Rising temperatures” “

Taxing pollution instead of labour: that is one of the suggestions made by the European Environmental Agency (EEA). It has also proposed some recipes to combat smog, which is threatening people’s health and having a negative impact on nature. The occasion for it to make specific proposals in this field occurred on Tuesday, 29 November, with the presentation of the five-year Report of the EU agency, which is based in Copenhagen. E Europe “suffering from global warming”. According to the experts of the EEA, “in the summer of 2003 alone ten percent of Alpine glaciers disappeared. At the current rate, three-quarters of Swiss glaciers will melt by 2050”. The title of the Report is: “The Environment in Europe – State and Prospects in 2005”. It contains general evaluations of the situation and “a country-by-country analysis with indicators of the results and comparisons between all the participating countries: the 25 member states of the EU, plus Bulgaria, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Romania, Turkey and Switzerland”. The hefty publication states that “the average temperature of Europe has increased by 0.95°C during the 20th century” and adds that “temperatures will continue to rise”. “The major problem in the environmental field is currently the heating up of the climate”; “the four hottest years were 1998, 2002, 2003 and 2004”. Europe “has not witnessed climate change on this scale for 5,000 years”. The first challenge that needs to be addressed is therefore that of climate change, although “biodiversity, marine ecosystems, water and terrestrial resources, atmospheric pollution and health are also giving rise to concern”. Action of governments and “lifestyles”. The EEA dossier acknowledges that “the European Union has recognized the problems of the heating up of the climate” and “has set itself the objective of limiting the global rise of temperature to 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels. If we fail to intervene in an effective manner for several decades, the polar ice-sheets to the north will melt and the phenomenon of desertification to the south will be accentuated as a result of global warming”. The Report also gives a warning on the demographic and social level, directly linked to this problem: “The population of the continent could [as a result] be concentrated entirely in the central regions”. Moreover, the experts of the European Environmental Agency, founded in 1994, predict that “even if we limit the rise of global warming to the objective of 2 degrees fixed by the Union, we will live in atmospheric conditions utterly new for human beings”. According to Jacqueline McGlade, Executive Director of the EEA, “we need to reduce emissions in a more decisive manner”. She therefore appeals to national governments and the European Union to face up to their responsibilities, but she also calls into question the lifestyles of European citizens. Results and new frontiers. “Previous EU provisions – McGlade concedes – have worked. We have improved the quality of water and air, gradually eliminated some substances that were depleting the ozone layer and doubled the rates for the recycling of wastes. We now have vehicles that are less polluting: without the substantial improvements made by catalytic converters [for the decomposition of the toxic gases of automobile exhausts] over the last twenty years, some emissions would have been ten times higher than current levels. Nonetheless, ten if not twenty years were needed to see the results of these interventions”. Research recognizes the results obtained thanks to EU provisions and policies, but she immediately adds: “Now these examples of environmental successes risk being overtaken by changes in individual models of consumption”. According to McGlade, “political decisions must be farsighted. We need to progressively abandon taxes on labour and on investments in favour of taxes on pollution and on the inefficient use of materials and territory. But we also need to reform the way in which subsidies are applied to transport, house building, energy and agriculture. We need aid that may encourage sustainable practices and efficient technologies”. “The Union can set an example”. In recent decades heavy taxation on petrol in Europe and high normative standards have led to the development of vehicles that, from the viewpoint of fuel consumption, are almost twice as efficient as those in circulation on American roads”. On the other hand, “we have seen the cost of failure to act in terms of human lives and the environment, with examples such as the exhaustion of fish stocks, the use of asbestos in buildings and acid rain”. The head of the EEA adds: “Citizens are ready to do more for the environment if they see positive results. Europe has all its papers in order to set an example in this regard”.