Author(s): Adina Dornean,Ada-Iuliana Popescu / Language(s): English
Publication Year: 0
Since the adoption of the European Green Deal in 2020, the European Union constantly tried to improve its environmental protection policy, aiming to develop a climate-neutral economy that will help Europe to become the world’s first ‘climate-neutral’ continent, with net zero GHG emissions by 2050. Indeed, according to 2022 estimates, the EU has successfully reduced its GHG net emissions by 31% since 1990, meeting its 2020 targets without sacrificing its prosperity. The use of renewable energy and the increase of energy efficiency proved to be of paramount importance for cutting down pollution. Even though, so far, progress has been made by Member States, the achievement of climate neutrality by 2050 imposes a faster pace on them. Still, their policies, strategies, programs and measures need to be well-synchronized in content and timing to curb climate change and protect prosperity. To measure the results and to anticipate future efforts require adequate tools. One of these is the environmental performance index (EPI), a complex global environmental indicator based on 40 performance indicators grouped into 11 issue categories, which are tracking progress on three broad policy objectives: environmental health, ecosystem vitality, and climate change.The objective of the paper is to analyze the environmental performance of the European Union (EU) countries, measured according to the environmental performance index (EPI), in order to highlight the impact of the European regulations and how these contributed to better environmental performance, taking into consideration the fact that demanding environmental policy is associated with greater competitiveness and more eco-innovation, according to the European Environment Agency (EEA).
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