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Europe's protected areas play a key role in protecting biodiversity. But they are also a critical component of the continent’s economy, contributing over EUR 15 billion a year in jobs, food, and other services for the people of Europe. 2012 marks both the 20th anniversary of the most important international multilateral agreement on Biodiversity, the UN's Convention on Biological Diversity and of the most important EU piece of legislation on nature and biodiversity, the EU's Habitats Directive. As today, 22 May, is international biodiversity day, it provides an ideal opportunity to examine the state of protected areas today and the many benefits they provide.
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European EMS Forum 2012 for Managers / Users of Environmental Management Systems The forum will explore the latest developments in relation to environmental management systems (EMAS, ISO 14001) and the interrelationship with other management systems (ISO 26000, ISO 50001) including the latest state of play on the EMAS reference documents.
The world needs to move away from measuring success in purely economic terms, and should instead consider other criteria, including distribution of resources, sustainability, health, human rights and education. These were the discussions in a landmark meeting of the United Nations (UN), calling for new measurements of wellbeing beyond GDP in the run up to the Rio sustainability summit in June.
An interdisciplinary, international forum for sharing knowledge about the application of Geoinformatics with focus on application and on developing countries. AGSE 2012 will take place July 16 - 20, 2012, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Johor Bahru, Malaysia, chaired by Prof Dr Alias Bin Abdul Rahman FKSG and Prof. Dr. Franz-Josef Behr, Stuttgart University of Applied Sciences.
Climate change is already evident in Europe. Across the continent, policy makers are starting to respond to current and future impacts and risks associated with rising temperatures, changing precipitation, melting glaciers, ice and snow, rising sea levels, and more frequent and intense floods and droughts.
Europe needs to redouble efforts in using water more efficiently to avoid undermining its economy, according to a new report from the European Environment Agency (EEA). Inefficient water use impacts hard on the resources needed by ecosystems and people, both vital assets for European productivity and security.
By increasing tax on pollution and other environmentally-damaging activities, governments can use the extra funds to provide incentives for innovation, such as developing renewable energy. For advanced economies like the EU, such schemes also create new technologies which can be exported globally.
European governments could simultaneously reduce income tax, increase innovation and cut pollution by introducing well-targeted environmental taxes and recycling the revenues back into the economy. This was one of the findings from a pair of reports on environmental tax reform (ETR) published today by the European Environment Agency (EEA).
Environmental policy instruments are frequently characterised as obstacles to economic activity but environmental taxes can, in fact, be the opposite — serving as catalysts for the creativity that underpins thriving economies.
Although environmental tax reforms (ETR) tend to improve incomes across society, they can have mild regressive impacts in that richer households gain more than poorer ones. Care is needed to design ETRs in ways that ensure that certain groups are able to benefit equally. ETR's overall benefits for the economy, environment and society are potentially significant. ETR should therefore be regarded as a key element in the policymaking toolkit for shifting to a green economy.
Several carmakers need to make their fleets even more carbon-efficient in order to meet 2012 carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions target, according to updated data published today by the European Environment Agency (EEA). The data also show that almost all manufacturers must reduce emissions to meet 2015 targets under European legislation for new passenger cars, based on average CO2 emissions for each manufacturer.
A new way forward has been agreed upon in Durban, South Africa, after two weeks of climate change negotiations. The European Union welcomed the agreement from the COP17 climate conference as a breakthrough in the fight against climate change.
This report presents an overall experimental framework for ecosystem capital accounting. It is based on the to implement simplified ecosystem capital accounts for Europe as a 'fast-track' initiative launched by the European Environment Agency in 2010. The experimental framework highlights accounting balances and relationships between accounting tables and systems as well as key indicators and aggregates that describe economy ecosystem interactions. Ecosystem accounts are being developed as part of the System of Environmental-Economic Accounts which aims at supplementing the UN System of National Accounts with information on the environment and natural capital.
As we prepare for a future yet unwritten, a cascade of uncertainty presents itself - the future structure of our society and economies is uncertain; the environmental changes that may result are uncertain; and how we might react or adapt to such environmental changes is also uncertain. Against the backdrop of these and many other uncertainties, long-term analysis can help create more robust environmental policy and the space for innovative thinking.
Today, the European Commission launched its proposals for the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) after 2013. The key objective is ‘to strengthen the competitiveness, sustainability and permanence of agriculture throughout the EU in order to secure for European citizens a healthy and high-quality source of food, preserve the environment and develop rural areas’. The proposals tie financial support more closely to environmental goals.
Mobile phones and other digital devices are now a big part of modern life – but are they dangerous? There were an estimated 5.3 billion mobile phone subscriptions worldwide by the end of 2010, so if mobile phone use is linked to head cancers, the implications are immense. We look at the scientific uncertainty in this area, and what this means for policy.
Resource efficiency is a policy priority for Europe. However, across the region there are many different approaches to ‘doing more with less’, as shown by a survey of countries’ policies, carried out by the European Environment Agency (EEA).
The economic system has - last but not least through the financial crisis, but also through a lack of progress in finding a solution for the climate crisis - lost a lot of its appeal. Thus more and more Germans think that capitalism does neither create a "social balance in society" nor does it support "environment protection". The goal of this conference is to discuss possible future economic systems in Germany as well as the limit of growth and capitalism.
The budget is one area where governments can influence our interaction with the environment – encouraging beneficial behaviour, and discouraging environmental destruction. As a conference on environmental fiscal reform opens at the European Environment Agency (EEA), we consider the potential for using financial carrots and sticks to improve the environment.
The objective of the Conference is to secure renewed political commitment for sustainable development, assess the progress to date and the remaining gaps in the implementation of the outcomes of the major summits on sustainable development, and address new and emerging challenges
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