Published : Mar 04,
2013 Last modified : Mar 04, 2013 03:29
PM
The consumption and production of goods
and services is currently unsustainable
in Europe, with ‘decoupling’ of environmental
pressures from economic growth insufficient
to date. A new report from the European
Environment Agency (EEA) describes methods
for quantifying environmental pressures
caused by European consumption patterns
and economic production sectors. These methods
can help target decoupling actions.
Environmental pressures
from European consumption and production
shows how economic and environmental data
can be integrated to analyse environmental
performance and material efficiency of whole
economies as well as their individual elements.
The analyses presented
in the report provide policy makers with
a tool to target economic incentives and
information campaigns, encouraging a shift
to more sustainable production and consumption
patterns in order to reduce Europe’s global
footprint. The report discusses two analytical
approaches.
The production-based
method considers direct environmental pressures
caused by European industries and service
providers - for example, the extraction
of material resources by the mining and
quarrying sector, air pollutants from power
stations, greenhouse gas emissions from
agriculture and so on.
The consumption-based
method focuses on the indirect environmental
pressures caused by European consumers.
In this approach, the direct production-related
pressures are attributed to broad groups
of products and services, also taking into
account pressures that are embodied in goods
imported into the EU. Using Environmentally
Extended Input Output Analysis (EE-IOA)
it is possible to estimate the environmental
pressures ultimately generated by individual
product groups and also by European consumption
as a whole.
Four types of environmental
pressures are considered by the report:
raw material use, greenhouse gas emissions,
acidifying air emissions, and air pollutants
leading to harmful ground-level ozone. However,
the method has the potential to assess many
other types of environmental pressure including
land use, water use, waste generation and
energy use.
Thanks to the conceptual
consistency between the system of national
economic accounts and environmental accounts,
data on environmental pressures is directly
comparable to economic expenditure. Policy
makers can thus see which sectors have been
most successful in decoupling environmental
pressures from growth in their output. They
can gain an overview of which product groups
are most pressure intensive, including which
groups lead to most emissions or material
use per euro of purchase. Electricity, basic
metal products, and agricultural products
cause high amounts of environmental damage
for every euro spent, for example, while
most services cause low environmental pressures
per euro.
The tool also allows
the decoupling of pressures from GDP growth
to be split up into contributing factors.
Through so called ‘de-composition analysis’,
it is possible to investigate reductions
in environmental pressures and find out
how much are due to improvements in production
processes, such as energy savings, substitution
of fuels and other inputs, or the use of
end-of-pipe technologies. It is also possible
to see much of the reduction is due to changes
in the structure of the economy, including
which types of products are being produced
and consumed. In Europe, the report concludes,
decoupling of environmental pressures has
mainly resulted from improvements in individual
industries and production processes rather
than changes in patterns of consumption.
+ More
Climate change and flood
risk in European cities
Published : Mar 01,
2013 Last modified : Mar 08, 2013 02:06
PM
Increased flooding is likely to be one of
the most serious effects from climate change
in Europe over coming decades. Some of the
conditions which may contribute to urban
flooding are highlighted in an Eye on Earth
map from the European Environment Agency
(EEA).
Flooding in Copenhagen
Image © Benno Hansen
The map is one example
of the capabilities of Eye on Earth, an
online mapping tool created by the EEA and
partners. From 4 to 6 March 2013 the EEA
is organising the First Eye on Earth User
Conference in Dublin, Ireland. The event
will bring together people with a common
interest in sharing environmental data and
information for public access.
What does the map show?
During heavy rain, cities
may be flooded if the water cannot drain
quickly into the ground and the sewage system
in cities cannot cope with the amount of
water. For this reason, the map also shows
the mean percentage of each city covered
with impervious surfaces such as buildings,
concrete or asphalt, where the soil is ‘sealed’.
Paris, Thessaloniki, Bucharest and Barcelona
are just some of the cities with more than
three quarters of their surface area sealed,
meaning that there may be a risk that water
cannot disperse so quickly into the ground
during heavy rainfall.
However, it is important
to be aware that soil sealing is only one
factor contributing to increased risk of
urban flooding. In 2011, extremely heavy
rainfall in Copenhagen caused widespread
flooding and damage when the sewers could
not cope with the huge volume of water.
Insurance damages alone were estimated at
€ 650–700 million. However, around 60% of
the area of Copenhagen is sealed, less than
many other cities.
A high amount of artificial
areas also increases the temperature in
cities. Interestingly, a 2012 EEA report
on urban adaptation to climate change noted
that green spaces can also help during heat
waves by cooling urban areas. In some areas
of Europe the number and length of heat
waves is also expected to increase due to
climate change, visually depicted in this
map.
Climate change has been
observed across Europe, according to another
EEA report published in 2012. The effects
are very varied across the continent. For
example, precipitation has increased in
the north, but decreased in the south, and
most projections show that both trends will
continue throughout this century.
