WHAT THE GREENS WILL FIGHT FOR IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

According to their Manifesto 2019

Climate action

1. EU to pursue all possible efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.
2. European climate law, with binding carbon budgets reducing emissions by at least 55% by 2030 and building a net-zero emissions economy. This must include restoring natural carbon sinks in forests and soils.
3. Increase international climate funding.
4. If key countries outside the EU refuse to limit emissions, border-tax adjustments may be introduced to ensure a level playing field for European workers and companies.
5. Strong carbon-floor price in the emissions trading system.

Energy

1. Not a single euro from taxpayers should finance fossil fuels. Funds divested from fossil energy can be reinvested in sustainable solutions, such as energy efficiency, cross-border trains and sustainable farming.
2. Phase out coal by 2030 and other fossil fuels, including gas, as soon as possible thereafter.
3. Nuclear power and fracking have no role to play in the clean energy future.
4. Make energy efficiency and saving energy the first priority, while tackling energy poverty. Carried out correctly, the energy transition to 100% renewable energy will cut pollution, create jobs and increase our energy independence – while empowering citizens to play a more active role.

Transport

1. Investing in railways, connecting European countries and regions with more accessible and affordable trains, including fast and night trains. Overall, stronger public transportation as well as reducing the necessity for transport can remedy traffic congestion and pollution across Europe. Parts of freight transport can be moved to rails or existing waterways, if no further environmental damage.
2. All trucks, vans, trains, ships and planes must eventually become zero-emission vehicles.
3. Funding for sustainable transport can be redirected from subsidies for air travel through the introduction of a European flight tax, European VAT on tickets as well as ending the kerosene tax exemption for airplanes, while supporting remote areas like islands with no other means of transportation.
4. Taxing flights and road transport according to the polluter-pays principle would level the playing field between transport modes.
5. No new fossil-fuel cars should be sold in Europe after 2030.
6. Creation of low-emission zones in towns and cities across Europe and promote cycling and walking.
7. Biofuels must have a low carbon footprint and must not compete with food production or cause biodiversity loss.

Environment and nature protection

1. Setting tighter limits on pollution
2. Moving to sustainable farming
3. Banning dangerous chemicals
4. Expanding protected areas significantly, ensuring they cover key ecosystems, and guarantee that the protection really works.
5. Enforcing basic measures for healthy environments. Infrastructure and other projects supported with European public money should not endanger biodiversity, but rather should help save and restore it globally.
6. Unsustainable and illegal logging to be tracked down better and sanctioned harder.
7. Stronger tools to address deforestation related to imported food and other products.
8. Europe's soils must be protected from degradation and restored, also to increase their capacity to retain scarce water.
9. Increasing marine protected areas to 20% of our seas.
10. Controls of sulfur emissions from shipping must be extended to all coasts and heavy fuel oil banned in the Arctic and Antarctic regions.

Circular economy

1. Current economy is based on taking resources from nature, making products, using them and then throwing them away. This linear model must be replaced with a circular economy, creating more value and using fewer resources, while making sure this does not lead to more hazardous substances.
2. Instead of continuously consuming more resources, we need to consume smarter and in moderation.
3. Products to last longer and fixing them to be made easier by requiring them to be repairable and increasing the duration of warranties to combat planned obsolescence.
4. Companies should be stopped from throwing away edible food as waste.
5. Non-recyclable plastics must be taxed or banned, sustainable alternatives developed, and recycling and reuse targets raised.
6. Strict limits on exporting waste and the introduction of taxes on the extraction and import of raw materials.

Farming, food and animals

1. Reforming Europe’s common agricultural policy to move from industrial agriculture and genetically modified organisms (GMOs) to sustainable forms of farming, such as organic and agro-ecological solutions.
2. Stopping the urban sprawl urgently to protect farm land.
3. Redirecting agricultural subsidies to sustainable farming, based on fair and results-based conditions.
4. Banning harmful pesticides such as glyphosate
5. Trade rules should allow Member States to compensate domestic producers for extra costs due to higher environmental, animal protection or public health standards.
6. To make informed choices, people need to know what their food contains, where it is coming from and how it has been produced.
7. Reducing meat consumption in favour of healthier, more sustainable plant-based diets.
8. Fishing in Europe needs to take place within sustainable limits. Fishing seasonal closures allowing fish stocks to recover should be complied with by all Member States. Illegal fishing must be stopped and imported fish required to meet European conservation standards. Ending deep-sea bottom-trawling and other particularly destructive forms of industrial fishing and limiting the impact of bottom-contact fisheries on eco-systems.
9. Ban on fur farming, transporting live animals long distances and animal testing. Animals on farms should be guaranteed the right to natural behaviour. No public money should go to industrial animal farming.