Story | 17 Sep, 2020

Thank you for “moving up” the climate ambition, but what about biodiversity, President von der Leyen?

Reflections on the State of the Union 2020 address

Photo: Markus Spiske / Unsplash

During her State of the Union speech yesterday, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, addressed many topics crucial to the European Union's future, including the post-COVID 19 recovery, the digital transformation and the EU Green Deal. IUCN welcomes the new proposed 2030 climate target, increased to 55% of emissions reduction. Although even more ambition is needed - also reflected in the recent European Parliament Environment committee vote for the target to be increased to 60% - it is a step in the right direction. We also welcome the proposal for 30% of NextGenerationEU's 750 billion euro to be raised through green bonds.

Although these initiatives are a major step forward, the President’s speech has a serious shortcoming: the issue of biodiversity has been only marginally addressed. “We tend to focus on climate issues which are very important, but we need to always see the bigger picture for the green recovery and ensure a fundamental shift to sustainable land use, for which the CAP is the most powerful instrument in the EU”, said Luc Bas, Director of the IUCN European Regional Office.

The EC plans to step up Europe’s 2030 climate ambition presented today is fortunately more explicit on biodiversity, including a (single) mention of nature-based solutions. Still, IUCN hopes that the EU will be ambitious in implementing its Biodiversity Strategy to show real leadership on nature in the run up to the future Global Biodiversity Framework. An EU CAP that is adapted to this challenge and scaling up genuine Nature-based Solutions are key to doing so.