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Europe’s Green Deal offshores environmental damage to other nations

Importing millions of tonnes of crops and meat each year undercuts farming standards in the European Union and destroys tropical forests.
  1. Richard Fuchs

    1. Richard Fuchs is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research, Atmospheric Environmental Research (IMK-IFU), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.

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  2. Calum Brown

    1. Calum Brown is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research, Atmospheric Environmental Research (IMK-IFU), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.

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  3. Mark Rounsevell

    1. Mark Rounsevell is a professor of land-use change in the Helmholtz Recruiting Initiative at the IMK-IFU and the Department of Geo-Ecology (IFGG), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany; and a professor of rural economy and sustainability at the School of Geosciences, University of Edinburgh, UK.

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Workers load palm fruits onto a truck at a plantation North Sumatra, Indonesia

Workers pile palm fruits onto a truck at an Indonesian oil-palm plantation in North Sumatra. Credit: Jefta Images/Barcroft Media/Getty

The European Union’s Green Deal risks becoming a bad deal for the planet. This ambitious package of policies, announced in December 2019, aims to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent by 20501. It sets targets to reduce carbon emissions and enhance forests, farming, green transport, recycling and renewable energy. The EU wants to show “the rest of the world how to be sustainable and competitive”, as Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said (see go.nature.com/2fnp1dz).

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Nature 586, 671-673 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-02991-1

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 12 November 2020: An earlier version of this article erroneously stated that three-fifths of meat and dairy products consumed within EU borders were imported.

  • Correction 21 December 2020: Since this article was corrected on 12 November, it has been brought to our attention that the figures for meat and dairy importation were still incorrect. The proportion imported is actually 0.01%, and the actual amount is 4 megatonnes. The text, graphic entitled ‘EU import drivers’ and the supplementary information have all been corrected accordingly.

  • Correction 03 March 2021: This article incorrectly stated that the proportion of meat and dairy imported is 0.01%. The proportion is actually 1%.

References

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Supplementary Information

  1. Supplementary methods, figures, tables and references corrected
  2. Supplementary Table S5

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