Europe - Environmental Challenges
The brief summary below is taken from the European Environment Agency report ‘The European environment — state and outlook 2020’.
Being a citizen in Europe I thought that this continent would not have too much to concern itself with, and that apart from the UK the other European nations would be much better off than the rest of the world. It’s their problem not ours I thought.
Then I found the European Environment Agency 'European Environment State and Outlook 2020' report of December 2019. It’s a timely find, as I write this in early 2020. All is not well here in Europe. Like everyone else we don’t have much time either.
The EEA is independent so all they can do is provide the evidence for the European Union nations to hopefully act on. A bit like the IPCC in that all it can do is present the evidence to the world and sit back as it gets worse.
The evidence
The summary below is taken from this report, and for any further information the executive summary is worth a read. Greta is right to castigate the EU's Green Deal for their lack of action before 2030. We cannot wait 10 years, see Planet News 4th March 2020.
Europe’s agriculture and fisheries cause loss of biodiversity. Its transport, industry and energy production depend on oil, gas and coal which results in CO2 emissions when it is burnt. Per capita emissions in EU countries are higher than world averages, see this World Bank link.
The report says that we face important sustainability challenges that require us urgently to produce, move and live differently. The outlook to 2030 suggests that the current rate of progress will not be sufficient to meet 2030 and 2050 climate and energy targets. The way we have done things over the last 40 years has to change within the next 10 years. The focus now must be on scaling up, speeding up, streamlining and implementing the many solutions and innovations — both technological and social — which already exist.
Whatever is good now we have to do more of. Whatever is bad now we have to do less of. We need to find ways of discouraging the bad actions, and encouraging the good things. Unless we manage to change current trends within the next decade, then our sense of fear for the future will prove to be well founded. What we buy and how we live now has to change in terms of food, energy and mobility.
Key Issues
Specifically Europe’s issues relate to not meeting its own targets relating to the following:
EU protected species and habitats
Common species (birds and butterflies)
Ecosystem condition and services
Water ecosystems and wetlands
Pressures on water supply
State of marine ecosystems and biodiversity
Pressures and impacts on marine ecosystems
Soil condition and its erosion
Chemical pollution and impacts on ecosystems
Climate change and impacts on ecosystems
Emissions of chemicals
Water abstraction and its pressures on surface and groundwater
Concentrations of air pollutants
Human health is affected by air pollution, noise, pressures on water and Chemical pollution
The European Parliament - can we rely on the people here?
The impacts of climate change on biodiversity and ecosystems are expected to intensify, while activities such as agriculture, fisheries, transport, industry and energy production continue to cause loss of biodiversity, resource extraction and harmful emissions. Europe and all of us all have to look at each of these to see how we can do better. Full implementation of existing policies would take Europe a long way to achieving its environmental goals up to 2030.
Europe and all nations cannot simply grow economically and reduce pollution and then think that all will be fine. To be living sustainably on this planet we all need to act differently and together with a common purpose. In 2020, Europe has a unique window of opportunity to lead the global response to sustainability challenges. Now is the time to act, and the report makes this really clear.