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In the Fifth Environmental Action Programme (5th EAP) the European Commission states that "a comprehensive reappraisal of the situation will be undertaken and an up-dated report on the state of the environment and a review of the policy-cum-strategy set out in this Programme will be published before the end of 1995" (EC, 1992). The European Commission (DG XI: Directorate General for Environment, Nuclear Safety and Civil Protection) has asked the European Environment Agency (EEA) to produce the above-mentioned state-of-the-environment report, requesting that besides producing an update, the EEA should also carry out a quality assessment as to whether the measures taken to date will lead to achievement of the 5EAP targets.
The following issues are addressed in this report:
The focus of this report is on the trends and the state of the environment at the EU level. Although the 5EAP calls for action at the Member State and local levels, and by target groups, evaluation of the progress to date is the subject of the Commission's Progress Report on the 5EAP. The analysis of this report is limited to a discussion of progress on the implementation of those Community level actions specified in the 5EAP.
Box 1: Towards a new way of reportingThe time factor obviously plays a part in the development of environmental problems and of pro-active policy making. Three time-lags can be distinguished.
Therefore, a diagnosis of just the current state of the environment is inadequate. Early warning information systems, monitoring of environmental progress and environmental outlooks are crucial for supporting the policy process and providing sufficient feedback for policy-makers and society on the environmental effects of their present and future actions. |
The work in this report has focused on a set of indicators, which have been selected on the basis of the following criteria:
In addition, a shorter list of 9 'target' or 'performance' indicators have been selected: these help to indicate where the EU stands in relation to key 5EAP targets and how much more needs to be achieved ('distance to target').
The 5EAP sets out an integrated strategy for both environmental themes and causes of environmental degradation by target sectors. The summary report is structured along similar lines to the 5EAP itself and is divided into three main chapters. Chapter 2 highlights the main conclusions of the report. Chapter 3 summarises the progress and prospects towards the 5EAP environmental themes. The themes are categorised according to their spatial scale of impact: global; transboundary and regional. The impacts of each of the other themes on nature and biodiversity is discussed separately. The last section covers the environmental expenditures of current policies and their impact on the economy. Chapter 4 describes key trends in society and summarises the contributions of 5EAP sectors to each of the environmental themes, focusing on environmental quality and sensitivity.
For references, please go to https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/92-827-5263-1-sum/page003.html or scan the QR code.
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