The European environment – State and outlook A brief presentation Launched on 29 th 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 points The integrated assessment of Europe’s environment contains chapters on: Environment and Quality of Life The Changing Face of Europe Climate Change Air Quality and Health Freshwater Resources Marine and Coastal Soils Biodiversity and Ecosystems Environment and Economic Sectors Looking 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 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

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 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 Levels PCB 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 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 off Much 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 chapter Executive summary in 25 languages Press release in 25 languages Speeches Press conference (video) Flash animation Powerpoint presentation