European Union News - Environmnet

Immediately after the earthquake and tsunami which devastated Japan on March 2011, President Barroso and President Van Rompuy expressed the European Union's solidarity and condolences to the people and government of Japan, and to the families of the victims at this difficult time. Further to it, and given the worrying situation caused by damages in Japan's nuclear plants, the Commission established contacts with Japanese sources, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and the established emergency networks in Europe, like ECURIE.

The European Commission adopted on 8 March a Roadmap for transforming the European Union into a competitive low carbon economy by 2050. The Roadmap describes the cost-effective pathway to reach the EU's objective of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and gives direction to sectoral policies, national and regional low-carbon strategies and long-term investments.

According to the last data released by the Eurostat, EU member States generated 513 kg of municipal waste per person in 2009. However, this amount of waste generated per person varied from 316 kg in the Czech Republic and Poland to 833 kg in Denmark. Figures also varied in terms of the treatment granted, although on average 504 kg of municipal waste per person was treated with any of the methods available.

The European Commission has set the historical aviation emissions at 219,476,343 tonnes of CO2, for the purposes of the calculation of the total number of aviation allowances to be available from 2012. This Commission's Decision represents a decisive step for the inclusion of aviation in the EU's emissions trading system (EU ETS) from 1 January 2012.

The Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) measurement standard has been chosen by Government organisations in three continents as the common standard for measuring the energy efficiency of data centres. This will allow data centre operators to measure, calculate, improve and communicate the energy efficiencies of their data centres worldwide. Although global taskforce has reached agreement on measurement protocols for PUE, the discussion still continues over additional energy efficiency metrics.

Between 2 and 4 March 2011, European Commissioner for Development, Andris Piebalgs, and Pacific Islands partners will welcome a joint Action Plan on Climate Change during a High-Level Regional Conference on Climate Change in the Pacific in Vanuatu. Commissioner Piebalgs will call for an increase of international support for the Small Islands, notably to Pacific Islands, an will also launch projects worth 50.4 million euro and will announce new ones for 39 million euro for adaptation to climate change effects and poverty.

The European Commission has launched its annual call for proposals to be funded under the LIFE+ programme, the European fund for the environment. Proposals are welcome under one of the programme’s three components: Nature and Biodiversity, Environment Policy and Governance, and Information and Communication.

The European Commission has launched on 25 February two online consultations in the field of environment. The first consultation seeks opinions on policy options that might encourage a switch to a more efficient use of natural resources in the European economy, and the second one relates to the position to be taken by the EU at the United Nations conference on Sustainable Development to be held in Rio de Janeiro in 2012. A third related consultation has also been launched to gather opinions on the European bio-based economy, which also includes aspects of resource efficiency. These consultations will remain open until mid-April 2011.

Following a series of cyber-thefts from several EU Emissions Trading System registries which took place over January 2011, the European Commission outlined on 23 February a series of actions aimed at strengthening the integrity of the European carbon market. These proposals , which were discussed by the EU Climate Change Committee, include a series of short term actions to allow Member State to improve security in their systems, as well as medium and long term measures to increase both with Member States and through a regular dialogue with stakeholders.

According to the last results released by the European Investment Bank (EIB), in 2010 the total lending provided by the bank reached 72 billion euro, from which 63 billion euro were spent inside the EU and 9 billion euro in projects outside. This funds were allocated to support over 460 large-scale projects, which marks a gradual return to pre-crisis levels as the Bank adapts its activity to the economic environment.