Achieving major goals in Europe
Environmental activists have been scoring some remarkable successes across the Continent of late, writes Dr Richard Dixon
From coal phase outs to court victories, environmental action is alive and well across Europe – despite the pandemic.
I recently had the privilege of attending – virtually, of course – the AGM of Friends of the Earth Europe. There are 32 FOE groups in the network with a co-ordinating office in Brussels.
All have felt the impact of the pandemic, with one of the smaller organisations having everyone off with Covid at one point. Nonetheless, we heard about remarkable successes led by our sister organisations.
FOE Czech Republic has been key to an agreement to phase out the use of coal there by the early 2030s. This included lots of detailed technical work, but also activists greeting the Czech prime minister at his house on the morning of the big decision.
This is a really remarkable change in a country with huge reserves of coal, where a whole town was famously moved in the 1960s to get at the coal beneath. Until recently, the Czech plans to still be burning coal in the 2050s seemed immovable.
There was also the very recent victory in a Netherlands court, led by our Dutch FOE group, which compells Shell to re-write their business plans and reduce climate emissions rapidly. This is the first time a company has been forced to take responsibility in helping to meet a country’s climate targets, and I wrote about the global importance of the judgement last week.
As well as the pandemic, FOE Croatia has seen two serious earthquakes hit its country in the last year, but has still helped the first homes in the nation to install solar electricity, despite a complete lack of official interest.
At the European Union level, our friends in the Brussels office, and many national FOE groups across the Continent, helped the EU decide to end financial support for new oil and gas pipelines and terminals.
Similar efforts have led to the development of proposals for new Eu-wide rules to stop European companies trashing the environment in their overseas operations, mirroring existing laws in Denmark, France and the Netherlands.
Also led from the FOE Brussels office has been the fight to resist the biotech industry’s attempts to get genetically modified foods back on the EU agenda, with dodgy rebranding – such as “synthetic biology” or “precision breeding”. This work, including collaboration with an alliance of scientists, has led to a much more
It is always inspiring to hear about the great work of FOE across Europe
cautious approach than initially from the European Commission.
A core area of work for many groups, not least the office in Brussels, has been to try to make national and EU plans for Covid recovery as green as possible, including the practical results of persuading the Spanish Government to allow small food producers to start selling their goods again.
It is always inspiring to hear about the great work of FOE activists across Europe, and next month I will have the pleasure of hearing similarly inspiring stories from around the world when Foe’s 73 national groups get together virtually for our twoyearly global meeting.
Dr Richard Dixon is director of Friends of the Earth Scotland