Agriculture and land use currently have some of the best potential to capture CO2 from the atmosphere as well as improve ecosystems that may bring back pollinators and other helpful and stabilizing organisms. Let alone the fact that we are poisoning our own water.
Yet we tend to be most conservative on that front.
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BRUSSELS, Nov 22 (Reuters) - The European Parliament on Wednesday rejected a plan to cut back reliance on pesticides in agriculture in another setback in Europe-wide efforts to protect the environment.
With 299 votes against the Sustainable Use of Plant Protection Products Regulation (SUR), 207 in favor, and 121 abstentions, MEPs rejected a package of draft legislation that had been negotiated intensely for months.
“Beyond adopting meaningless reduction targets, they also removed the protection for kindergartens, schools, hospitals, and old people homes… and deleted binding rules for integrated pest management, which would have been an important tool to implement sustainable practices in agriculture,” it said.
“Today, the European Parliament rejected the extremist approach of the Greens and Socialists to impose more and more bans and excessive regulations that would reduce food production in Europe,” EPP said in a statement.
The failed pesticides plan is the latest in a series of setbacks for green legislation across Europe, which is facing a growing “greenlash” pushback against policies to address climate change and protect the environment.
The latest major setback was the European Commission’s decision last week to renew approval for the controversial weedkiller glyphosate for another decade.
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