The European Union (EU) has a hugely important effect on the way in which environmental policies are framed and implemented in many different parts of the world, but especially Europe. The new and comprehensively revised edition of this well-known textbook provides a state-of-the-art analysis of all the EU’s environmental policies.

Comprising five parts, it covers the rapidly changing context in which EU environmental policies are made, the key actors who interact to co-produce policy and the most salient dynamics of policy making, ranging from decision making through to implementation and evaluation.

Written by leading experts in the field, individual chapters examine how the EU is responding to a multitude of different problems including biodiversity loss, climate change, energy insecurity, and water and air pollution. They tease out the many important ways in which the EU's policies on these topics co-evolve with national and international environmental policies. In this third edition a mixture of learning features are employed to ensure that undergraduate and postgraduate students fully understand how EU policies in this vital area developed in the past and how they are now adapting to the rapidly evolving challenges of the twenty-first century.