20 Amendments of Clara AGUILERA related to 2021/2006(INI)
Amendment 11 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Regrets the lack of a comprehensive EU monitoring framework for methane emissions, especially in the agriculture sector, where the sources of methane emissions are often diffuse and make measurement, reporting and verification challenging; welcomes the European Commission's initiative to develop, in cooperation with international partners, an international emissions observatory; calls on the Commission, therefore, to improve the measurement, reporting and verification of methane emissions in the agricultural sector;
Amendment 14 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Regrets the lack of a comprehensive EU monitoring framework for methane emissions; calls on the Commission, therefore, to improve the measurement, reporting and verification of methane emissions in the agricultural sector, in which further disaggregation of emission factors and their determination on a scientific basis is required for all EU production systems before progress beyond level 2 approaches can be made;
Amendment 21 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 a (new)
Paragraph 1 a (new)
1 a. Recalls that agriculture plays an important role in addressing climate change adaptation and mitigation; highlights that European agriculture is the only major system in the world that significantly reduced greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) since 1990 and that the emissions from EU agriculture are among the lowest worldwide; underlines that reducing European production to fight climate change runs the risk of exporting GHG emissions (“carbon leakage”) and accepting lower animal health and welfare standards, leading to a shift in production towards other parts of the world and to an abandonment of certain land upon which grazing is the only means of valorisation and which constitutes a rich source of biodiversity with environmental, social and economic repercussions on EU rural regions and landscapes;
Amendment 34 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 c (new)
Paragraph 1 c (new)
1 c. Calls on the European Commission to clarify the share contribution of EU agriculture to the EU's anthropogenic methane emissions, to differentiate this share to the world’s agriculture one and to estimate the contribution of the imported agri-food products to the EU anthropogenic methane emissions, through the EDGAR- FOOD database;
Amendment 39 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 d (new)
Paragraph 1 d (new)
1 d. Emphasises that a significant share of global methane emissions in the agri-food sector originates outside of the EU; emphasizes the need for the EU to take the lead in exchanges of best practices with its third countries' trading partners with the aim to reduce methane emissions from agriculture, including, for example, through forestry-based initiatives;
Amendment 58 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2 a (new)
Paragraph 2 a (new)
Amendment 63 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. HStresses the importance of recognizing the progress made by the agri-food sector to offset emissions and restore soil fertility; highlights that further research and investment in mitigation measures and technologies is of paramount importance; considers that there is great potential in adapting diet of and developing feed additives for ruminant and bovine species, which could reduce methane emissions without having negative effects on the livestock sectoralls, in this regard, on the European Commission to develop and constantly update, in line with the latest state-of-the-art technologies, an inventory of best practices for the farming sector and in cooperation with farmers, stakeholders, Member States and local, regional and national authorities; supports the stimulating uptake of regenerative agriculture practices, improving also the access to technologies, data, training and information, and diversifying farmers’ income through payments for ecosystem services, thereby increasing their resilience; considers that there is great potential in adapting diet of and developing feed additives for ruminant and bovine species, which could reduce methane emissions without having negative effects on the livestock sector, while decreasing the dependence of imported plant proteins; underlines, in this regard, that the livestock sector not only has a great potential to help the EU successfully achieve its methane emissions' reduction targets, but also has a key role in preserving unique biodiversity functions;
Amendment 73 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Highlights that research and investment in mitigation measures and technologies is of paramount importance and can obtain bigger decreases; considers that there is great potential in adapting diet of and developing feed additives for ruminant and bovine species, which could reduce methane emissions without having negative effects on the livestock sector, which is crucial if we are to maintain population levels in rural areas and ensure that those areas offer a vibrant and thriving living environment;
Amendment 83 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 a (new)
Paragraph 3 a (new)
3a. Looks forward to the work of the International Methane Emissions Observatory in the hope that, with a view to achieving a more dynamic system that more accurately assesses the weight of methane emitted by ruminant livestock, which is clearly less than the other gases that cause global warming, it will revise methane's global warming potential (GWP), a measurement system which statically assesses methane emitted over 100 years and whose results overestimate the impact of short-lived gases like methane;
Amendment 84 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 a (new)
Paragraph 3 a (new)
Amendment 90 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 b (new)
Paragraph 3 b (new)
3 b. Highlights that economic viability is critical in maintaining sustainable livestock farms and ensuring the development and implementation of future mitigation practices, as well as a secure and stable supply of food; stresses the need that future policy decisions have to ensure that the livestock activity can deliver and at the same time continue to be able to project itself; underlines that the sector must continue to constitute a real source of employment and the profession must remain attractive for the young generations;
Amendment 93 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 b (new)
Paragraph 3 b (new)
3b. Stresses that, rather than looking at individual links in isolation, the efficiency and emissions reductions of the livestock production value chain must be considered as a whole;
Amendment 95 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 c (new)
Paragraph 3 c (new)
3 c. Emphasizes the importance of new animal feed strategies able, inter alia, through the supplementary feeding of red algae (Asparagopsis), to reduce methane emissions in the livestock sector; underlines the need for new scientific research and innovation in anaerobic digestion and composting as an effective solution to recycle organic waste materials (production of biomass and organic fertilizers) and prevent methane emissions;
Amendment 105 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Considers that value-added utilisation of agricultural residues and other by-products is an important driver of the circular economy and bio-economy, only if it's done in a sustainable way; recalls, in this regard, that in order to meet new environmental targets, a balance of plant and animal production should be maintained, which will ensure sufficient amount of nutrients and organic matter in the soils in the EU, positively influencing the biodiversity and contributing to more healthy and balanced dietary habits of the Europeans; encourages farming models able to be sustainable socially, environmentally and economically; calls for the acceleration of European biogas production from agriculture waste in a sustainable way, as an important tool for reducing methane emissions;
Amendment 120 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 a (new)
Paragraph 4 a (new)
4 a. Highlights the active engagement of the agricultural sector in climate action and recognizes the full potential of woodlands and grasslands; calls for the development of nutrient management systems and innovative dietary solutions to reduce methane emissions in the livestock sector and for methods to calculate the true impact of methane on the environment to be developed in light of more recent research on the lifecycle of methane;
Amendment 124 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 a (new)
Paragraph 4 a (new)
4a. Calls on the Member States to promote the establishment of community manure and slurry management centres, for both composting and biogas, and to support the transfer of the energy generated to the electricity grid;
Amendment 140 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. CWelcomes the announcement of the European Commission to set up an expert group with the aim of analysing the life-cycle methane emissions matrix; considers that farm level certification schemes for climate effective farming, including common measurement and verification data for methane reductions, will be an important tool for monitoring and incentivising methane reductions at farm level; highlights the need to assess not just the impact on methane emissions of specific livestock management and animal welfare choices, imported or domestic feeds and intensive or pastoral farming choices, but also of the impact of supplementing the animal diet with feed additives on animal health, pest resilience, food safety(toxicity), productivity, product quality, environmental impact;
Amendment 152 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5 a (new)
Paragraph 5 a (new)
5 a. Acknowledges that animal production is the only possible activity on permanent grassland, allowing the survival, economic stability and existence of rural farms in hill and mountain regions, thus preventing the overgrowth of such areas and the excessive reproduction of large carnivores (bears, wolves), the promotion of animal production therefore being essential in such areas; underlines that carbon storage by grasslands compensates up to 45% of GHG emissions (almost all of the enteric fermentation produced by ruminants); stresses the need to integrate the carbon stored by grasslands and their capacity not to release carbon in order to better assess the mitigation potential of agriculture;
Amendment 167 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 a (new)
Paragraph 6 a (new)
6 a. Calls on the Commission to include in its forthcoming Long Term Vision for Rural Areas cross-sector cooperative approaches with and amongst farmers and local communities in order to develop and promote circularity also in the field of sustainable biogas production, aiming at reducing methane emissions;
Amendment 173 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 a (new)
Paragraph 6 a (new)
6a. Takes the view that technical mitigation measures will complement other significant advances in the livestock sector in rural areas, in keeping with the EU's farm to fork strategy;