievances, including high fuel and fertilizer costs, competition from cheap imports and foreign producers, and volatile commodity prices, but one thing in particular unites them: , the European Union’s climate change policy. They consider it outrageous and arrogant. .
EU officials agreed in 2020 on a target to make the continent carbon neutral by 2050, but this month recommended halving pesticide use and cutting agricultural greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2040. was planned to be done. In a speech on the streets of Brussels, the EU’s executive body, the European Commission, rejected the proposal, although it maintained the broader goal of cutting the region’s total emissions by 90 percent by 2040. Officials also postponed recommendations to leave some agricultural land fallow to conserve biodiversity. and abandoned plans to promote meat from lab-grown plants to limit climate pollution from animal agriculture.
Patty Fong, director of the climate change program at the Dutch Global Alliance for the Future of Food, said: “We have basically nothing left from a very ambitious agenda a few years ago.” I witnessed this fall.”
The proposal would have needed to be approved by the EU parliament after June elections, when far-right forces are expected to gain momentum. Daniel Resnick, a researcher at the International Food Policy Research Institute and the Brookings Institution in Washington, said right-wing politicians in Europe are focusing on opinion polls and trying to capitalize on farmers’ discontent to push for dismantling the European Union’s climate policy. It is said that there is. , DC “The discourse has been hijacked in some quarters,” Resnick said.
Benton and other policy researchers told Grist that top-down mandates and emissions targets tend not to work because they lack public support. The key, they say, is to encourage farmers to adopt environmentally friendly growing practices and ensure that they can make a living even if yields decline as a result of those changes. It is likely that they will invest US dollars.
Benton pointed to the Inflation Control Act, a landmark climate bill passed by the U.S. Congress in 2022, as an example of a step in the right direction. The bill did not come with any specific goals for reducing agricultural emissions, but it did direct spending of $20 billion. Tens of billions of dollars more will go into “climate-smart” agriculture and accelerate the transition to renewable energy.
In Europe, lawmakers have set ambitious climate goals but have not made the broad plans and investments needed for the transition, analysts told Grist.
“No one is really proposing a long-term plan to say, ‘We need to transition.’ We need huge amounts of funding to enable the transition to a more sustainable agri-food system. That’s how we’re going to pay for it. And this is how we’re going to support farmers in this transition,” said Julia Bogner, head of the Land Use and Climate Program at the European Environmental Policy Institute.
For governments, figuring out where to raise funds to support farmers is a daunting challenge. Bognar pointed to the huge subsidies already provided by the EU. About a third of the total budget, or about 56 billion euros ($60 billion) each year, is earmarked for farmers, agricultural companies and rural development. Bogner suggested that reallocating some of these payments is one way to free up cash. For example, the EU will reduce funding that supports environmentally harmful practices such as intensive livestock production in factory farms, and encourage actions that reduce emissions (e.g. planting perennials such as trees that store carbon). funds could be increased.
Still, dairy and meat companies probably won’t ignore these livestock subsidies without a fight. And there is no guarantee that the funds set aside for “climate-smart” agriculture will actually go toward practices that help the planet. In the United States, for example, much of the Inflation Control Act funding could go to factory farm equipment such as methane digesters, which capture methane emitted from fertilizers but still tend to pollute the air and water. .
“It’s very easy to say we have to have a just transition,” Benton said. “But I can’t think of an example where we’ve actually managed that.”
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