Archive:Environment statistics introduced

The text for this article has been copied in preparation of updating it for the 2012 edition of the Eurostat yearbook.

Please do not edit this article while the update is ongoing. Eurostat, in close partnership with the European Environment Agency (EEA), provides statistics and further information on environmental pressures and the state of the environment. This data supports the development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the European Union's (EU's) environmental policies, including its sixth environment action programme (EAP). The action programme, laid down by European Parliament and Council Decision 1600/2002/EC of 22 July 2002 is a ten-year (2002-2012) policy programme for the environment. It identifies four key priorities:

tackling climate change;
nature and biodiversity;
environment and health;
sustainable use of natural resources and the management of waste.

Climate change: the action programme foresees an 8 % cut in greenhouse gas emissions in the period 2008-2012 compared with 1990 levels. Furthermore, the EU adopted a climate action and renewable energy package in December 2008, obliging it to cut emissions to at least 20 % below 1990 levels by 2020.

Nature and biodiversity: although the original goal of halting biodiversity loss by 2010 was not reached, a new target was adopted in March 2010: to halt the loss of biodiversity and the degradation of ecosystem services in the EU by 2020, and to restore them insofar as feasible – while stepping up the EU’s contribution to averting global biodiversity loss. Policies include completion of the Natura 2000 network, which is the largest network of protected areas in the world. Other actions concern developing new sectoral biodiversity action plans; paying greater attention to protecting landscapes, the marine environment and soils; and establishing measures to prevent industrial and mining accidents.

Environment and health: the EU strives to engender closer cooperation between health, environment and research areas. Its policies in this domain include a complete overhaul of the EU’s risk-management system for chemicals, developing a strategy for reducing risks from pesticides, protection of water quality in the EU, noise abatement, and a thematic strategy for air quality.

Sustainable use of natural resources and the management of waste: the EU's policies in this area include increasing resource efficiency and decoupling resource use from economic growth, increasing recycling and waste prevention with the aid of an integrated product policy and measures targeting specific waste streams, such as hazardous waste, sludges and biodegradable waste.

In order to implement the sixth EAP, the European Commission adopted seven thematic strategies: air pollution (adopted in September 2005); marine environment (October 2005); the prevention and recycling of waste (December 2005); the sustainable use of natural resources (December 2005); urban environment (January 2006); soil (September 2006); and the sustainable use of pesticides (July 2006). The data required to monitor the sixth EAP are collected in ten environmental data centres. Eurostat manages the data centres on waste, natural resources and products, while the EEA is responsible for air, climate change, water, biodiversity and land use, and the Joint Research Centre (JRC) is responsible for soil and forestry. Each strategy follows an in-depth review of existing policy and wide-ranging stakeholder consultation. The aim is to create positive synergies between the seven strategies, as well as to integrate them with existing sectoral policies and the sustainable development strategy.

Several environmental indicators have been chosen as sustainable development indicators (see the article on statistics for European policies) for the assessment of the progress achieved towards the goals of the sustainable development strategy. Examples of environmental headline indicators are the common bird index as an indicator for natural resources and greenhouse gas emissions by sector as an indicator for climate change and energy. Many environmental indicators figure in the full list of sustainable development indicators of which there are more than100. Several are used as indicators for sustainable consumption and production, for public health, climate change and energy, sustainable transport, natural resources, and global partnership.

Europe 2020

At the European Council meeting of 26 March 2010, EU leaders set out their plans for a Europe 2020 strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. As part of the sustainable growth priority one of the flagship initiatives concerns a resource-efficient Europe. The aims are to help decouple economic growth from the use of resources, support the shift towards a low-carbon economy, increase the use of renewable energy sources, modernise the transport sector, and promote energy efficiency. In March 2011 the European Commission adopted a ‘Roadmap for moving to a competitive low carbon economy by 2050’ (COM(2011) 112 final). This roadmap describes a cost-effective pathway to reach the EU's objective of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 80-95 % of 1990 levels by 2050. Based on the cost-effectiveness analysis undertaken, the roadmap gives direction to sectoral policies, national and regional low-carbon strategies and long-term investments. In September 2011 a further building block in this initiative was adopted in the form of the ‘Roadmap to a resource efficient Europe’ (COM(2011) 571 final). This builds upon and complements the other initiatives under the resource efficiency flagship, in particular the policy achievements towards a low carbon economy. It sets out a vision for the structural and technological change needed up to 2050, with milestones to be reached by 2020, proposing ways to increase resource productivity and decouple economic growth from resource use and explaining how policies interrelate and build on each other.

Among the other key proposals adopted by the European Commission related to this flagship initiative are the following.

A new strategy to secure and improve access to raw materials was adopted in February 2011 titled ‘Tackling the challenges in commodity markets and on raw materials‘ (COM(2011) 25 final). This is focused on the fair and sustainable supply of raw materials from international markets, fostering sustainable supply within the EU, and boosting resource efficiency and promoting recycling.
A ‘Roadmap to a single European transport area – towards a competitive and resource efficient transport system’ (COM(2011) 144 final) was adopted in March 2011 – see the article transport introduced.
In November 2010 the initiative ‘Energy 2020 a strategy for competitive, sustainable and secure energy’ (COM(2010) 639 final) was adopted, defining energy priorities for a period of ten years. In March 2011 the ‘Energy efficiency plan 2011’ (COM(2011) 109 final) was adopted: energy efficiency is considered to be one of the most cost effective ways to enhance security of energy supply and to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants. See the article on energy introduced for more information.

The integrated economic and employment guidelines, first combined in 2008, were also revised as part of the Europe 2020 strategy. Guideline 5 concerns improving resource efficiency and reducing greenhouse gases.

Recent and ongoing developments

As well as accompanying broad initiatives like the sixth EAP, the sustainable development strategy, and Europe 2020, environment indicators contribute to the development, monitoring and evaluation of more focused policies, initiatives and strategies. Among the recent or ongoing developments are activities related to water and waste.

The development of a blueprint to safeguard Europe's waters was proposed in 2010, and endorsed by the President of the European Commission on the occasion of World Water Day on 22 March 2010. Work on the proposed blueprint is still ongoing and may well create new data needs or new guidelines for the future of water statistics.

In January 2011 the European Commission published a review of the thematic strategy on the prevention and recycling of waste. While noting that overall recycling rates had increased, the amount of waste going to landfill decreased, and the use of hazardous substances had been reduced, the review indicated that the amount of waste produced had continued to rise in many Member States. Concerning waste statistics, the amended Regulation (EU) 0849/2010 on waste statistics has entered into force and will be the basis for the collection of data in 2012.

Further Eurostat information

Dedicated section

Environment

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