Environmental Datasets by the European Environment Agency

The European Environment Agency (EEA) provides data on a host of environmental indicators, such as greenhouse gas emmissions, share of renewable energy and recycling rate. Some of this data is already presented in the book and we present some of the other datasets and link to the sources. While reading, please keep in mind the questions you see below and answer them once you reached the end. In the end, we will provide a link to a platform with an interactive version of the dataset and additional tasks.

Table 1: General Tasks for the Dataset

Tasks
Which countries do particularly well when it comes to environmental indicators?
Are countries that have a high share of recycling also more likely to use energy from renewable sources?
Which factors could explain which countries have a high share of renewable energy sources?

Dataset Description

First, the EEA provides data on recycling, in the form of the share of municiapal waste that is recycled and composted. Below we show data from 2022. The data can be found here: ‘https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/analysis/indicators/waste-recycling-in-europe/municipal-waste-recycling-rates?activeTab=570bee2d-1316-48cf-adde-4b640f92119b’

Second, data on greenhouse gas emissions from the book can be found here: https://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/climate/trends-and-projections-in-europe/climate-and-energy-country-profiles/country-profiles-greenhouse-gases-and Figure 2 shows this data by country, too. On the website of the EEA, there is a host of additional information on emissions and how countries meet their environmental targets.

Finally, the EEA also provides data on the use of renewable energy sources (RES). These can be found here: https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/data/approximated-estimates-for-the-share-1 Figures 3 and 4 show the share of energy and electricvity respectively, that is produced from RES.