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THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
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Environment in the European Union
Having reviewed the reasons for policy changes
in the United States and China –the two great
actors in global governance related to climate
and energy– we will now turn to actions taken
by the EU throughout 2015 leading up to the
Climate Conference in Paris.
The European Environmental Agency report
The European environment – state and outlook
2015
provides an excellent overview of the sta-
tus quo of environmental issues in the European
Union. According to the conclusions of this re-
port, although EU countries have made progress
in areas such as water and air quality and waste
reduction, we are collectively still far from
achieving the target Member States agreed
upon for 2050: living within the ecological limits
of the planet.
Production and consumption patterns in the
EU are still unsustainable and energy-intensive
and more than 50 % of the energy the Union
consumes comes from fossil fuels. Our use of
water and prime materials is also unacceptably
high. The EU’s ecological footprint has grown
progressively since 1995 in terms of land, water
and raw material usage, as well as tropospheric
precursor and greenhouse gas emissions, fac-
tors that raise the environmental pressure it ex-
erts outside the collective boundaries of its
Member States. The hard fact is that the area
needed to meet the EU’s present resource de-
mand is twice as large as it actual geographic
extension.
A number of problems require urgent atten-
tion. Whilst climate change supposes a threat to
the lives and economic welfare of the majority
of European citizens, it also affects millions of
people living in poor countries beyond our bor-
ders who due to the profoundly unfair way
in which climate change is unfolding stand to
suffer its consequences the most even though
they generate a much lower volume of green-
house gases than their counterparts in wealthier
parts of the world. Although per capita EU
greenhouse gas emissions have declined by 19
% since 1990, the Union is nevertheless respon-
sible for 15 % of the world’s total emissions.
According to this report, the environmental
policies presently being implemented will prob-
ably not be sufficient to meet the challenges we
now face. For example, under the present cir-
cumstances, the EU will not be able to meet the
approved objective of reducing its emissions by
between 80 and 95 % by 2050.
The loss of biodiversity in the EU has reached
alarming proportions. The conservation status
of 60 % of the continent’s protected species
and 77 % of its habitats is considered unfavour-
able. Europe is far from reaching the goal of
halting the loss of its biodiversity by 2020. Our
seas and oceans are in an especially precarious
state: the deterioration of ocean beds, the acid-
ification of seawater and pollution are only a
few of the problems threatening our marine
biodiversity. Furthermore, 91 % of assessed
stocks in the Mediterranean are being over-
fished. The degradation of European natural
capital attributable to our consumption habits
–which are highly dependent on the consump-
tion of energy and natural resources– is a con-
sequence of the unsustainability of key drivers
of our economy such as agriculture, fishing,
transport, industry, tourism and urban expan-
sion. Atmospheric and acoustic pollution are
causing severe health problems, particularly in
urban areas. Fine particles contributed to the
premature deaths of approximately 430,000 EU
citizens in 2011. It is estimated that during the
same year exposure to noise pollution led to the
premature deaths of 10,000 Europeans from
heart attacks and strokes. It has been estimated