ALBERT

Description: Plastic pollution in soils pose a major threat to soil health and soil fertility that are directly linked to food security and human health. In contrast to marine plastic pollution, this ubiquitous problem is thus far scientifically poorly and policy approaches that tackle plastic pollution in soils comprehensively do not exist. In this article, we apply a qualitative governance analysis to assess the effectiveness of existing policy instruments to avoid harmful plastic pollution in (agricultural) soils against the background of international environmental agreements. In particular, environmental and fertiliser legislation relevant to soil protection in the European Union and in Germany are assessed. Regulatory weaknesses and gaps of the respective legislation are identified, and proposals for enhanced command-and-control provisions developed. However, the legal analysis furthermore shows that plastic pollution ecologically is also a problem of quantity, which is difficult to solve exclusively through command-and-control legislation. Instead, comprehensive quantity-control instruments to phase out fossil fuels (worldwide and in all sectors) as required by climate protection law can be effective approaches to tackle plastic pollution in environmental media like agricultural soils as well.

Description: Food is wasted throughout the entire food supply chain—from agricultural production to the household level. This has negative impacts on natural resources and the environment. At the same time, food waste is undermining the global target of food security. In turn, reducing food waste can minimise the environmental effects of agriculture on climate, biodiversity, soils, water bodies and the atmosphere. All of this is reflected in the fact that food waste is subject to various legal acts of the European Union and that it is also a major subject in the new EU Farm to Fork Strategy from May 2020. Supported by an analysis of the diffuse empirical data on food waste, the purpose of this article is to analyse the current EU legislation on food waste and its reduction to answer the following research questions: How is food waste integrated into European policies? What is the impact of European legislation on food waste? Is European legislation sufficient to trigger not only food waste reduction but also comprehensive changes in the agricultural and food sector to support global climate and environmental targets as set in the Paris Agreement and the Convention on Biological Diversity? Which instruments are the most suitable to do so? Methodologically, a qualitative governance analysis is applied. It is found that relevant legal acts for governing food waste include circular economy and waste law, the Common Agricultural Policy and the Common Fisheries Policy as well as food law, while international environmental targets serve as an overarching measure for governance analysis. The legal analysis shows that existing legislation lacks steering effect to significantly reduce food waste. To overcome current governance problems, the article introduces economic policy instruments. It is concluded that quantity control focusing on overarching parameters such as fossil fuels or animal-derived products has not only the potential to reduce food waste by increasing food prices but can also address the multiple interlinked environmental challenges of the agricultural and food sector.

Description: : Most scenarios on instruments limiting global warming in line with the 1.5 °C temperature limit of the Paris Agreement rely on overshooting the emissions threshold, thus requiring the application of negative emission technologies later on. Subsequently, the debate on carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and solar radiation management (SRM) (frequently subsumed under “geoengineering”) has been reinforced. Yet, it does not determine normatively whether those are legally valid approaches to climate protection. After taking a closer look at the scope of climate scenarios and SRM methods compiling current research and opinions on SRM, this paper analyses the feasibility of geoengineering and of SRM in particular under international law. It will be shown that from the perspective of human rights, the Paris Agreement, and precautionary principle the phasing-out of fossil fuels and the reduction in consumption of livestock products as well as nature-based approaches such as sustainable—and thus climate and biodiversity-smart—forest, peatland, and agricultural management strongly prevail before geoengineering and atmospheric SRM measures in particular. However, as all of the atmospheric SRM methods are in their development phase, governance options to effectively frame further exploration of SRM technologies are proposed, maintaining that respective technologies thus far are not a viable means of climate protection.

Description: The Paris Agreement of December 2015 is subject to much criticism of being inadequate. This however neglects its very ambitious objective, which limits legally-binding global warming to 1.5 to 1.8 degrees in comparison to pre-industrial levels. This article shows, based on the overlap of unanswered questions for prognoses in natural science and the legal precautionary principle, that this objective indicates a legal imperative towards zero emissions globally within a short timeframe. Furthermore, it becomes apparent that policies need to be focused on achieving the 1.5-degree temperature limit. From a legal standpoint with regard to existential matters, only those policies are justified that are fit to contribute to reaching the temperature limit with high certainty, without overshoot, without leaving the 1.5 limit aside and without geoengineering measures, in contrast to the tendencies of the IPCC. This creates a big challenge even for the alleged forerunners of climate policies, Germany and the EU; because, according to the objective, the EU and Germany have to raise the level of ambition in their climate policies rapidly and drastically.

Description: The production of animal food products is (besides fossil fuels) one of the most important noxae with regard to many of the environmental problems, such as climate change, biodiversity loss or globally disrupted nutrient cycles. This paper provides a qualitative governance analysis of which regulatory options there are to align livestock farming with the legally binding environmental objectives, in particular the Paris Agreement and the Convention on Biological Diversity. Two innovative governance approaches are developed and compared: a cap-and-trade scheme for animal products and a livestock-to-land ratio. Both instruments are measured against the above-mentioned environmental objectives, taking into account findings from behavioural sciences and typical governance problems. Both approaches are generally suitable as quantity governance in animal husbandry if they are properly designed. In the end, a combination of both approaches proved to be particularly effective ecologically. All of this simultaneously demonstrates, on the basis of a rarely considered but ecologically highly relevant sector, how a quantity governance approach that is based on an easily comprehensible governance unit can function across all sectors and regions.

Description: Limiting global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius and better even to 1.5 degrees Celsius, according to Article 2 paragraph 1 of the Paris Agreement requires global zero emissions in a very short time. These targets imply that not only emissions from degraded peatlands have to be avoided, but conservation and rewetting of peatlands are also necessary to figure as sinks to compensate for unavoidable residual emissions. However, with regard to instruments for meeting these targets, measuring, depicting, and baseline definition are difficult for greenhouse gas emissions from peatlands. In the absence of an easily comprehensible control variable (such as fossil fuels), economic instruments reach their limits. This is remarkable in so far as economic instruments can otherwise handle governance problems and react to various behavioral motivational factors very well. Still, peatlands can be subject to certain regulations and prohibitions under command-and-control law even without precise knowledge of the emissions from peatland use, which will be shown using the example of the European Union (EU) and German legislation. This paper is a contribution to governance research and illustrates that even comprehensive quantity-control instruments for fossil fuels and livestock farming—which would address various environmental problems and reflect findings from behavioral research regarding motivation towards sustainability—require complementary fine-tuning through command-and-control law, e.g., for integrating peatland governance.

Description: Transnational trade holds opportunities for prosperity and development if accompanied by a robust political and legal framework. Yet, where such a framework is missing, transnational trade is frequently associated with, among others, negative impacts on the environment. Applying a legal comparison, this article assesses if recent free trade agreements, i.e., the Mercosur Agreement, CETA and the EU–Vietnam Free Trade Agreement, negotiated by the European Union, have been underpinned with effective environmental standards so that they are in line with global environmental goals and avoid detrimental effects on climate and biodiversity. Besides that, we evaluate the extent to which these agreements at least enable and incentivise environmental pioneering policies in the trading Parties. In particular, we discuss the likely impacts of the agreements on the agricultural sector. The analysis finds that, while a few mandatory standards concerning, e.g., deforestation have been established, overall, the agreements lack a comprehensive legal framework to uphold/enhance environmental protection. Moreover, weak dispute settlement mechanisms to ensure compliance with sustainability measures limits their effectiveness. In addition, the provisions on regulatory cooperation and investor-state dispute settlement are likely to negatively affect the decision-making processes and (thus) discourage ecological pioneering policies in the trading Parties. Hence, there is a long way to go so that transnational trade is compatible with global environmental goals.

Description: This article analyzes the environmental opportunities and limitations of digitalization in the agricultural sector by applying qualitative governance analysis. Agriculture is recognized as a key application area for digital technologies, including artificial intelligence. This is not least because it faces major sustainability challenges, especially with regard to meeting the climate and biodiversity targets set out in the Paris Agreement and the Convention on Biological Diversity, as well as the water-related objectives of EU environmental legislation. Based on an overview of the possible applications of digital technologies in agriculture, the article offers a status quo analysis of legal acts with relevance to digitalization in the EU agricultural sector. It is found that a reliable legal framework with regard to product liability and product safety, as well as data privacy, data access, and data security is important in this context. In addition, the European Common Agricultural Policy, as the most important funding instrument for digital innovations in the agricultural sector, should be designed in such a way that it links digitalization-related objectives more closely with sustainability targets. So far, the existing EU governance does not fully exploit the potentials of digitalization for environmental protection, and sight is lost of possible negative side effects such as rebound and shifting effects. Therefore, the article also offers proposals for the optimization of EU governance.