EPA Climate Showcase Communities: The Power of Peer Exchange
United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)
As part of the wider framework of transatlantic co-operation, the EEA works closely with USEPA. Both organisations engage in similar activities and actively trade expertise and experiences, while developing a common understanding and outlook to practices in the realm of environmental information.
Joint Research Centre (JRC)
The European Commission resources the JRC to provide scientific support for the development, implementation and monitoring of EU policies. This function for the entire Commission is analogous to that which the EEA performs for the Environment Directorate-General. Consequently there is broad scope for mutual co-operation in relation to the ever-expanding research mandate of the EEA beyond prime environmental indicators. A Memorandum of Understanding is in place between the two bodies in relation to technical and scientific co-operation. Areas of mutual activity include protection of natural resources, monitoring climate change, and assessing spatial strategies. These take the form of substantive joint projects as part of the overarching sustainable development agenda.
European Environmental Agency outputs
Range
As a consequence of undertaking such a broad range of researching and networking activities the EEA is able to provide its clients, the members and the Commission, and also the general public, with a massive range of environmental information resources and products. Three of the most significant of these are summarized below.
Europe’s environment: the Third Assessment
This is the current and most extensive evaluation of environmental issues in the pan-European region. The geographical scope of the report extends from Europe to cover Eastern Europe, Russia, and the Caucasus and Central Asian States. The Third Assessment considers in detail the negative influences of economic forces on the European environment and the correlation between economic recession and environmental improvements, and between economic growth and environmental degradation. Economic pressures on the environment are assessed in relation to natural resources, transport, fisheries, energy, tourism, forestry, industry and agriculture. Emerging trends in the condition of the environment are exposed by indicators in biodiversity, air pollution, climate change, soil, chemicals, ozone depletion, waste, technological and natural hazards, and human health.
The website
The EEA website is a veritable treasure trove of environmental information and has been developed to raise public awareness of environmental matters through providing easy and efficient access to countless environmental documents. The website stores details of all the relevant environmental indicators national reporting documentation for the countries of the pan-European region. Detailed information can be accessed by country and by topic, providing optimum research flexibility. Feeding into the website are a number of environmental networks, the most prominent being EIONET. These network sites also display information on thematic indicators and monitoring in detail. Perhaps the most innovative feature of the website is the provision of an online environmental glossary. Environmental language can be very technical and scientific and the glossary defines over 700 phrases in ordinary layman’s vocabulary in 23 languages, accompanied by definition sources and options for further research on the chosen phrase.
Environmental Signals Report
The current report, Environmental Signals 2002 – Benchmarking the Millennium, is the third in an ongoing series of reports. Though accessible to the general public, the tone of the report is targeted at the key environmental policymakers in EEA countries. While the five-yearly state of the environment reports contain exhaustive analysis of the environment as an elongated snapshot in time and may show dramatic transformations, the Signals Report focuses on trends and indications as a guide to the future prospects of the environment.
The Signals Report examines indicators for each of the countries and assesses them against the various targets set in each area over a specific timeframe.
These are graded on a scale of:
(a) Positive trend, moving towards target;
(b) Some positive development, but either insufficient to reach target or mixed trends within the indicator; and
(c) Unfavourable trend.
In this manner the report enables governments and agencies to identify sources of potential difficulty and take appropriate steps to address the issues in the area. The report will also indicate the positive developments and enable agencies to determine and distinguish between effective and defective implementation processes, resulting in an overall improvement in the national environmental promotion expertise and superior environmental conditions.
Conclusion
The EEA as a source of environmental information is invaluable to the European policy-makers, at both EU and Member State level, and to the public generally. It is also extremely relevant to researchers, both academic and professional. One could readily imagine a situation where, for example, a complex environmental case would necessitate a consideration of some of the issues that have been investigated and reported by the EEA. With the development of environmental litigation in this jurisdiction, there is no doubt that the resources available through the EEA could be of great assistance to Irish lawyers dealing with these issues.
