The European environment — state and outlook 2020 (SOER 2020) comes at a crucial time of urgent sustainability challenges that require urgent systemic solutions. The overarching challenge of this century is how we achieve development across the world that balances societal, economic and environmental considerations. Sustainability needs to become the guiding principle for ambitious and coherent policies and actions across society.
Knowledge for transition to a sustainable Europe
Europe will not achieve its 2030 goals without urgent action during the next 10 years to address the alarming rate of biodiversity loss, increasing impacts of climate change and the overconsumption of natural resources. The European Environment Agency’s (EEA) latest ‘State of the Environment’ report published today states that Europe faces environmental challenges of unprecedented scale and urgency. The report says, however, there is reason for hope, amid increased public awareness of the need to shift to a sustainable future, technological innovations, growing community initiatives and stepped up EU action like the European Green Deal.
Total number of existing and planned policies and measures reported by countries in 2015, 2017, 2019
To prevent the worst impacts of climate change, European countries have developed national strategies, policies and accompanying measures to mitigate climate change. These include for example targets for greenhouse gas emissions in key sectors of the economy, promoting the use of renewable energy and low carbon fuels or efficiency improvements of buildings.
The European Union (EU) Member States reported more than 400 new climate change mitigation policies between 2017 and 2019, according to data released today by the European Environment Agency (EEA). EU Member States have now reported more than 1 900 climate actions, most of them targeting energy supply or energy consumption.
The European Union (EU) cut its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2 % in 2018, according to preliminary estimates released today by the European Environment Agency. However, rising energy consumption continues to hamper progress on the share of energy generated by renewable sources and on energy efficiency. As in previous years, the transport sector remains a particular concern with rising GHG emissions, low uptake of renewable energy sources and insufficient reductions of transport fuels’ life-cycle emissions.
Improved circular and climate-friendly business models and policies to boost reuse and recycling, plus improved consumer awareness will help the European Union tackle the growing problem posed by plastic, battery, electronic and textile waste, according to two European Environment Agency (EEA) briefings published today.
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