The following text is the modified version that was discussed on Jitsi last week, and takes into account the input from that meeting. There were only few people left at the discussion of the Energy part though, there were some objections but no actual suggestions for changes.
I will be present in Strasbourg.
Environment, Climate, Energy - Goals
We want to ensure that future generations will have a base for a life in freedom and dignity. A healthy environment, biodiversity, sustainable use of resources, and equal and fair access to energy, food, and water are fundamental requirements for this. To ensure a safe future we want a fast transition to a clean, circular economy that reduces its environmental impact to net zero.
Environment and climate do not stop at borders. Energy also crosses borders in EU’s internal energy market. But so far, many things are done just on a national level. We want to establish EU wide standards that take transparency and auditability into account to ensure effective implementation and prevent greenwashing.
Environment - Sustainability
The PIRATES support the aims and principles declared by the EU to safeguard our water, air, soil, natural environment for the sake of our well-being including health and happiness. Economic, social, regional aspects, animal welfare, and responsibility for future generations must be taken into account. Sustainability can not be achieved by just a single aspect.
Emissions must be minimised, existing pollution cleaned up, and natural habitats restored whereever possible. Voluntary measures by potential polluters are a prefered method but must be monitored closely, as they often fail to reach the targets.
A strict “polluters paying” policy has to be implemented to increase the pressure to implement more precaution and prevention. Environmental problems must be addressed at the source and not as an afterthought.
Environment - Biodiversity
The loss of biodiversity is an emergency that is connected to but not only caused by climate change. Biodiversity is lost at a pace unprecedented in our geological eara and still it does not get the adequate attention. This dramatic loss can cause a collapse of the world wide food production and other negative effects.
We appreciate ambitious goals set on EU and UN levels (namely EU Nature Restoration Law , UN Ocean treaty and COP15 Montreal goals and targets) regarding species’ habitat protection and restoration, relevant funding, and prescribed measures.
Environment - Transparent data
The public has the right for easy, timely, and reliable access to environmental data and the decisions resulting from it. This information should also include methods of monitoring and investigations.
Scientific advice and specifications that form the basis for administrative and legal decisions need to be sourced from independent experts. Participation in relevant meetings needs to be affordable.
Environment - Consistent and effective rules
Implementation of environmental laws has to focus on achieving positive results for the environment and not just generate additional records and registrations. Regulations must not require registrations in every single EU country, a central registration should be sufficient so as not to obstruct access to the common market for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). The environmental impact of any associated bureaucracy has to be taken into account when deciding on the suitability of an approach.
Currently, diverging national rules complicate sustainability work. EU should aim for a common system of labeling and recycling products.
Environment - Circular economy
Preserving and reusing resources by recycling is key to a sustainable economy. To ensure the long term availability of materials it is necessary to implement a circular economy based on the cradle-to-cradle principle, which considers the whole life-cycle of a product and makes the reuse and recycling part of the design.
Export of waste (sometimes disguised as used products) to third countries for substandard recyling or disposal must be effectively restricted to make sure materials are not lost or destroyed.
Climate
The Paris Agreement to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels must be implemented. Even after it had become impossible to meet the 1.5 °C target (eg. by crossing the threshold) we must strive for staying as close as possible to that limit.
Climate - No time to lose
Most necessary technologies for achieving the climate protection goals have been developed and are already in use, it is necessary to roll them out in large scale.
The PIRATES want to provide the legal tools for these technologies to be deployed as fast as possible, by incentives for using technology that is climate neutral and elimination of incentives for technologies that are negative for the climate.
All subsidies for activities impacting the climate negatively must be phased out, this includes financing or providing securities for financing climate damaging projects abroad.
Climate - Stop carbon leakage effectively
Emissions of climate gases for imported goods, (i.e. resulting from power generation at the production location) should be attributable to the importing countries. Imported goods must be taxed to account for carbon leakage, to stimulate more climate friendly production for goods imported to the EU.
Climate - Not just CO2
CO2 is the largest part of greenhouse gas emissions, but other emissions have to be controlled too. Gases with high climate impact have to be reduced, replaced, and contained. All emissions of climate active gases have to be controlled and reduced.
Climate - Reverse emissions
The greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere are already too high and must be reduced. We want to stimulate projects that capture climate gases and use them as base materials for products and chemicals. The use of such projects for greenwashing must be prevented, they must not produce certificates that allow emissions at another place.
The expansion of natural cabon sinks should also be considered.
Climate - Get prepared
Even if we were able to stop greenhouse gas emissions right now the climate change would not stop immediately. We will have to face changes in weather patterns, percipitation, and sea level increase. Critical infrastructures like food supply, transport and energy will be negatively impacted, heavy weather can cause catastrophes. To mitigate those effects, we have to prepare our infrastructure, cities, coastlines and agriculture for the already beginning change.
=== Not sure what to do with the energy part ===
Energy
We want to establish a sustainable and reliable energy infrastructure that offers as much participation and transparency as possible.
With the increasing role of renewables the number of privately owned electricity generation is exploding, former consumers become prosumers, cooperatives take the local supply in their own hands. The legal framework has to be adapted for this new situation where no longer only a few large companies make up the energymarket.
Our future development, including building a circular economy, depends on energy. We have to make sure that we have clean, reliable, and abundant energy available.
Energy - Becoming sustainable
The transition from fossil resources to sustainable and clean energy sources is necessary. Use of energy sources must not be in conflict with other environmental objectives and agriculture for food production. The technologies with the lowest impact must be prioritized and their construction supported.
Energy - Becoming resilient
Recent developments have shown the negative impact of being dependent on the import of energy resources in times of crisis. The EU has all the necessary technology and resources available domestically to build an energy system without critical dependencies on outside countries.
We want to set up an IPCEI (Important Project of Common European Interest) to build domestic production capacities for all components necessary for a transition to a green economy.
Energy - Becoming efficient
Energy use must be optimized to be efficient. For this goal we want to support energy efficient technologies and the transition of energy sectors to electricity as the primary energy form. By eliminating energy transformation steps a lot of losses are eliminated too. By electrifying transport, heating, and many industrial processes the required primary energy is dropping, though the need for electricity is going to rise.
Energy - As local as possible as central as necessary
The European electricity grid is great to compensate temporary fluctuation in demand and supply and prevent regions from getting into trouble in case of local supply problems. Though expanding the grid to move major parts of the energy for a whole country accross the continent is costly and produces bottlenecks that can lead to major failures.