The European environment – State and outlook 2005

- A brief presentation- A brief presentation

Launched on 29th November, 2006,

European Parliament, Brussels

What is The European Environment

– State and outlook 2005 report?

Published every five years

Previous report released in 1999

Helps the EU in its environmental policy planning and evaluation

New features in the 2005 edition

What do we produce?• Reports, briefings, indicators, Internet

services and multimedia publications.

• Five-year state and outlook report

Report structure

The 2005 report includes:

An integrated assessment of Europe’s environment

A core set of indicators

A country by country analysis

A bibliography

Part A – Structure and some key pointsThe integrated assessment of Europe’s environment contains chapters on:

Environment and Quality of LifeThe Changing Face of EuropeClimate ChangeAir Quality and HealthFreshwater ResourcesMarine and CoastalSoilsBiodiversity and EcosystemsEnvironment and Economic SectorsLooking ahead

Part B – Structure and some key points

The core set of indicators The EEA has defined 37 environmental indicators that can be used to help assess policy effectiveness

An example of a core indicator is greenhouse gas emission trends to 2010.

The indicators provide timely and relevant information on state and trends.

Part C – Structure and some key points

Country by country analysis

Based on nine of the core indicators

“Country scorecard”

EEA has selected what core indicators to use for this analysis

European improvements, local choices, global impacts

EU legislation on environment works

Changes in consumption and trade patterns threaten environmental progress

EU citizens’ environmental “footprint” extends far beyond Europe’s borders

Global Ecological Overshoot

Ecological overshoot 1961-2002

Increasing urbanisation, abandoning land

75% of Europe’s population live in the 10% of the land area that is urbanised

Urban sprawl continues increasing pressure on land and water in surrounding areas

Tourism development puts additional pressure on already sprawling stressed coastal areas

Low price of agricultural land contributes to these trends

Climate change is here

Temperatures will rise 2-6 °C this century (against 0.95 °C last century)

The expected impacts include water shortages, more extreme weather and species migrations

Short term Kyoto targets may be met – longer term aims will be harder to achieve

The transport-sector is a main culprit when it comes to energy use and greenhouse gas emissions

Slow progress on energy demand management

Energy demand still rise, though slower than GDP growth

A low emissions future requires less energy use, more renewable energy and improved energy efficiency.

Many opportunities for improving efficiency are under-used

Investing in a low-emissions future is cost-efficient (45Euro/person compared with the cost of inaction of 300-1500 Euro/person)

Energy consumption – different scenarios

Development of gross inland energy consumption and energy related CO2 Emissions according to different scenarios – EU-25

We are healthier, but exposure to pollutants remains

Europe has been successful in reducing smogs and acid rain

Even so, urban air pollution still causes health problems in many cities (particulates & ozone)

Cleaner transport technology and better urban planning can contribute to improvements

Exposure to chemicals in general affects people in Europe and beyond – levels found in blood samples provide some early warnings

PCB LevelsPCB levels found in human blood samples from Arctic peoples

Depleting our natural resources

Many European fish-stocks are over-fished or depleted leaving marine ecosystems under threat

Biodiversity: Despite some progress, many species are still under threat due to habitat fragmentation

Europe’s soil is threatened by erosion, sealing, contamination and salinisation – 2 million sites are potentially contaminated and 100.000 need remediation

Water: Stress increasing in Southern Europe and expected to continue as a result of increasing tourism, irrigation and climate change

Built-up land and population trends

Pollution prevention pays offMuch has been done to clean up wastewater

The best approach combines investment in wastewater treatment with economic instruments that reduce wastewater at source

Water pollution from agriculture remains a headache in the EU Member States

It will take decades for groundwater to rid itself of past pollution

Prevention is more cost-effective than cleaning up.

What can we do?

Europe’s economy has become more materials and energy efficient – EU-10 has the scope to improve efficiency by a factor of 4 to EU-15 levels

The challenge now is to increase environmental integration – agriculture, energy, transport, industry, housing

Long-term coherent policies will help the introduction of financial incentives

What can we do?

Well designed environmental taxes work and help build in the environmental cost in the price paid

The transport sector illustrates the need for and potential benefits of an integrated approach

Public and private sector expenditure on research and development to be re-inforced if competitiveness in the environment domain is to be achieved.

Institutional set-up can be as important as policies themselves

The report on the web

Full report – one pdf file per chapterExecutive summary in 25 languagesPress release in 25 languagesSpeechesPress conference (video)Flash animationPowerpoint presentation

www.eea.eu.int