Focus areasWhere we work
Who is Who
Useful links
|
EU-Members/Candidates
Integrated Environmental Policies
Water Governance
Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Land Management
Energy and Climate Change
|
Latest UNDP Projects
[ more projects ]
UNDP Publications |
||
 |
Copyright © 2009
United Nations Development Programme |
|
EU environmental legislation is considered to be well established. More integrated policies, including further use of market-based instruments designed across environmental problems and sectors still remain the challenge. Most of the EU member states have established national sustainable development strategies but there is little evidence of these being implemented. Due to the failure to adequately address institutional integration the progress in sectoral integration has been rather slow. The 6th Environment Action Programme identifies five strategic objectives: to improve the implementation of existing environmental legislation at national and regional levels; to better integrate environmental concerns into other policy areas; to work closely with business and consumers in a more market-driven approach to identifying solutions; to ensure better and more accessible information on the environment for citizens; and to develop a more environment-conscious attitude towards land use planning.
Estimates of future water abstraction for agriculture are closely correlated to estimates of the future area under irrigation. Baseline assumptions expect land irrigation to increase by 20 percent or more by 2030 in southern Europe, EU-candidate countries, and in Hungary, Malta, and Cyprus, but remain more or less at current levels in other European countries. Water withdrawal for irrigation is the largest share of overall water abstraction in EU candidate countries and will be in future as well.
Fragmentation of landscapes and suburbanisation of rural areas continue to reduce areas available for fauna and flora. In addition, the continuing acidification and eutrophication facilitates the expansion of robust generalist species at the expense of specialist species. The latter are particularly threatened by climate change, which changes the conditions under which they can grow. 
Despite continuing increases, total energy consumption is expected to decouple significantly in relative terms from GDP over the coming decades, consolidating past improvements in energy intensity. The policy targets for renewable energy sources and combined heat and power are not expected to be met by EU-member/candidate countries. In terms of climate change policy, EU member/candidate countries are expected to largely meet their Kyoto Protocol targets with existing domestic policies and measures. By 2012, new EU members’ green house gas emissions are expected to be about 18 percent below 1990 levels (this includes Cyprus and Malta, which don’t have Kyoto Protocol targets).