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GLOSSARY
CORINAIR - CORe INventory of AIR emissions. CORINAIR is a project performed since 1995 by the European Topic Centre on Air Emissions under contract to the European Environment Agency. The aim is to collect, maintain, manage and publish information on emissions into the air, by means of a European air emission inventory and database system. This concerns air emissions from all sources relevant to the environmental problems of climate change, acidification, eutrophication, tropospheric ozone, air quality and dispersion of hazardous substances. Before 1995 the CORINAIR project was developed under the CORINE programme of the EU (CO-oRdination d’INformation Environnementale, a programme established by Council Decision 85/338/EEC). The geographical scope of the current CORINAIR project is the 15 EU Member States, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway (EEA18 countries) and Central and Eastern and other European countries. For more information see: http://etc-ae.eionet.eu.int/etc-ae/index.htm
DGXI - Directorate-General XI of the European Commission, responsible for European Community policies for the environment, nuclear safety and civil protection. Its actions are carried out within the strategy defined in 1992 by the European Community Fifth Programme of Policy and Action in Relation to the Environment and Sustainable Development ‘Towards Sustainability’. DG XI is based in Brussels and Luxembourg. For more information see: http://europa.eu.int/comm/dg11/index_en.htm
EEA - European Environment Agency was established by the European Union (EU) in 1993 with the objective to provide the Community and the Member States with objective, reliable and comparable information at the European level, enabling its member states to take the requisite measures to protect their environment, to assess the result of such measures and to ensure that the public is properly informed about the state of the environment. The EEA’s mandate is defined by Council Regulation (EEC) No. 1210/90, updated in 1999 (Regulation 933/1999).
The geographical scope of the Agency’s work is not confined to Member States of the EU; membership is open to other countries that share the concerns of the EU and member states and the objectives of the Agency. Current membership includes all 15 EU states, as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway (EEA18 countries). Furthermore EEA co-operates with Central and Eastern and other European countries. For more information see: http://www.eea.eu.int
EMEP - the Co-operative programme for monitoring and evaluation of the long range transmission of air pollutants in Europe, linked to the Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (see LRTAP). The main objective of the EMEP programme is to regularly provide Governments and subsidiary bodies under the LRTAP Convention with qualified scientific information to support the development and further evaluation of the international protocols on emission reductions negotiated within the Convention (LRTAP).
EMEP has three main components:
At present, about 100 monitoring stations in 24 ECE countries participate in the programme.
The work of EMEP is co-ordinated and approved by a Steering Body, which reports to the Executive Body of the Convention (LRTAP). In 1991 the Executive Body also established a Task Force on Emission Inventories (TFEI), to review present emission inventories and reporting procedures for the purpose of further improvement and harmonisation. See TFEI. For more information see http://www.emep.int/index.html
ENERO - the European Network of Environmental Research Organisations, which includes: NETCEN (UK), Risø (Denmark), ENEA (Italy), TNO (Netherlands).
ETC - European Topic Centre, an organisation appointed by the EEA for executing tasks on specific topics, including collecting, maintaining, managing and publishing data, analysing data and trends and assessing linkages with other information through integrated environmental assessment. For more information see: http://www.eionet.eu.int/
EU - the European Union, currently comprising of 15 Member States, namely Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. For more information see: http://www.europa.eu.int/
Eurostat - the ‘Statistical Office of the European Communities’, whose mission is to provide the European Union with a high-quality statistical information service. Eurostat uses uniform rules to collect all statistical data from the National Statistical Institutes of each of the 15 Member States of the European Union. For more information see: http://europa.eu.int/en/comm/eurostat/serven/home.htm.
IEA - the International Energy Agency, based in Paris, is an autonomous agency linked with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). IPCC - the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was established in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to assess the available scientific, technical, and socio-economic information in the field of climate change.
The IPCC is organised into three working groups, the tasks of which are broadly:
The IPCC released its Second Assessment Report in 1995 and continues to produce Technical Papers and develop methodologies (e.g. national greenhouse gas inventories) for use by Parties to the Climate Change Convention. The Third Assessment Report will be completed in the year 2000. For more information see: http://www.ipcc.ch/
LRTAP Convention - Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution - is the observed effect that air pollutants can travel several thousand kilometres before deposition and damage occurs (acidification, eutrophication, tropospheric ozone and dispersion of hazardous substances). To address this problem, the UN ECE Convention on Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution was signed in Geneva in 1979 and entered into force in 1983.
The Convention was the first internationally legally binding instrument to deal with problems of air pollution on a broad regional basis.
Since its entry into force in 1983 the Convention has been extended by seven protocols:
Besides laying down the general principles of international co-operation for air pollution abatement, the Convention set up an institutional framework associating research and policy. The Executive Body’s annual report sets out its work plan and its tentative calendar of meetings. For more information see: http://www.unece.org
MAP - control of Major Air Pollutants project, designed by the OECD to assess pollution by large scale photochemical oxidant episodes in Western Europe and evaluate the impact of various emission control strategies for such episodes.
The MAP emission inventory covered the following pollutants: SO2, NOx, and VOCs, including natural emissions.
OECD - the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, established in 1961, to provide governments of member countries with a forum in which to discuss, develop and perfect economic and social policy. There are currently 29 member countries. Through OECD they compare experiences, seek answers to common problems and work to co-ordinate domestic and international policies that increasingly in today’s globalised world must form a web of even practice across nations.
Over time, the OECD’s focus has broadened to include extensive contacts with non-member economies, for example in the former Soviet Union. These contacts aim to further economic integration by making OECD’s experience available to others and enabling the OECD to profit from the insights and perspectives of non-members. For more information see: http://www.oecd.org/
PRTR - Pollution Release and Transfer Register - an environmental database or inventory of potentially harmful releases to air, water and soil as well as wastes transported off site for treatment and disposal.
Facilities releasing one or more of the substances report periodically as to what they release, how much and to which environmental media. Data are then made available to interested parties. In addition to collecting data for PRTRs from stationary sources, some PRTRs are designed to include estimates of releases from diffuse sources such as agricultural and transport activities based on other data elements (e.g. number of automobiles).
The development and implementation of a PRTR system adapted to national needs represent a means for governments to track the generation, release and the fate of various pollutants over time. A PRTR can be an important tool in the total environment policy of a government, providing otherwise difficult to obtain information about the pollution burden, encouraging reporters to reduce pollution, and engendering broad public support for government environmental policies.
In 1996 the OECD published the ‘Guidance Manual for Governments’ [OCDE/GD(96)32], which addresses the key factors countries should consider when developing a PRTR. For more information see: http://www.oecd.org//ehs/prtr/index.htm
SNAP - Selected Nomenclature for sources of Air Pollution - developed as part of the CORINAIR project for distinguishing emission source sectors, sub-sectors and activities.
TFEI - the Task Force on Emission Inventories which was established in 1991, following agreement by the Executive Body for the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP), to support the work of EMEP. It is sponsored by Members of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UN ECE).
For more information on the TFEI, see the previous chapter (AETF.doc) or http://www.aeat.co.uk/netcen/airqual/TFEI/unece.htm
TRI - the Toxic Release Inventory - of the US EPA provides the first comprehensive overview of toxic chemical pollution from manufacturing facilities in the United States. For more information see: http://www.epa.gov/opptintr/tri
UN ECE - the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe is the forum at which the countries of North America, western, central and eastern Europe and central Asia come together to forge the tools of their economic co-operation. UN ECE is a forum for dialogue aimed at bringing about better understanding and agreement on common guidelines and policies, and where agreements exist to negotiate and assist activities prepared. Its main purpose is to harmonise the policies and practices of its member countries, to facilitate economic exchange investment and the integration of transport networks, and to make environmental procedures more effective. For more information see: http://www.unece.org/
UNFCCC - the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is the main international agreement through which countries are addressing the issue of climate change. The Convention sets an ultimate objective of stabilising ‘greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic (human-induced) interference with the climate system’. The 1992 Convention took effect in 1994 and the Treaty was signed by 165 states. In 1997 the Kyoto Protocol was established, since then signed by approx. 70 states but ratified by few and hence this Protocol has not yet entered into force. For more information see: http://www.unfccc.de/
US EPA - the United States’ Environmental Protection Agency, whose missions is ‘to protect human health and to safeguard the natural environment - air, water, and land - upon which life depends’. For more information see: http://www.epa.gov
Glossary of Pollutants
The IEA Secretariat collects and analyses energy data, assesses Member countries’ domestic energy policies and programmes, makes projections based on differing scenarios and prepares studies and recommendations on specialised energy topics. For more information see: http://www.iea.org/
Working group I: assesses scientific information on climate change;
Working group II: assesses environmental and socio-economic impacts of climate change;
Working group III: formulates response strategies in economic and social dimensions.
The Project started in 1983 and the report on the work was published in 1990.
Such exchanges may either lead to formal agreements, or, more often, they make for better informed work within individual governments and clarify the impact of national policies on the international community.
For references, please go to https://eea.europa.eu./publications/EMEPCORINAIR/page007.html or scan the QR code.
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