The European Commission has announced a €110 million investment in LIFE program integrated environmental and climate protection projects. Projects proposal were called during the year 2020 and were selected post evaluation. Funding will benefit environmental and climate projects in eleven EU member states which are Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland and Slovenia.
LIFE programme has been running since 1992 and under the programme, EU is committed to provide funding for the environment and climate action project. EU has successfully co-financed more than 5 500 projects till now under the program. For the year 2021–2027, the Commission has boosted financing for the LIFE initiative by about 60%. It is now worth €5.4 billion. LIFE Programme is focussing on four key areas i.e. (a) LIFE Nature and biodiversity (b) circular economy and quality of life, (c) climate change mitigation and adaptation, and (d) clean energy transition.
Under the existing funding program, Funds will be provided to Finland for Safeguarding biodiversity in the Baltic Sea. Cyprus funding relates to Steering waste away from landfill. Denmark project is focussed on Transforming waste into resources. Estonian project is centred around Intelligent and resilient building renovations and similarly other states will be using the funding for driving towards a cleaner economy.
Integrated projects enable Member States to aggregate additional EU funding streams such as agricultural, structural, regional, and research funds, as well as national financing and private sector investment, into one initiative. The 11 projects are estimated to bring in more than €10 billion in additional funding.
Selected initiatives will aid in the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic while also supporting the European Green Deal’s goals of making the EU climate neutral and pollution-free by 2050. Under the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 and the EU Circular Economy Action Plan, these measures will help achieve important European Green Deal goals.
Mr Frans Timmermans, Executive Vice-President responsible for the European Green Deal emphasised that issues of climate, biodiversity and pollution crises needs to be addressed in high priority without wasting further time. He further said that Nature is our biggest ally and in order to take care of us we need to protect and restore nature.
Mr Virginijus Sinkevičius Commissioner for the Environment, Oceans and Fisheries shared his views and said that integrated project funded under the LIFE Programme will be instrumental in enabling the green transition and will enable the Member States in greening their economies and will support in restoring nature and biodiversity as well improve their resilience ability.
The LIFE programme provides funding for integrated projects, which supports implementation of environmental and climate legislation policies of the EU at regional, multi-regional, national and trans-national level. key six areas related to (a) nature conservation (b) water (c) air (d) waste management (e) climate change mitigation and (f) climate change adaptation is supported through funding, which helps Member States in complying with key EU legislation.
Bureau Galactik Views