European Union News - Environmnet

The EU will help China in meeting its environmental, energy- and carbon-intensity targets and in the long run, contribute towards achieving a global reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, following a new financing agreement signed by Commissioner for Development, Andris Piebalgs, and Chen Deming, Minister of Commerce of the Republic of China.

Environment Committee in the European Parliament underlined that oil firms must be held liable for the costs of any potential environmental damage - and have the means to pay - or else be denied licences to drill in EU waters. The Committee voted on 19 of September on the new legislation that will set minimum European standards for offshore oil and gas safety, regulating licensing, emergency plans and decommissioning of platforms.

The European Environment Agency (EEA) has published new aggregated information on the production and trade of fluorinated gases – or F-gases – in the EU. In 2011, F-gases were used mostly for refrigeration and air-conditioning purposes, as well as in electrical equipment and in the production of foams and aerosols. F-gases are important because they contributed 2% of total EU greenhouse gases emissions in 2010, measured in terms of CO2-equivalent.

The European Mobility Week which is being celebrated between 16-22 of September 2012 includes the launching of the EU’s first award to encourage the adoption of Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs) by local and regional authorities.

The Common Noise Assessment Methods in Europe (CNOSSOS-EU) presented by the European Commission will assess noise from road, rail and air traffic and from industry, and will provide consistent and comparable data on the noise levels to which people are exposed. Member States will have to start using the new methods for the next round of EU-wide strategic noise mapping in 2017.

The European Commission presented the EASIN network (the European Alien Species Information Network) which aim to facilitate the mapping and classification of alien species by indexing reported data from over 40 online databases. It has been calculated the existence of around to 16,000 alien species currently reported all over Europe.