{"id":104510,"date":"2025-10-06T00:04:21","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T00:04:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/104510\/"},"modified":"2025-10-06T00:04:21","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T00:04:21","slug":"environmental-damage-is-putting-european-way-of-life-at-risk-says-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/104510\/","title":{"rendered":"Environmental damage is putting European way of life at risk, says report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The European way of life is being jeopardised by environmental degradation, a report has found, with EU officials warning against weakening green rules.<\/p>\n<p>The continent has made \u201cimportant progress\u201d in cutting planet-heating pollution, according to the European Environment Agency, but the death of wildlife and breakdown of the climate are ruining ecosystems that underpin the economy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The seventh edition of the report, which has been published every five years since 1995, found:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"listbullet\">\n<li>More than 80% of protected habitats are in a poor or bad state, with \u201cunsustainable\u201d consumption and production patterns driving loss of wildlife.<\/li>\n<li>The EU\u2019s \u201ccarbon sink\u201d has declined by about 30% in a decade as logging, wildfires and pests damage forests.<\/li>\n<li>Emissions from transport and food have barely budged since 2005, despite progress in other sectors.<\/li>\n<li>Member states have failed to adapt to extreme weather as fast as risk levels have risen.<\/li>\n<li>Water stress already affects one in three Europeans and will worsen as the climate changes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cWe are struggling to meet our 2030 targets in many areas,\u201d said Leena Yl\u00e4-Mononen, the executive director of the agency.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\n            This is, basically, putting at risk the future prosperity, competitiveness and quality of life of Europeans.\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The warning comes amid a rollback of green rules as far-right parties that deny the science of climate change gain ground across the continent.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The US has also put pressure on EU leaders to buy its fossil fuels and ditch pollution standards that affect imported goods.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">In a  <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishexaminer.com\/news\/politics\/arid-41710898.html\">speech at the UN on Wednesday<\/a>, US president Donald Trump claimed without evidence that many European countries were on the \u201cbrink of destruction because of the green energy agenda\u201d. He blamed a 37% drop in EU emissions since 1990 for lost jobs and factory closures.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The three most senior EU officials responsible for environmental policy \u2014Teresa Ribera, Jessika Roswall and Wopke Hoekstra \u2014 used the findings of the report to argue for continued climate action and warned against seeing it as a financial burden.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cThe costs of inaction are enormous, and climate change poses a direct threat to our competitiveness,\u201d said Hoekstra, the EU\u2019s climate commissioner. \u201cStaying the course is essential to safeguarding our economy.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Ribera, who is in charge of competition and the green transition, said: \u201cDelaying or postponing climate targets would only increase costs, deepen inequalities and weaken our resilience.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu caption\">Specific targets &#8216;not on track&#8217;<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The report paints the most comprehensive picture yet of Europe\u2019s environment, though lengthy verification processes mean the most recent data for some issues dates as far back as 2021.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">It found only two of 22 specific policy targets for 2030 \u2014 greenhouse gas emissions and ozone-depleting substances \u2014 were \u201clargely on track\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Nine were \u201clargely not on track\u201d, with the rest showing a mixed trend.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">One of the few positive wildlife trends was the growth of protected areas, which rose to 26.1% of land and 12.3% of sea in 2022.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Progress toward a circular economy was also poor. Material demand met by recycling rose only slightly \u2014 from 10.7% in 2010 to 11.8% in 2023.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cThe real red flag is our consumption,\u201d said Tobias Lung, co-author of the report. \u201cOur consumption levels are way, way, way too high.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The European way of life is being jeopardised by environmental degradation, a report has found, with EU officials&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104511,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[269],"tags":[442,18,440,19,17,133],"class_list":{"0":"post-104510","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-climate-change","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-science"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}