Overview of news items
Here you will find the news items of selected year.
31 December 2008
No more augmentation of acidifying and eutrophying depositions
Until now, the calculated acidifying and eutrophying depositions were augmented to incorporate, for example, natural emissions and emission from outside of Europe. Recently, the contributions from these sources have been re-estimated. Future deposition data will be published without augmentation. Users of these data can augment them for specific purposes, if necessary. This report provides information for doing so.
17 December 2008
2006 More than 60% of Europeans live in zones were air-quality thresholds for PM10 are being exceeded
Sixty percent of the EU27 population lives in zones were the daily PM10 limit value is being exceeded. For nitrogen dioxide (annual limit value) and ozone (8-hour maximum health target value), the percentages are 50 and 46 percent of the population. According to Member States assessments, local traffic is the main contributor to air pollution.
8 December 2008
Climate: Developing countries have to cut emissions by 15 to 30 percent
Studies from IPCC and the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency show that industrialised countries can achieve stabilisation at 450 ppm, if their emissions are reduced by 25 to 40% below 1990 levels, by 2020. Developing countries need to reduce their emissions by15 to 30% below ‘Business-as-usual’, by 2020. These numbers have been adopted as the EU position at the UN Climate Summit in Poznan (Poland).
30 October 2008
Not all climate measures have a favourable effect on air quality
Overall, for air quality, the Dutch climate policy plan ‘Clean and Efficient’ (Schoon en Zuinig) appears to work out well. However, its effect on air quality also remains largely uncertain, partly due to uncertainties around the effectiveness of individual climate measures. For instance, implementing the use of biofuels and the large-scale capture and storage of carbon dioxide could both turn out to have an unfavourable effect on air quality.
24 October 2008
Chance of holding the Frisian Eleven-City Ice-Skating Marathon diminishes further
While in 1950 the chances of realising an ‘Elfstedentocht’ (Frisian Eleven-City Ice-Skating Marathon) were once every 4 years, scientists expect an Elfstedentocht once every 18 years for the present. This is evident from an article published today in the scientific journal Climatic Change, by researchers from the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency. Continuing global warming will lead to further diminishing chances of holding an Elfstedentocht.
7 October 2008
Adaptation to future climate change
Even the most stringent of climate policies will not be able to prevent global warming entirely, according to a new analysis. In addition to efforts to reduce anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, D.P. van Vuuren (Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency) and colleagues assert that societies should also consider strategies for adapting to higher global temperatures.
11 September 2008
The Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency has a new website
Since 11 September 2008, the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency has a new website: www.pbl.nl/en, providing you with information on our new publications, such as the Environmental Balance and Nature Balance 2008. Information on earlier, MNP and RPB publications remain available on www.mnp.nl/en and www.ruimtelijkplanbureau.nl/en/.
10 September 2008
Land becomes increasingly scarce
Global targets for development and the environment will not be achieved if current trends are to continue. Analyses in IPCC Climate Change 2007, UNEP Global Environment Outlook 4, OECD Environmental Outlook to 2030 and the IAASTD Agriculture Assessment all show that swift action is needed, worldwide, to achieve the internationally set targets. From the assessments, land use emerges as a new theme for international policy, as the competition over land is growing.
22 July 2008
Poverty reduction, climate change and biodiversity loss to be tackled as an integrated global problem
The world is too small to simultaneously produce enough food (including meat) for everyone and to deliver biofuels on a large enough scale to slow down climate change and maintain biodiversity. The Netherlands in a Sustainable World (second sustainability outlook) presents sufficient options for fighting poverty, tackling climate change and limiting the loss of biodiversity. The costs of these options can be limited to a few percent of GDP in 2040. However this will only be possible with coordinated international policies.
13 June 2008
Global CO2 emissions increased by 3% in 2007; China contributing two-thirds to increase
In 2007, global emissions of the carbon dioxide (CO2) from fossil fuel use and cement production increased by 3.1%; in 2006 the emissions increased by 3.5%. High fuel prices worldwide and relatively warm winters in Europe and Asia have mitigated the increase. China’s CO2 emissions, having surpassed the USA’s emissions in 2006, are now estimated to be about 14% higher than those of the USA. Since 1990, global CO2 emissions increased by 34%.
11 June 2008
Bioenergy has long-term potential
Potentially, biomass can make a major contribution to the global energy demand in the long term. In 2050, possibly 25-40% of future world energy demand could be produced by making use of crop residues and the production of specific energy crops. It has been taken into account that negative effects occur on food supply, nature reserves and the availability of water. The challenge is to use this potential in a sustainable way.
29 May 2008
Policy gap will have large consequences for biodiversity
The 2010 targets for biodiversity will not be reached under continuation of the present biodiversity policies. The absence of additional biodiversity policies could come at a considerable price, sometime in the future. That is because natural systems will no longer be able to supply valuable services, such as carbon storage in forests and the supply of sufficient amounts of clean freshwater. In short, this is the outcome of a research programme presented today at the 9th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP9) to the Convention on Biological Diversity, in Bonn.
20 May 2008
Halting biodiversity loss in the Netherlands seems unlikely
The Member States of the European Union have set a target to halt the loss of biodiversity by 2010. An evaluation of the progress towards the 2010-target in the Netherlands shows that in the Netherlands the loss of biodiversity is not halted, but slowing down at a low biodiversity level.
24 April 2008
Energy security, air pollution, and climate change: an integrated cost-benefit approach
A combined cost-benefit analysis on energy security, local air pollution and global climate change - three closely related problems, as they are driven by fossil energy - shows that integrated policies can generate net welfare benefits. Furthermore, the CO2 emission reductions in Europe for the medium term can be significant. This finding demonstrates the mutual relevance of, and interaction between, policies designed to, simultaneously, address energy security, local air pollution, and global climate change.
23 April 2008
Responsibility greenhouse gas emissions of Member States shifts to European level
National targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions will become less important when the proposals by the European Commission on Climate and Energy, released earlier this year, will be approved by the European Parliament and the European Council. The proposals shift more of the responsibility for climate policy to the European level: after 2012 national caps for greenhouse gas emissions will partly become defunct. In addition, opportunities for trading ‘Guarantees of Origin’ will increase to meet targets for renewable energy sources.
25 March 2008
New webdossier launched today: integral nitrogen
Through the new web dossier “Integral Nitrogen” MNP communicates its international publications and activities related to nitrogen. Nitrogen compounds (reactive nitrogen) are accumulating in the environment on all local and regional scales, causing problems, such as acidification, eutrophication and loss of biodiversity. Fertiliser production is the main cause of increased reactive nitrogen emission.
5 March 2008
International Environmental Policy stands no chance without Brazil, Russia, India and China
International environmental policy has a chance of succeeding, only if Brazil, Russia, India and China participate, and if swift action is taken; only then will it be affordable and feasible. The OECD Environmental Outlook to 2030 projects that world GDP will almost double by 2030. Policy simulation shows that it would cost just over 1% of that growth to implement policies that can cut key air pollutants by about a third.
to the publication to OECD Environmental Outlook (OECD site)
4 March 2008
Current biofuels do not add to the sustainability of transport
The climate has more to gain from converting biomass into electricity, than to use it to replace petrol or diesel. Therefore, proposals to replace current transport fuels by biofuels are not the best investment in sustainability. This is shown in the report “Local and global consequences of the EU renewable directive for biofuels: testing the sustainability criteria”, by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency. The findings from this study will be presented to the European Parliament, today.
19 February 2008
Global developments largely determine rural Europe's future
The future of Europe’s rural areas will largely be determined by autonomous global driving forces like macroeconomic growth and demographic developments. This is the outcome of EUruralis 2.0, a study of -among other things- the impact of strategic policy options, such as the adjustments to the Common Agricultural Policy and the use of biofuels.
31 January 2008
Empirical critical loads of nitrogen confirm European wide exceedances
The risk of deposition of nutrient nitrogen in Europe, including Natura 2000 areas, is underpinned by a novel compilation of empirical critical loads and uncertainty analysis inspired by the IPCC. Collaboration with the network under the Convention for Long Range Trans-boundary Air Pollution improves the ability of the Coordination Centre for Effects (CCE) to assess the temporal and spatial development of this risk for support of European air pollution policy development.
28 January 2008
Euro VI standards for heavy-duty vehicles will benefit local air quality
The Euro VI proposal of the European Commission specifies the new emission standards for trucks and busses. In the Netherlands, the Euro VI emission standards will lead to local improvements in air quality with respect to nitrogen dioxide (NO2), particulate matter (PM10) and the finer fraction of particulate matter (PM2.5). Compared to other measures, Euro VI is one of the most cost-effective ways to improve air quality near motorways.
16 January 2008
EU 2020 climate target requires five-fold increase in impact of CO2 policies
MNP has estimated that without environmental policies in the EU between 1990 and 2005, emissions of the six greenhouse gases under the Kyoto Protocol would have been approximately 7 % higher in 2005 than they were in reality. Achieving the 2020 EU climate target will require the EU policy impact on CO2 emissions to increase by a factor of almost five.
