MEPs back new EU biodiversity target for 2020
20 July 2010, Brussels (Belgium). On 14 July the Environment Committee of the European Parliament backed the 2020 biodiversity target which was endorsed by the Council in March. According to this target, Europe will have to halt biodiversity loss and the degradation of ecosystems services by 2020, as well as to restore them wherever feasible.
The Members of the Environment Committee “deeply regret” that the EU aim of halting biodiversity loss by 2010 has not been met, and qualify this failure as ethically, ecologically and economically unacceptable. According to a Commission’s assessment of 2008, 50% of species and up to 80% of habitats in Europe are under threat. The cost of welfare lost from biodiversity loss could reach €14 trillion per year, which represents 7% of estimated GDP per year by 2050 MEPs stress that “halting biodiversity loss constitutes the absolute minimum level of ambition to be realised by 2020”. In her report on the implementation of EU biodiversity conservation law, MEP Esther de Lange (EPP, Netherlands) welcomed the new EU biodiversity target for 2020.
(Photo of the European Parliament – Architecte: Association des architectes du CIC: Vanden Bossche sprl, C.R.V. s.a., CDG sprl, Studiegroep D. Bontinck)
