What is pollution? Where does it come from? How does pollution affect the environment and how does it affect people’s health? How can Europe move towards zero pollution, in line with the ambition of the European Green Deal? EEA Signals 2020 looks at pollution through different lenses related to the Agency’s work and EU legislation.

This report explains how and why the European Union’s statistics on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)create an illusion of sustainability. It tells a more critical story about sustainability in the EU. The report flags up serious gaps, bringing them to life with 17 individual stories.

Prepared by the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), this report documents how corporate lobbyists have been able to influence and effectively water down the ambition of a long-expected restriction on intentionally added microplastics already at its drafting stage.

Under the Implement for LIFE project, the EEB has published a series of four compliance reports. The environmental topics that are covered in all the reports relate to air, waste and circular economy, biodiversity, water, chemicals, industrial emissions and climate.

The Paris Agreement Compatible (PAC) scenario illustrates a pathway for the transition of the EU’s energy system that is in line with EU leaders’ commitment to the Paris Agreement.

Investing in nature protection and restoration will also be critical for Europe’s economic recovery from the COVID-19 crisis. When restarting the economy, it is crucial to avoid falling back and locking ourselves into damaging old habits.

In this brief, the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) provides good examples of how countries have already translated these into national law, boosting repair and designing products that are meant to last longer.

With one third of humanity currently in lockdown, people all over the world are learning from the Coronavirus pandemic that we cannot take our lifestyles for granted. In the face of fear and suffering we need to have hope.

This report is part of the ‘Trends and Projections in Europe: 2018: Tracking progress towards Europe’s climate and energy targets,’ package. It is based on the most recent reported and approximated data from EU Member States on greenhouse gas emissions, renewable energy uptake and energy consumption.

The European Environment Agency (EEA) produces annual air pollution health risk assessments at the European level. These give an objective and comparable estimate of the impacts of air pollution on the population’s health. This briefing provides an overview of the methodology followed in the assessments.