All
Member States must seriously tackle greenhouse
gas emissions immediately, if the EU-15 is to
meet its collective Kyoto target, a new European
Environment Agency (EEA) report states. The report,
'Greenhouse gas emission trends and projections
in Europe 2006', presents an evaluation of historic
data between 11000 and 2004. It also evaluates
projections of European countries’ progress towards
their 2010 greenhouse gas emissions targets.
“Levels of greenhouse gases
would be much higher without current efforts to
cut emissions. However, several countries within
the EU-15 are not doing enough and could jeopardise
the collective effort,” said Professor Jacqueline
McGlade, Executive Director of the EEA.
The EU-15 has a Kyoto target
to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 8 % on 11000
levels by 2012. Within this overall target, each
EU-15 member state has a differentiated emissions
target, which can be achieved by a variety of
means.
Only by implementing all existing
and planned domestic policy measures and using
Kyoto mechanisms and carbon sinks, can emissions
be brought down to 8.0 %, the EU-15 target, according
to the report. However, this projection relies
on figures from several Member States suggesting
they will cut emissions by more than is required
to meet their national targets and this cannot
be assured, the report stresses.
Looking ahead to 2010, the report
says that existing domestic policies and measures
will reduce EU-15 greenhouse gas emissions by
a net effect of 0.6 % from 11000 levels. When
additional domestic policies and measures (i.e.
those planned but not yet implemented) are taken
into account, the EU-15 could reduce emissions
by an additional 4.0 %.
The projected use of Kyoto mechanisms
by ten of the EU-15 will reduce emissions by a
further 2.6 % at a cost of EUR 2 830 million.
The use of carbon sinks, such as planting forests
to remove CO2, would reduce emissions by an additional
0.8 %.
Between 11000 and 2004, EU-15
greenhouse gas emissions decreased from most sectors,
the report says. However, emissions from the transport
sector increased by nearly 26 % and are projected
to increase to 35 % above 11000 levels by 2010,
if countries use only existing policies. If additional
policies are implemented, Member States project
that transport emissions will, at best, stabilise
at 2004 levels.
The ten new EU Member States
are not part of the joint EU-15 target and all,
except Cyprus and Malta, have individual targets
under the Kyoto Protocol. They are all on track
to meet their targets, but this is largely due
to the collapse of economies in the 11000s and
emissions are now rising again in these countries,
the report says.
Notes to the editor:Background
on the report
The report, prepared by the EEA and its European
Topic Centre on Air and Climate Change (ETC/ACC),
complements the annual evaluation report of the
European Commission to the Council and European
Parliament. For more information see the Commission
web site: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/climat/gge.htm
About the European Environment
Agency (EEA):The EEA is based in Copenhagen. The
agency aims to help achieve significant and measurable
improvement in Europe's environment through the
provision of timely, targeted, relevant and reliable
information to policy makers and the public.
Brendan Killeen / Marion Hannerup
EEA member countries delivering
more environmental data
Latvia and Austria topped the
list for delivering environmental data to the
European Environment Agency (EEA), followed by
Sweden, Bulgaria and Slovakia, according to a
new report released today. Overall performance
by countries was up by 5 % compared to the previous
reporting cycle. Many of the new EU Member States
performed particularly well. The 32 countries
who are full members of the EEA, as well as the
collaborating countries, regularly supply environmental
data to the Agency. The new report 'Eionet priority
data flows, May 2005–April 2006' is the ninth
progress report to the EEA Management Board on
the workings of the system. For the first time,
it is published in the EEA series of corporate
documents.
The European environment information
and observation network (Eionet) aims to provide
timely and quality-assured data, information and
expertise for assessing the state of the environment
in Europe. It is a partnership network consisting
of the EEA, several European topic centres (ETCs)
and a network of over 1 000 experts from more
than 300 national bodies dealing with environmental
information.
