Overview

• The European Environment Agency’s five-year assessment says the overall state of Europe’s environment is not good, even as EU greenhouse gas emissions have fallen about 37% since 1990.
• Roughly 81% of protected habitats are in poor or bad condition and the EU’s carbon sink has shrunk by around 30% in a decade due to logging, wildfires and pests.
• Water stress now affects about one in three Europeans, many water bodies fail ecological standards, and large areas of soil are degraded.
• Extreme weather has caused over 240,000 deaths in the EU since 1980 and annual economic losses from 2020–2023 were about 2.5 times higher than in 2010–2019, while most countries still lack robust heatwave plans.
• EU governments failed to present a formal 2035 emissions plan and remain split over a 90% by 2040 target, with transport and agriculture emissions showing little improvement since 2005.