Is the EU Green Deal ignoring the potential of local action?

Ahead of the EU elections this week, grassroots local campaigners are putting pressure on lawmakers to change the top-down way they’re organising climate policy.

As Ursula von der Leyen campaigns across Europe in her bid to be appointed by national leaders for a second term as European Commission president, she has been highlighting the achievements of her signature European Green Deal, the world’s largest package of legislation to fight climate change.

But at the same time, many in her own centre-right European Peoples Party are campaigning against many of the Green Deal’s achievements, joining with a push by Europe’s far-right to dismantle policies they say are burdensome.

Last week, a network of community-led initiatives on climate change and sustainability across Europe launched a campaign to get citizens to vote for candidates who have committed to preserving the Green Deal.

But they want more than just support for the Green Deal – they want lawmakers to change the way they view the whole framework.

ECOLISE network manifesto

The ECOLISE network has launched a manifesto calling on policymakers to translate the European Green Deal into local action. The manifesto, the result of a year-long consultation process with over 900 people from more than 140 institutions, has so far collected the signatures of over 100 localities, people and organisations across Europe.

One of those signatories is the Global Ecovillage Network Europe. “Community-led initiatives, from ecovillages to transition towns to community gardens, are doing vital work on transforming communities, economies, and their local environments,” says Maja Flajsig, a campaigner with the group.

“At a European level, the impact is vast and can really support European green goals – but these initiatives need support and an enabling environment,” she added.

Though surveys show Europeans want to get personally involved in the effort to fight climate change, the legislative framework may not allow them to do that.

Community-supported agriculture

According to Eurostat, 93% of EU citizens believe that climate change is a serious problem, but only 0.4% of them are currently engaged in community efforts to tackle it.

However, efforts are being made by at least two million EU citizens at the moment according to ECOLISE, including urban gardens, community-supported agriculture and exchange systems like car-sharing and time banks.

Such community projects are working, they say, but urgently need strong policy support from the EU which isn’t just focused on national legislation.

“We see countless inspiring initiatives aimed at creating a more sustainable society despite all the obstacles they face,” said Morgane le Campion from Collectif pour une Transition Citoyenne in France, one of the manifesto’s signatories.

“With the right support, community-led initiatives can finally move us from imagining a healthier, fairer and more sustainable world to making it a reality,” remarked le Campion.

Community energy projects are another example of this local cooperation.

Groups of empowered consumers across Europe are trying to change the centralised way that energy grids have been organised for the past century, by setting up energy cooperatives that distribute energy in an as-needed, decentralised way.

Sell their own energy

These projects should have some policy support from the EU’s Clean Energy for All Europeans package put forward in 2020. It will, for the first time, set up a framework enabling all consumers in Europe to band together to produce and sell their own energy, something that has long been stymied by utilities, grid operators and governments.

An example of these types of projects is right in the EU capital, in the Brussels neighbourhood of Ganshoren. Residents there have paid to put solar panels on the local school’s roof. The school buys the energy that is produced at a cheaper rate than that bought from the grid. When the school isn’t using the power, such as at weekends or over the summer, the energy is sold to nearby houses.

The manifesto calls on the new Commission and Parliament to put forward more legislation like this in the next term, laws that will give citizens the means to produce, distribute and consume their own sustainable energy and to invest together in renewable energy sources, energy efficiency, shared e-mobility and flexibility.

[By Dave Keating I Edited by Brian Maguire | Euractiv’s Advocacy Lab ]

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