The European environment — state and outlook 2020: knowledge for transition to a sustainable Europe

In 2020, Europe faces environmental challenges of unprecedented scale and urgency.

Although EU environment and climate policies have delivered substantial benefits over recent decades, Europe faces persistent problems in areas such as biodiversity loss, resource use, climate change impacts and environmental risks to health and well-being. Global megatrends such as demographic change are intensifying many environmental challenges, while rapid technological change brings new risks and uncertainties.

The EU has committed to a range of long-term sustainability goals with the overall aim of ‘living well, within the limits of our planet’. Achieving these goals will not be possible without a rapid and fundamental shift in the character and ambition of Europe’s responses.

Europe needs to find ways to transform the key societal systems that drive environment and climate pressures and health impacts — rethinking not just technologies and production processes but also consumption patterns and ways of living. This will require immediate and concerted action, engaging diverse policy areas and actors across society in enabling systemic change.