The European environment - state and outlook 2010
Set of assessments
The European Environment Agency (EEA) released today its fourth Environment State and Outlook report – SOER 2010 – a comprehensive assessment of how and why Europe’s environment is changing, and what we are doing about it. SOER 2010 concludes that a fully integrated approach to transforming Europe to a resource-efficient green economy cannot only result in a healthy environment, but also boost prosperity and social cohesion.
SOER 2010 highlights a greater understanding of the links between climate change, biodiversity, resource use and people’s health - and how tools like spatial planning, ecological tax reform or pollution prevention can underpin a natural capital-based approach to their management.
Selected key findings of the report:
- Climate change: The European Union has made progress in cutting emissions and expanding renewable energy. The EU-27's 2009 emissions stand 17 % below the 1990 level and therefore very close to the bloc’s target of cutting emissions 20 % by 2020. However, sectoral trends are not all positive. EU-27 emissions from transport rose by 24% between 1990 and 2008.
- Climate change adaptation: Even if Europe meets all its emission reduction targets and world leaders agree on bold measures during the climate talks currently taking place in Cancun, Mexico, Europe will still need to adapt to ongoing and expected climate change impacts. Dedicated management of natural capital can help deal with these challenges.
- thematic assessments
- assessment of global megatrends
- country assessments (here you can find the assessment of Switzerland)
- synthesis report
Source: Source: Press release EEA [1]