As the EU enters a new five-year cycle, its ambitious Green Deal targets and European Climate Law face growing uncertainty due to concerns over industrial competitiveness and economic growth. Additionally, backlash against the EU’s climate policies, fuelled by farmers’ protests, could hinder the promise of a just green transition. Yet, as the planet warms rapidly, climate change will continue to affect EU economic sectors, including agriculture and food. Greater climate variability and extremes will impact global food systems, posing supply chain challenges and heightening food insecurity. These trends highlight the need to invest in sustainable agri-food systems as part of climate mitigation and adaptation.
For more than half a century, the European Union's agricultural policy has focussed primarily on increasing agricultural productivity and the cost-effective production of food. This policy paper provides recommendations for action that are largely possible without amending the EU treaties.
The debate in France today on choosing the electricity mix is set against the backdrop of an ageing production infrastructure that is earmarked for replacement. So, what electricity mix is the answer? And does the country need to build new nuclear reactors in order to have decarbonised electricity?
Nuclear energy has been brought back into the European energy debate due to populist power. Currently, a complex debate is taking place within the EU about whether nuclear power should be part of the Taxonomy for Sustainable Activities. To determine whether nuclear energy can, or even should, play a role in future energy policy, it must fulfil basic criteria of sustainability.
