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Last night the European Commission and the European Environment Agency (EEA) won an award for best new electronic information source for the publication of the European Pollutant Emission Register (EPER). EPER is the first Europe-wide register of industrial emissions into air and water and was launched in February 2004. It makes detailed information on pollution from around 10,000 large industrial facilities in the EU and Norway publicly accessible on the internet for the first time. The European Information Association awarded EPER first place in its Electronic Sources Category, recognising it as the best of a large number of electronic publications, databases and websites produced at European level in 2004.
The European Environment Agency has joined forces with other international institutions and identified 30 sustainable energy indicators. These indicators will help policy makers to take the right decisions in the energy sector in order to improve the environment.
The European Environment Agency has now an externally verified environmental management system. The EEA has received certification under the EU eco-management and audit scheme, EMAS. This means that the Agency and its staff comply with a set of clearly defined rules and procedures to ensure eco-efficiency in many aspects of its daily operations.
Humans urgently need to ease the strains on the planet's natural systems if we want to continue to bring better living standards to all: we totally depend on our natural resources for food, water and shelter. This is one of the conclusions of the newly published Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, the most comprehensive global survey of the state of our planet.
'Bringing Airparif's air quality information into the EEA's In Your Neighbourhood project would be highly valuable and could spearhead similar cooperation for the Agency elsewhere in Europe' says EEA Executive Director Prof. Jacqueline McGlade as representatives from the regional French air monitoring body met with EEA management today to discuss potential future cooperation.
Two communications experts have been recruited to the European Environment Agency in Copenhagen to make sure that its messages get through to policy-makers and the public.
The entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol is an important milestone in international actions to combat climate change. It was welcomed by governments and many other interested parties around the world. The EU believes climate change is a serious challenge to mankind and likely to have significant negative global environmental, economic and social implications. According to the UNFCCC, to avoid dangerous climate change, greenhouse gas concentration levels should be stabilised in future.
Recent analyses by the EEA show that land is becoming a scarce resource: 800 000 ha of Europe's land cover was converted to artificial surfaces from 1990-2000. Only with careful spatial planning of urban and rural development can Europe avoid compromising its agricultural production, biodiversity, energy security and Kyoto targets and aspirations under the Lisbon agenda.
A Web portal, which provides easy access to information on environmental technologies, was launched today at the HELECO '05 conference in Athens, Greece. The portal, developed and managed by the European Environment Agency, provides an entry point to information on technologies that are cleaner and more resource efficient and which can improve environmental monitoring. The portal was launched by former EU Commissioner for Environment Mr Yiannis Paleokrassas on behalf of the EU's current Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas.
It was with deep sadness that we learned of the death early last week of Bjarne Norup, Denmark's national focal point representative to EEA's European environment information and observation network (Eionet), after a short illness.
For references, please go to https://www.eea.europa.eu/highlights/archive or scan the QR code.
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