As of yesterday the European Parliament discusses the EU’s common agricultural policy (CAP), today fourteen activists from Greenpeace Belgium covered the entrance of the premises in green-coloured water, accusing the politicians inside the building of greenwashing. 

Most emissions in the EU come from the energy industry and transport sectors, but these sectors are the ones that will rapidly decarbonize and decrease their emissions. Instead, agricultural emissions, livestock fertilisers although accounting for only about 10% of today's emissions will make up for the largest part of the remaining EU Emissions in 2050.

With the the new CAP to be implemented in 2023, the European Commission has stated that climate objectives are clearly being included. One of the key focuses of the new CAP is the promotion of nature based solutions and carbon farming: “Removing carbon from the atmosphere will be very important to help you achieve climate neutrality. It is exactly for that purpose that the European Commission is promoting carbon farming as a new breed business model that can create a new source of income for the actors of the bio-economy,” said Yvon Slingenberg, director in DG Climate Action of the European Commission.

One of the most important innovations of the reform of the CAP will be the national plans, which states should send to the Commission by 2021, thought to be having  great potential in allowing national authorities to design suitable incentives for good mitigating practices and technologies. 

According to the NGO the CAP’s destructive impact on nature, the climate and public health remains unchanged.“Politicians will try to sell this farm policy as a green reform, but it’s nothing but greenwashing.” said Marco Contiero, agriculture policy director at Greenpeace EU, outside the European Parliament.

The conversations currently taking place are mainly about the subsidy instrument, which is said to be granting subsidies, mainly to farmers: “I think farmers will benefit from new income opportunities within carbon schemes, and also for the society in terms of climate mitigation and adaptation or food security,”  said Pierre Bacou, director of DG Agriculture of the European Commission.

This is however not the opinion of many of the environmental NGOs focusing on biodiversity. Together with Greenpeace, BirdLife, ClientEarth, and the European Environmental Bureau (EBB) analysed how the EU’s common agricultural policy matches up to the reforms needed to protect nature, tackle climate change, avoid pollution and produce food sustainably. The analysis found that the CAP deal the EU is finalising fails on all fronts.

As well, as reported by the Guardian, the number of small and medium farmers within the last decade has been shrinking, leaving more space to play to big corporations,  which might then directly be subsidized. “Essentially what we are asking for is a better agricultural policy, one that cares about the climate, biodiversity and EU Farmers,” declared SlowFood Europe. The EU agriculture commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski reassured his willingness  to revert this trends.

The agreement on the CAP reform will have to be formally adopted by the European Parliament and Council, before entering into force. The Parliament is expected to vote at a plenary session after the summer, but these few days remain a crunch time, leading Greenpeace to take action at the Parliament’s steps. Meanwhile in the other rooms of the same building the  Ministers of Agriculture and Fisheries  discuss the CAP reform package, studies on agri-food techniques, organic farming and the EU's priorities for the UN Food Systems Summit.