Let’s make the EU Green Deal even greener!
Perhaps, this motto would well describe the main goal of our GreenPaths Project. But what does “”greener” mean? “Greener” means to understand that there cannot be any “green” without “just”. One of the many questions proposed by the association GreenPaths makes between “green” and “just” is: Who finally pays the bill? (Is this final payment equitably distributed? Is this payment sustainable at all?)
Let’s talk food, for instance. Heavy industries in Europe, through the Emission Trading System (ETS) inaugurated in 2005, must pay a cost, increasing over time, for the emissions they produce, whose revenues are used to finance the transition to more sustainable energy sources, with the eventual goal of guaranteeing a possible future for our children and our environment. It’s certainly not enough, but maybe it’s a start on a greener path. Now, the food sector is also responsible for a considerable slice of emissions: about a third of anthropogenic methane emissions come from livestock farming, a gas with a climate-altering effect tens of times greater than that of CO2. Again, who pays? You see, in the food sector there is not even a thing like the ETS, which means that supermarket prices of foods do not show the actual costs of their production: i.e., the price of beef does neither represent the costs of methane emissions produced by ruminants, nor does it represent those deriving from water consumption and the consequences of using land intended for animal feed. If the land is the result of deforestation, then those costs will be even higher.
So, who’s going to pay the real price? We, the citizens of the present, eventually pay for a part of it – not only in cash, but also in health – while Earth, plants, animals, and our future generations will have to settle the whole payment….
What else do we need to roll up our sleeves?
Giuseppe Mastruzzo, IUC
