CHAPTER 5


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The pan-European region and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development


1: External environmental footprint


With globalized trade, a significant share of the environmental impacts linked to a country’s consumption of goods and services takes place outside its borders (Wiedmann 2016). There is growing interest among policy- makers, in many countries, in finding ways to reduce such external environmental impacts of consumption; however, it is not always clear which instruments might offer the most effective ways of doing so.


The Stockholm Environment Institute was commissioned by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency to examine what existing and possible policy instruments Sweden could use to tackle its external environmental footprint. A resulting brief outlined a three-step analytical approach, including mapping the national consumption profile, identifying relevant policy instruments, and classifying and systematically prioritizing them, through which around 60 applicable policy instruments were identified (Persson and Persson 2015).


The Swiss government commissioned UNEP/GRID-Geneva and the Institute of Environmental Sciences, University of Geneva to study the application of planetary boundaries to the national context of Switzerland (Dao et al. 2015). The production of indicators adapted to both global and national scales is the second attempt of this kind, after Sweden (Nykvist et al. 2013). Globally, limits have been crossed for four out of nine planetary boundaries due to human- induced changes: climate change, biosphere integrity, land-system change, and biogeochemical flows (nitrogen and phosphorus) (Steffen et al. 2015). The situation for Switzerland is very similar to the global situation for climate change, ocean acidification and rate of biodiversity loss but worse in the case of nitrogen losses as well as for land cover anthropisation, because of a rapidly evolving footprint. The situation for phosphorus losses is unknown due to a


 Credit: Shutterstock/Robert Schneider 183


lack of footprint data. All in all, the proposed indicators, limits and footprints provide an indication of the ecological sustainability of the impacts induced by Swiss consumption in a long-term global perspective, assuming that past, current and future populations on Earth have, by definition, similar rights to resources.


2: Energy transition


An energy transition in the pan-European region will entail the removal of fossil fuel subsidies, decarbonizing the economy, addressing risks to hydroelectricity with changing rainfall and glacier melting, and the integration of regional electric transmission networks to balance electricity production from different renewable sources and regions. Many Western and Central European countries are particularly dependent on external energy supplies, such as gas from the Russian Federation and North Africa, leading to economic and political vulnerability that could be reduced by developing domestic sources of renewable energy. Much can also be done to change energy consumption patterns and encourage energy efficiency throughout the economy. The pan-European region has the potential to promote innovation in energy technologies and efficiency, and to resolve the challenge of energy storage. Since every technology has its drawbacks, research is needed on the environmental impacts of renewable energy sources, including bioenergy, and the associated risks of conflict with other environmental targets, whether in the region or beyond. An example is the risk of land use change or intensification of management practices triggered by biomass demand conflicting with nature conservation targets. Finally, an emerging environmental issue that particularly concerns the region is the largely underestimated cost of radioactive waste management and decommissioning existing nuclear power plants as they are retired, a cost that has not yet been incorporated in the present cost of electricity.


3:


Healthy Planet, Healthy People The human species in a planetary context


Human health and well-being are based on increasing supply and fulfilment of demands. Like any other species, our basic


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