Archive:Environment statistics introduced
Eurostat, in close partnership with the European Environment Agency (EEA), provides statistics, indicators and meta-information on environmental pressures and the state of the environment to support the implementation and monitoring of the sixth Environment action programme (EAP).
The Sixth Commmunity Environment Action Programme (laid down by Decision 1600/2002/EC of 22 July 2002 of the European Parliament and of the Council) is the EU’s ten-year (2002-2012) policy programme for the environment. It identifies four key priorities:
- tackling climate change: to achieve the EU’s target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 8 % by 2008-2012;
- nature and biodiversity: to avert the loss of species and their habitats in Europe by completion of the Natura 2000 network and by developing new sectoral biodiversity action plans, and to pay greater attention to protecting landscapes, the marine environment and soils, and to establish measures to prevent industrial and mining accidents;
- environment and health: to completely overhaul the EU’s risk-management system for chemicals, to develop 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: to increase resource efficiency and decouple resource use from economic growth, to increase 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; these are 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).
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, the revised Lisbon strategy and the Sustainable development strategy.
A 2007 mid-term review of the Sixth Community Environment Action Programme was held and results adopted by the European Commission in April 2007; this confirmed the programme as the framework for Community action in the field of the environment up to 2012.
The data required to monitor this program are collected in 10 environmental data centers. Whereas Eurostat manages the data centers on Waste, Natural Resources and Products, the EEA is responsible for Air, Climate Change, Water, Biodiversity and Land Use and the Joint Research Center (JRC) for Soil and Forestry.
The Statistics Explained articles on environment discuss the main results from several of these areas, but some also explore other topics, often at the borderline between economy and environment, such as agriculture and environment, environmental expenditure, transport and environment.
See also
Further Eurostat information
Dedicated section
Other information
- Environmental Data Centers
- Sixth Commmunity Environment Action Programme
- Decision 1600/2002/EC of the European Parliament and Council of 22 July 2002