The consequences of climate change for EU Agriculture: Follow up to the COP21 UN Climate Change conference

With its potential to reduce GHG emissions and increase CO2 removals, agriculture has a key role to play in the EU’s climate mitigation efforts, yet Member State action is lacking. As pressure on the sector to act increases, the development of a 2050 low-carbon and resilience roadmap for European agriculture would be one step towards putting the sector on a more ambitious trajectory towards the transformation required to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.

Agriculture and its role in meeting the EU’s climate commitments

Sector far from reaching its climate mitigation potential, with Member States placing more emphasis on climate adaptation

What contributions can agricultural emissions make to the proposed Effort Sharing Regulation?

New IEEP report finds the agriculture sector can significantly contribute to the EU’s climate commitments by reducing its non-CO2 emissions. It also finds these contributions can be delivered cost efficiently with environmental co-benefits without impacting production.

Towards sustainability: Future policies for European livestock

The CAP is failing to reward adequately those livestock farmers who produce public goods. Brexit and CAP reform are opportunities to do better.

Fitness Check of the Birds and Habitats Directives

The Nature Directives (i.e. Birds Directive and Habitats Directive) are the key instruments of EU environmental policy; the Fitness Check support study, carried out by Milieu, IEEP and ICF for the European Commission DG-ENV, examined their effectiveness, efficiency, relevance, EU-added value and their coherence with the wider acquis.

Are Ecological Focus Areas delivering for biodiversity?

Ecological Focus Areas are intended to safeguard and improve biodiversity on arable farms in the EU. What evidence is there that they are actually delivering biodiversity on farmland?

Ecological Focus Areas – what are their impacts on biodiversity?

Ecological Focus Areas are intended to safeguard and improve biodiversity on arable farms in the EU. This IEEP study for EEB and BirdLife examined the evidence for potential biodiversity impacts on farmland, taking into account how the areas are being managed.

The PEGASUS project publishes its first Newsletter

Welcome to the first newsletter of the PEGASUS project! It provides information on the project’s progress to date and details on the 34 case studies currently underway in 10 EU countries examining how to ensure the improved delivery of public goods and ecosystem services in different farming and forestry situations.

Improving environmental financing via result-based agri-environment measures

A new article by IEEP explores the use of result-based agri-environment measures in the region of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The study shows that result-based schemes can increase the environmental effectiveness and conditionality of the EU Common Agricultural Policy.

Learning the lessons from CAP greening

What is the most cost-effective way to encourage basic environmental management across the farmed countryside in the EU-28? Learning from experience to date in greening Pillar 1 of the CAP, this report considers a range of options to increase the environmental added value from greening.

Potential policy and environmental consequences of Brexit

If the UK decides to leave the EU following the referendum in June, there would be significant consequences, not only for policy, law, and trade relations, but for the environment.

A circular bio-economy in the European agriculture and forestry sectors

IEEP experts call for bridging the circular and bio-economy concepts, to support the transition of Europe’s land using sectors to a more resource efficient and sustainable future.

CAP greening: what are its environmental prospects?

A significant injection of money was agreed for ‘green’ farming practices under the recent CAP reform. This report examines the environmental impact these measures are likely to have on the ground and concludes that Member States’ implementation choices appear to have much diminished the chances of the greening measures delivering significant additional environmental benefits.

New PEGASUS website

Project website for EU research project PEGASUS goes live!

Tracking biodiversity expenditure in the EU budget

Results-based agri-environment schemes: new report and guidance handbook available

Are you interested in developing and implementing a results-based payment scheme for farmland biodiversity? Together with experts from across Europe, IEEP has produced a range of useful resources to guide the future development of results-based agri-environment schemes in the EU and beyond.

The Manual: Front pages

This is a chapter of IEEP’s Manual of European Environmental Policy. This chapter provides information on the authors, editors and editorial board involved in the Manual, as well as guidance on how to use it, and a brief outline of its content.

The Manual: Chapter 12 - Funding instruments

This is a chapter of IEEP’s Manual of European Environmental Policy. This chapter sets out the EU's main funding instruments that have environmental implications, including the European Agriculture funds, the European Fisheries Fund and the Structural and Cohesion funds.

The Manual: Chapter 13 - Sectoral policies

This is a chapter of IEEP’s Manual of European Environmental Policy. This chapter sets out the development of some of the most important links between EU environmental policy and other policy areas, such as agriculture, forestry, fisheries, transport, trade, and so on.