Working paper in Political and Decision-Making in European Union 1 Decision-making process regarding climate change regulation in European Union 2009 - 2013: The role of European Environment Agency Eduardo Oliveira* School of Social Science |University Sains Malaysia School of Economics and Management |University of Minho Abstract This working paper seeks to contribute to the debate about the role of The European Environment Agency and it is argued that in order to capture a fuller picture of their functioning, we need to go beyond a legal framework (legislation from European Commission as Green and White papers), taking into account institutional features that involve both formal and informal processes. The inception of the European Environment Agency (EEA) was in 1991. Over the years the EEA has become a more loyal partner to the European Commission in the European administrative system, balancing the ability to have a credible voice on the one hand and the need for stability and a secure resource supply on the other. The Agency has also been able to meet increasing demands for information without a similar scale of increase in resources, also pointing to efficiency gains within the organisation. In the Agency we strive to give value for money across an enormous environmental agenda. This is essential in today's climate of increased financial pressure and the growing number of organisations working on environmental issues. To contribute directly to European Union (EU) policy developments on climate change impacts by refining relevant indicators, producing assessments, combined with socio-economic factors in Europe, using past trends, now casting, spatial analysis, forward looking assessments, and policy effectiveness analysis including economic aspects. Key-words: European Union; European Environment Agency; Climate change; Decision-making;
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Working paper in Political and Decision-Making in European Union
1
Decision-making process regarding climate change regulation in
European Union 2009 - 2013: The role of European Environment Agency
Eduardo Oliveira*
School of Social Science |University Sains Malaysia
School of Economics and Management |University of Minho
Abstract
This working paper seeks to contribute to the debate about the role of The European
Environment Agency and it is argued that in order to capture a fuller picture of their functioning,
we need to go beyond a legal framework (legislation from European Commission as Green and
White papers), taking into account institutional features that involve both formal and informal
processes. The inception of the European Environment Agency (EEA) was in 1991. Over the
years the EEA has become a more loyal partner to the European Commission in the European
administrative system, balancing the ability to have a credible voice on the one hand and the
need for stability and a secure resource supply on the other. The Agency has also been able to
meet increasing demands for information without a similar scale of increase in resources, also
pointing to efficiency gains within the organisation. In the Agency we strive to give value for
money across an enormous environmental agenda. This is essential in today's climate of
increased financial pressure and the growing number of organisations working on environmental
issues.
To contribute directly to European Union (EU) policy developments on climate change impacts by
refining relevant indicators, producing assessments, combined with socio-economic factors in
Europe, using past trends, now casting, spatial analysis, forward looking assessments, and policy
effectiveness analysis including economic aspects.
Key-words: European Union; European Environment Agency; Climate change; Decision-making;
Working paper in Political and Decision-Making in European Union
Working paper in Political and Decision-Making in European Union
3
1. Introduction
The European Environmental Agency (EEA) is well placed to further develop its role as a provider
of independent and assured environmental information. This new strategy will continue to
support the aims of the Environment Action Programmes of the European Union (EU). This
climate change, nature and biodiversity, environment and health as well as natural resources and
waste will continue to be at the at the centre of the work of the EEA. The new Strategy will also
take forward the Shared Environmental Information System (SEIS).
Integrated environmental assessments and anticipating new thinking, especially about ecosystem
services, eco-efficiency and emerging technologies and innovations will play a key role in shaping
European environmental policies. Well designed environmental policies are necessary and
positive for our society and economy. The EEA will continue to work closely with neighbouring
countries, in particular the West Balkan region, as Croatia and Macedonia.
According with the EEA Strategy 2009–2013 — Multi-annual Work Programme, at the electronic
address of the European Commission Environment1 -> and the electronic address of the
European Environment Agency (EEA)2 (Martens 2010: 893), the EEA regulation came into force
in 1993 after it was decided to locate the organization in Copenhagen, Denmark. The regulation
also established the European environment information and observation network EIONET.
EIONET consists of the EEA itself and around 900 experts from 38 countries in national
environment agencies and other bodies dealing with environmental information.
The Management Board (Board) is formally the main decision-taker. It decides on the final
versions of the work programmes and budgets and approves annual reports. The Board is
composed of four senior officials from the European Commission and one from each Member
State in addition to two designated members who are independent scholars, reporting to the
environmental committee of the European Parliament. The chairperson of the Board, the four
vice-chairpersons, one Commission representative and one of the members designated by the
Parliament constitute the Bureau of the agency. The Bureau is entitled to make executive
decisions in between meetings of the Board. The EEA provides the secretariat of the Bureau. The
EEA has also a Scientific Committee whose main function is advisory. It comprises approximately
20 members, and it is consulted in quality control of the work programme and the different
reports of the agency.
1 URL:http://ec.europa.eu/environment/index_en.htm, October 2010. 2 URL:http://www.eea.europa.eu/ in the line of Martens (2010: 893).
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The EEA has its own information centre that gives responses to external requests for information.
It was expanded in 2006 and receives about 500 requests monthly.
The EU may have a more important role to play in supporting voluntary agreements. It appears
that the most effective voluntary initiatives with industrial sectors have been underpinned by EU
framework legislation. If implementation of Directives could come about through voluntary or
negotiated agreements member states might be more willing to agree to more ambitious targets.
Industry may play a more constructive role if it has a greater say in implementation. Without the
regulatory framework, preferably at EU level, such agreements will be impossible to monitor and
are unlikely to deliver significant environmental change.
On this working paper we will start with a overview concerning the environment and the role of
the EEA, following the main issue concerning the climate change and finalize with the conclusion
about the practical action and policy making results of the interaction between EEA and the main
bodies of the European Union, as European Parliament and European Commission. The
framework is the years between 2009 and 2013 because of the last EEA Strategy 2009–2013 —
Multi-annual Work Programme.
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2. Overview
The society at large does not appear to be deeply concerned with global warming, and as a
result, is not yet acting on the ever-more urgent warnings emanating from the science and
advocacy communities. Despite encouraging signs, ignorance, disinterest, apathy, and opposition
are still prevalent. The resulting frustration among climate scientists and advocates runs high.
They see the problem of global warming as urgent, difficult but not impossible to address, and
needing immediate and substantial societal action. Yet their strategies to raise the sense of
urgency in the public and among policy-makers don’t seem to be working.
Well, some things are being done, but not nearly enough to be commensurate with the
magnitude of the problem. While the balance of available scientific evidence conveys an
increasing sense of urgency, society as a whole (Bostrom et al. 1994).
2.1. Climate Change
2.1.1. Conflating weather and climate
The weather is the state of the atmosphere at a definite time and place with respect to heat or
cold, wetness or dryness, calm or storm, clearness or cloudiness; meteorological conditions.
The climate, is the average course or condition of the weather at a particular place over a period
of many years, as exhibited in absolute extremes, means, and frequencies of given departures
from these means, of temperature, wind velocity, precipitation, and other weather elements
Bostrom et al. (1994).
The evidence that people conflate weather and global climate change comes from a variety of
sources, including public opinion polls, focus groups, and cognitive studies. For almost two
decades, both national polls and in-depth studies of global warming perceptions have shown that
people commonly conflate weather and global climate change. Simply talking about climate
change in the way that has been done for the past few decades is not creating a sense of
urgency or effective action. Certainly, there is an important role still for making the science of
global warming accessible to the public. This function has served well in raising the issue to the
high level of awareness that it already enjoys. Providing more information or speaking more
loudly about climate change, is not enough.
Carbon dioxide is invisible and at atmospheric concentrations have no direct negative health
impacts on humans as do other air pollutants. Moreover, it has taken a while (in most places) for
impacts on the environment to be detected. Most people do not connect driving their cars or
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flipping on a light switch with emitting CO2 into the atmosphere. As a social problem, then, it is
just not visible or experienced directly in the same way that job losses, obesity, or traffic
congestion, social issues in the communities.
The impacts of global warming are typically perceived as remote. Images of ice receding in the
Arctic and sea-level rise affecting distant tropical islands in the Pacific, while dramatic, do not
personally affect most of the world’s population (McCarthy et al., 2001; Rayner and Malone,
1998; O’Brien and Leichenko, 2000).
Current weather is treated as evidence for or against global climate change, with anecdotes more
common than not (Williams, 2005). In what might be seen by non-scientific audiences as only
subtly different from use of weather anecdotes, changes in the frequency or patterns of extreme
events have long been cited by climate scientists as evidence of global warming (Webster et al.,
2005).
The heat wave in Europe in the summer of 2003, and the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons
appear to have triggered a shift away from this public dissociation. Stott, Stone, and Allen (2004)
estimated the contribution of human-induced increases in atmospheric concentrations of
greenhouse gases and other pollutants to the risk of a heat wave surpassing a mean temperature
threshold: the mean summer temperature in 2003 exceeded their threshold, but no other year
on record did (records started in 1851). They estimated that it is very likely (with greater than 90
percent confidence) that human influence has at least doubled the risk of experiencing such an
extreme heat wave.
2.2. Climate Change: Risks and Opportunities for economy and communities3
I the line of Solana (2009), the climate change will not be addressed by international agreements
alone, like the last Climate Conference in Copenhagen (2009). The issues run much deeper than
that. This is a “man-made problem” which puts our very way of life in many uncertain questions.
Formulating a response requires many actors to come together –not just politicians and
diplomats, but scientists, business people, ecologists, students, entrepreneurs, young
entrepreneurs, and leaders in many other fields. The main goal of this essay is writing about the
key-factors of the climate change and the potential impact in society: environment; business;
3 This item 2.2 is an summarize of the essay – “Climate Change and Social Order: Risks and Opportunities for Business and the Economy? Bridging the gap between climate and society”, present by Eduardo Oliveira in the conference – ‘Challenge the Best’, an interdisciplinary conference on the topic of “Climate Change and Social Order - Evolution or Revolution”, held at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, 17th of May 2010.
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economy; communities in the globalization context. The emergent phenomenon of climate
change – understood here simultaneously as physical transformation and social object, as a
mutating hybrid entity in which the strained lines between the natural and the social are
dissolving – therefore needs a new examination, or a new social order. “Geopolitics doesn’t stop
because climate change and other environmental pressures confront the global society” (Paskal,
2010).
The globalization has increased global shifts of resources, capital and people, and has intensified
the competition among places’, as countries, regions and cities, for attention, influence, markets,
investments, businesses, entrepreneurs, visitors, talents and significant events. This place
competition asks for long-term strategies in organizations’ and for the best strategies in order to
improve the local and regional development with respect of the human rights, the environment,
with peace and sustainable development of the resources not only in the present, but also for
future generations. “If we don’t take meaningful and farsighted action now to address climate
change, we are not only failing those who suffer today.
We are also putting at risk the well-being of our planet and future generations” (Robinson, 2009).
This long-term strategies must be implemented with a community participation. We cannot
pursue either in isolation; we need work in cooperation between top leaders, poor countries and
social actors. One of the fundamental questions in this topic – climate change and social order,
in my opinion, is the communities’ participation. For example, the Copenhagen Climate Council4
identifies the “Climate Community” as one chance to influence the climate agenda. The “Climate
Community” gives the necessary access to insights from and the ability to interact with high-level
climate experts, opinion makers, decision makers, and business innovators. All this key-actors,
this thinkers, the young fresh talents have to work together to find appropriate responses to the
consequences of a changing climate – natural disasters, changing livelihood prospects,
migration, political instability and the necessity of global acting.
The relationship between climate and society has been dynamic throughout human history and
pre-history, a relationship that has been variously elemental, creative and fearful. The relationship
has now taken a more intimate turn. Human actions, globally aggregated, are changing the
composition of the atmosphere which alters the functioning of the climate system.
Future climates will not be like past climates. We have often worried about this possibility and
now the knowledge claims of science have offered new reasons to be concerned. Humanity is
4 URL: http://www.copenhagenclimatecouncil.com/, March 2010.
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now firmly embedded within the functioning of the climate system, whilst at the same time the
idea of climate change is penetrating and changing society in novel ways (Hulme, 2007).
Michael Porter and Claas van der Lindeii wrote about the new conception of the environment-
competitiveness relationship. They conclude that relationship, between environmental goals
(Business and the Economy) and industrial competitiveness has normally been thought of as
involving a trade-off between social benefits and private costs.
Is imperative do this question – What is the challenge to the main countries? What is the
challenge to the world economic and business leaders? The world needs an evolution or
revolution? They need an entirely new way of thinking about the relationship between
environment, the climate change and economic and business reaction in competitiveness
dynamic perspective. The focus should be on relaxing the environment-competitiveness and
climate community with an orientation from pollution control to resource productivity.
The economic and business actors have in the hand an opportunity. They can build ecological
business models, and the way to the success, must involve innovation-based solutions that
promote both environmentalism and industrial competitiveness.
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3. The European Environment Agency (EEA)
The EEA is not a regulatory agency. It is an information-gathering agency like most of the
European agencies created since 1990 (Dehousse, 2008 in Martens, 2010: 882).
However, the starting point for studying the EEA is that information provided by agencies may
influence political decision-making, and the informational role they play may have considerable
implications for their autonomy. Information is not neutral or apolitical since it “structures the
definition of problems, solutions and causal understandings” (Gornitzka and Sverdrup, 2008: 1 in
Martens, 2010: 882).
Several scholars who study European agencies have recently highlighted “the multifaceted nature
of their institutional surroundings in order to understand their creation and functioning”. They
point to different preferences of different actors at different levels of government, including the
Commission, the Council, Parliament, Member States and private actors, resulting in a
multiplicity of formal control mechanisms (Dehousse, 2008; Gehring and Krapohl, 2007;
Kelemen, 2002 in Martens, 2010: 882).
3.1. Mission and values
The European Environment Agency (EEA) is a European public body dedicated to providing
objective, reliable and comparable information on the environment. The mission of the EEA:
Ensure that decision-makers and the general public are kept informed about the state
and outlook of the environment.
The EEA also provides the necessary independent scientific knowledge and technical support to
enable the Community and member countries take appropriate measures to protect and improve
the environment as laid down by the Treaty and by successive Community action programmes on
the environment and sustainable development. The EEA works in partnership with government
departments and agencies, international conventions and United Nations (UN) bodies, the
scientific community, private sector and civil society.
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The EEA undertakes a comprehensive range of integrated environmental and thematic
assessments. These include a five-yearly state and outlook of the environment report, thematic
and sectoral assessments, analyses of the effectiveness of policy measures, forward studies and
the impacts of globalisation on Europe's environment and resources. The EEA is an important
source and custodian of environment-related data and indicators and a key provider of
environmental knowledge and information services.
The EEA strategy 2009–2013 is the fourth Multi-annual Work Programme of the Agency; it was
adopted by the EEA Management Board through written procedure following its 52nd meeting on
26 November 2008 (EEA Strategy 2009–2013 — Multi-annual Work Programme, searched in
October 2010).
The working capacity of the EEA is enhanced by its five European Topic Centres:
Air and Climate Change;
Biological Diversity;
Land Use;
Spatial Information, Water and Sustainable Consumption and Production.
The topic centres are distributed across the EEA member countries. The EEA works with an