19 Amendments of Maria NOICHL related to 2016/0230(COD)
Amendment 28 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 4
Recital 4
(4) The Paris Agreement, inter alia, sets out a long-term goal in line with the objective to keep the global temperature increase well below 2°C above pre- industrial levels and to pursue efforts to keep it to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. In order to achieve this goal, the Parties should prepare, communicate and maintain successive nationally determined contributions. The Paris Agreement replaces the approach taken under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol which will not be continued beyond 2020. The Paris Agreement also calls for a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of this century, and invites Parties to take action to conserve and enhance, as appropriate, sinks and reservoirs of greenhouse gases, including forests. Parties acknowledge that adaptation action should follow a fully transparent approach, taking into account ecosystems and should be based on and guided by the best available science.
Amendment 36 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 5
Recital 5
(5) The European Council of 23-24 October 2014 also acknowledged the multiple objectives of the agriculture and land use sector, with their lower mitigation potential as well as the need to ensure coherence between the Union food security and climate change objectives. The European Council invited the Commission to examine the best means of encouraging the sustainable intensification of food production, while optimising the sector's contribution to greenhouse gas mitigation and sequestration, including through afforestation, and to establish policy on how to include land use, land use change and forestry ('LULUCF') into the 2030 greenhouse gas mitigation framework as soon as technical conditions allow and in any case before 2020. It is the role of other policies, e.g. the CAP, to incentivize practices going beyond the legal baseline and beyond good standard practice and which represent genuine adaptation, mitigation of climate change and maintenance of the carbon sink, as provision of public goods. -Actions should be taken to implement and support, including through result- based payment, activities relating to mitigation and adaptation approaches for the integral and sustainable management of forests, including non-intervention action considering as well non-carbon benefits associated with such approaches, e.g. flood management, resilience and biodiversity. -Actions should be taken to implement and support agricultural activities, including through result-based payment, relating to mitigation and adaptation approaches for the integral and sustainable management of cropland, grassland and wetlands, considering as well non-carbon benefits associated with such approaches, e.g. drought and flood management, resilience and biodiversity.
Amendment 45 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 6 a (new)
Recital 6 a (new)
(6a) The research into the role of dead wood, in particular above ground coarse woody debris and dead buried wood both in unmanaged and managed forests, shall be strengthened to improve accuracy in forest carbon accounting and in the calculation of the net ecosystem carbon balance. There is limited evidence, but it indicates that dead wood can contribute a large carbon pool and leaving deadwood on site could, including having a significant biodiversity role, be recognized as greenhouse gas mitigation strategy. This is relevant considering forest management can favour removal of deadwood e.g. for energy purposes and any decision over the correct mitigation and adaptation shall be an informed and scientifically underpinned decision. Dedicated resources should be allocated to the research in period 2017-2020.
Amendment 49 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 6 b (new)
Recital 6 b (new)
(6b) Agro-ecology facilitates a shift from linear food systems to circular ones that mimic natural cycles and reduce carbon and ecological footprints of food and agriculture, promotion of such practices, to achieve the transformative potential of agro-ecology to address the urgency of adapting, mitigating and reversing climate change, needs to be embedded in EU policies.
Amendment 50 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 6 c (new)
Recital 6 c (new)
(6c) Given that the EU28 potential availability of removal units from agricultural land (i.e. cropland and grassland) is, as computed, 437 MtCO2 for the period 2021-2030, agriculture needs to do its utmost to reach this potential, in order to deliver its fair share of contribution towards climate change mitigation and its limited reduction potential of non-C02 emissions. This can be achieved by improved cropping in order to increase soil organic carbon content, by the introduction of agro- forestry, or restoring the habitats, often priority habitats, from Annex I of the Directive 92/43/EEC, related to agro- forestry.
Amendment 51 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 6 d (new)
Recital 6 d (new)
(6d) Role of this Regulation to account for emissions and removals in the LULUCF sector should not be undermined by suggestions of undue pressure on land managers or operators on whom it does not legislate, i.e. apply.
Amendment 53 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 7 a (new)
Recital 7 a (new)
(7a) Wetlands, in particular peatland, are the most effective ecosystems on Earth at storing CO2. The degradation of wetlands in the EU is therefore not only a problem for biodiversity, it is also a major climate problem. Conversely protecting and restoring wetlands especially peatlands could both boost conservation efforts and generate huge carbon credits for Member State in the LULUCF sector. The category of 'managed wetlands' should therefore become part of mandatory accounting, in order for the EU to account for the true carbon balance in the LULUCF sector.
Amendment 67 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 9 b (new)
Recital 9 b (new)
(9b) Setting the accounting rules shall not lead to the creation of a reservoir of extra emissions allowances, or specifically use a reference period/reference level in the past where the use of wood had been incentivized by a change in policy. For this purpose, the reference level/period to which the emissions and removals from managed forest land are compared to shall not be a future period or practice defined in programming documents and strategies applicable for future, and in addition shall end up at the latest by cut- off date 2009.
Amendment 74 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 12
Recital 12
(12) The increased sustainable use of harvested wood products can substantially limit emissions intoby the substitution effect (considering the energy and CO2 intensity of other sectors, e.g. cement production accounts for roughly 8% of global CO2 emissions), and enhance removals of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. The accounting rules should ensure that Member States accurately reflect in accounts the changes in the harvested wood products pool when they take place, to provideand to recognize, welcome and incentives forize enhanced use of harvested wood products with long life cycles over use for energy purposes. The Commission should provide guidance on methodological issues related to the accounting for harvested wood products.
Amendment 78 #
Proposal for a regulation
Recital 13
Recital 13
(13) Natural disturbances, such as wildfires, insect and disease infestations, extreme weather events and geological disturbances that are beyond the control of, and not materially influenced by, a Member State, may result in greenhouse gas emissions of a temporary nature in the LULUCF sector, or may cause the reversal of previous removals. As reversal can also be the result of management decisions, such as decisions to harvest or plant trees, this Regulation should ensure that human- induced reversals of removals are always accurately reflected in LULUCF accounts. Moreover, this Regulation should provide Member States with a limited possibility to exclude emissions resulting from disturbances that are beyond their control from their LULUCF accounts. However, the manner in which Member States apply those provisions should not lead to undue under-accounting. Where there is a correlation between management practice and the occurrence of natural disaster it shall be considered as human-induced. It shall be, individually or where possible in general, subject to the formal recognition by the scientific authorities.
Amendment 110 #
Proposal for a regulation
Article 2 – paragraph 1 – point e a (new)
Article 2 – paragraph 1 – point e a (new)
(ea) managed wetland, including peatland: use reported as wetland remaining wetland, and settlement, other land converted to wetland and wetland converted to settlement and other land.
Amendment 117 #
Proposal for a regulation
Article 2 – paragraph 2
Article 2 – paragraph 2
Amendment 144 #
Proposal for a regulation
Article 5 – paragraph 4
Article 5 – paragraph 4
4. Member States shall include in their accounts for each land accounting category any change in the carbon stock of the carbon pools listed in Annex I, section B. Member States may choose not to include in their accounts changes in carbon stocks for carbon pools where the carbon pool is not a source, except for above-ground biomass, deadwood (above-ground and buried deadwood) on managed forest land and harvested wood products on managed forest land.
Amendment 149 #
Proposal for a regulation
Article 5 – paragraph 6
Article 5 – paragraph 6
6. The Commission shall be empowered to adopt delegated acts in accordance with Article 14 to amend Annex I in order to reflect changes in the IPCC Guidelines and the 2013 IPCC Wetlands Supplementary Guidelines for national Greenhouse Gas Inventories.
Amendment 168 #
Proposal for a regulation
Article 7 – paragraph 1 a (new)
Article 7 – paragraph 1 a (new)
Amendment 176 #
Proposal for a regulation
Article 7 – paragraph 3
Article 7 – paragraph 3
Amendment 182 #
Proposal for a regulation
Article 7 – paragraph 4
Article 7 – paragraph 4
4. Member States that have chosen to include managed wetland in the scope of their commitments in accordance with Article 2 shall account for emissions and removals resulting from managed wetland, calculated as emissions and removals in the periods from 2021 to 2025 and/or from 2026 to 2030 minus the value obtained by multiplying by five the Member State’s average annual emissions and removals resulting from managed wetland in its base period 2005-2007.
Amendment 251 #
Proposal for a regulation
Article 10 – paragraph 1
Article 10 – paragraph 1
1. At the end of the periods from 2021 to 2025 and from 2026 to 2030, Member States may exclude from their accounts for afforested land and managed forest land greenhouse gas emissions resulting from natural disturbances exceeding the average emissions caused by natural disturbances in the period 2001-2020, excluding statistical outliers ('background level') calculated in accordance with this Article and Annex VI. Emissions resulting from harvesting or salvage logging activities that took place on those lands following occurrence of the natural disturbances shall not be excluded. Further, in order to incentivize management practices supporting resilience of the system, where the scientific authority finds that correlation exists between the management and occurrence of the disaster and that the management undertaken in the respective area did not prevent or limit the impact of natural disturbance such shall be considered human induced. Consequently, first sub-paragraph of this article and 10.3 shall not be applied and Art 6 and 8 apply.
Amendment 272 #
Proposal for a regulation
Article 12 – paragraph 3 a (new)
Article 12 – paragraph 3 a (new)
3a. If the greenhouse gas emissions of a Member State in either the period from 2021 to 2025 or the period from 2026 to 2030 under this Regulation exceeded its greenhouse gas removals, as determined in accordance with this Article, there shall be a deduction from that Member State's annual emission allocations equal to the amount in tonnes of CO2 equivalent of those excess greenhouse gas emissions for the relevant years.