Talking to humans about nature protection

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“It’s cruel …. I think we haven’t managed to explain to people what it means to lose biodiversity.”

This was the thoughtful contribution of the Spanish Minister for the Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, at Monday’s meeting of environmental ministers.

She’s right.

There are grounds for optimism about environmental protection. Society has successfully addressed challenges such as air quality, acid rain, and the ozone layer, and recent progress suggests that we can reign in climate change.

The same cannot yet be said for the biodiversity crisis. Even with existing laws, the Commission has focused its enforcement efforts overwhelmingly on nature-related rules. 

The field’s very complexity makes it challenging to communicate. Biodiversity loss may be an existential crisis, but the details are hazy. Which species matter most, and where? What would a biodiversity collapse look and feel like? 

And it is abstract. We find it easy to care about an individual panda bear but much harder to feel the same way about an entire species and harder still to care about how multiple different species interact.

For a contrast look at climate change communication, which is now its own distinct discipline. Practitioners have worked with scientists and struggled with complexity to give us compelling graphs and explicit thresholds but we are not yet there with biodiversity.

To be sure, ecologists and decision-makers are grappling with the communication challenge.

From day one, the Commission explicitly pushed its Nature Restoration proposal honing in on human benefits—healthy food, clean air and water, climate protection, and mental health.

However, judging from the sapping support for its law, these arguments have not landed.

Irrespective of whether the Commission’s proposal survives or falls, we need to learn how to talk to humans about nature protection – and fast.

[Donagh Cagney]

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• Europe finalises rules for more recycling, less waste exports – By Nathan Canas
• Germany shutters seven coal power plants as energy crises eases – By Nikolaus J. Kurmayer
• Environment ministers rally to save nature restoration law – but Hungary remains defiant – By Donagh Cagney
• Major nuclear projects will have to wait longer for delayed EIB financing – By Paul Messad
• Nature restoration law fails to secure support at critical member states meeting – By Donagh Cagney
• Commission presents parliament with Energy Charter Treaty exit plan – By Olivia Gyapong
• Greenpeace disrupts international nuclear summit in Brussels – By Paul Messad
• Power industry calls for long-term plans and tariff flexibility to finance grid expansion – By Nikolaus J. Kurmayer
• Member state approval of EU Nature Restoration Law hangs in the balance – By Nikolaus J. Kurmayer
• Bulgaria’s lead battery potential highlighted at Brussels conference – By Georgi Gotev

BERLIN. Germany kicks off construction of electric car batteries’ gigafactory after swift approval. Germany secured the construction of a gigafactory for electric car batteries in record time with the help of the EU’s new subsidy “matching” scheme. Read more.

STOCKHOLM. Sweden not on track to meet climate targets, warns expert agency. Sweden’s climate policies are leading to a short-term increase in emissions and putting the country on a path to miss its 2030 reduction target, according to a report published on Thursday by a government policy review board. Read more. 

SOFIA. Bulgaria investing over €295 million in key pipeline for Balkans. Bulgaria has decided to invest more than €295 million in the so-called ‘Vertical Corridor,’ a key initiative between seven Balkan countries’ gas transmission operators to reduce reliance on Russian gas. Read more.

Tuesday, 26 March, Farmers are taking to the streets of Brussels for the third time this year. Euractiv collected some reactions from different Environmental NGO about this demonstration.   

“Farmers are coming back as they realise that removing the already weak CAP-related basic environmental rules will not solve their problems” said Martin Dermine, Executive Director of Pesticide Action Network (PAN) Europe. 

“The measures that policymakers have proposed since the protests began fail to address the root causes of their grievances and instead attack green policies” added Faustine Bas-Defossez, director for Nature, Health and Environment in the European Environmental Bureau (EEB).

“European farmers are threatened by climate change and biodiversity collapse, not necessarily by policies aimed at tackling the climate and biodiversity crises themselves” explained Wijnand Stoefs, Policy lead Carbon Removals at Carbon Market Watch.

He concludes by saying that “the farming sector has a role to play to develop and implement solutions, it needs to be supported to develop climate-friendly practices so it can have a long-term and positive role to play“.  [Nathan Canas]

• Building back better: Ukrainian reconstruction has already begun – let’s make it sustainable – By Anna Ackermann and Mariangiola Fabbri

• 10 April. Stocktaking on the clean transition dialogues.

• 10-11 APRIL. Parliament Mini-Plenary (Brussels)

• 15-16 APRIL. Informal Energy Council

• 22-25 APRIL. Last Parliament plenary session before the European elections
  • Circularity requirements for vehicle design and on management of end-of-life vehicles
• 30 MAY. Energy Council 
• SPRING 2024. First European Climate Risk Assessment
• 6-9 JUNE: European elections
• 17 JUNE. Environment Council (Luxembourg)
• 27-28 JUNE. European Council

[Edited by Alice Taylor]

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