Europe Must Step Up Efforts to Protect Environment: Report

"Significant progress has been made in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution, but the overall state of Europe's environment is not good," the European Environment Agency (EEA) said.

The climate assessment comes after EU member states at a U.N. climate summit last week were unable to present a formal 2035 plan to further slash greenhouse gases due to disagreements among its 27 member states.

The bloc is also unable to agree on an ambitious proposal from the European Commission to reduce emissions by 90 percent by 2040 from 1990 levels.

EU greenhouse gas emissions have dropped by 37 percent since 1990, well ahead of other major polluters like China and the United States.

But EU countries must "step up implementation of policies and longer-term sustainability-enabling actions already agreed to under the European Green Deal", the EEA said.

The continent's nature "continues to face degradation, overexploitation and biodiversity loss", noted the EEA.

Some 81 percent of protected habitats are in poor or bad condition, 60 to 70 percent of soils are degraded, and 62 percent of water bodies are not in good ecological condition, the report said.

The impacts of climate change represent a growing challenge, it stressed.

Many of the effects are indirect, causing damage to infrastructure and ecosystems or leading to price increases, among other things.

The frequency of extreme heatwaves is increasing, yet only 21 of the EEA's 38 member countries have health action plans for heatwaves, the agency noted.