News & Media

The European Commission proposes to cut the use of chemical pesticides in half by 2030, one of the flagship legislative proposals to follow the Biodiversity and Farm to Fork Strategies. The new rules on chemical pesticides will reduce the environmental footprint of the EU's food system, protect the health and well-being of citizens and agricultural workers, and help mitigate the pesticide use-related economic losses.

As the climate crisis worsens, severe droughts devastate European landscapes. According to the data published by the European Drought Observatory, more than 60% of land in the European Union and United Kingdom – an area nearly the same size as India (!) – is now affected by drought conditions. The Danube River Basin and the Danube itself have been affected by serious droughts in the past, e.g., in 2003, 2015, and now again one of the most feared natural phenomenon has gripped much of the Danube River Basin.

Dubrovnik, 17 October 2012. The Sixth GEF Biennial International Waters Conference, as with prior IW Conferences, was a learning event for the GEF IW focal area held in the Croatian town of Dubrovnik from the 17th to the 21st of October. The general objective of the conference is to facilitate cross-sectoral and portfolio-wide learning and experience sharing.

Chisinau, 2/3 March 2012. The 5th International Conference Ecological Chemistry 2012 will be held on March 2-3, 2012 in Chisinau, Republic of Moldova. A conference announcement.

Kolontár, 4 October 2010. A dam at a Hungarian aluminium factory near Kolontár broke. Approximately 1.5 million cubic metres of alkaline red sludge and water were released with disastrous consequences: 10 people died, hundreds of hectares of agricultural land were contaminated. One year after these events, we collected information on the current environmental conditions in the area. As an ongoing effort, the Accident Prevention and Control Expert Group of the ICPDR continues its work to avoid or mitigate such disasters in the future.