Global environmental challenges and the EU
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Global environmental challenges and the EU Ludwig Krämer1
© Europäische Rechtsakademie (ERA) 2019
Abstract The contribution discusses four of the five main global challenges to the environment, namely climate change, the loss of biodiversity, the omnipresence of chemicals, and the management of resources. For reasons of space, it will not discuss the fifth and most important environmental challenge, which is the eradication of poverty. For each of the remaining challenges, the contribution describes the EU approach, points out the successes and deficiencies of that approach and the institutional difficulty of the EU taking new initiatives at international level in order to better protect the environment. Keywords Climate change · Biodiversity · Resource management · Chemicals · EU legislation
1 Introduction At the beginning of the twenty-first century, there are numerous environmental challenges of a global nature and opinions certainly differ as to which are the most relevant ones. For example, the World Economic Forum identified the water crisis, the failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation and the greater incidence of extreme weather events as the three most relevant environmental challenges; however, this list referred to the year 2014 only.1 This author considers that global warming, the loss of biodiversity, the omnipresence of chemicals, resource management and 1 World Economic Forum: Global risks 2014: understanding systemic risks in a changing global environ-
ment. Geneva 2014.
B Prof. Dr. L. Krämer
[email protected]
1
Madrid, Spain
Prof. Dr. L. Krämer
the fight against poverty are the most important challenges of the present. This selection is arbitrary: nuclear accidents or military activities with biological or other new weapons might confront the planet with challenges that are at present not taken seriously into consideration; water scarcity and its consequences for agriculture might create huge problems for specific areas; genetic manipulation or microbiological developments might generate new threats. Yet, as a choice delimiting the topics addressed must be made, this contribution will concentrate on four of the five challenges just mentioned. This contribution will not deal with the fight against poverty, although globally this appears to be the biggest threat to the environment. However, a discussion of EU measures taken in order to eradicate poverty at global level could not remain limited to EU measures. Rather the policies, strategies and measures of EU Member States would also have to be included, as foreign policy—of which development aid and the fight against poverty are parts of—has very largely remained in the hands of the Member States, even though the Treaty on European Union (TEU) provides for a ‘common foreign and security policy’ of the EU. Furthermore, EU and national policies which aim at the eradication of poverty go far beyond environmental aspects; they also include trade, security, industrial, agricultural, fisheries and other policies; and a presenta
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