We rightly take pride in our environmental credentials. Nearly 100% of our electricity and heating comes from renewable sources — geothermal and hydropower. Our fisheries management system is among the most sustainable in the world. On the whole, the air is clean, the water is pure, and the landscape extraordinary.
But environmental policy is broader than energy and fisheries, and the picture is more mixed than we sometimes acknowledge.
The EU's environmental framework is the most comprehensive in the world
The EU's environmental acquis — over 200 legal acts covering air quality, water quality, waste management, chemicals, biodiversity, and climate — is one of the most comprehensive regulatory frameworks of its kind. The European Green Deal, adopted in 2019, commits the EU to climate neutrality by 2050 with binding interim targets. The EU Emissions Trading System puts a price on carbon emissions. REACH regulates thousands of chemicals. Both ETS and REACH already apply in Iceland through the EEA Agreement. The Nature Restoration Law sets binding targets for ecosystem recovery.
We don't meet all of it — and our emissions aren't as low as many think
Through the EEA, we already implement much of this — but not all of it. The EEA covers environmental rules linked to the internal market — pollution, chemicals, industry — but the EU's nature conservation legislation falls outside it. This means the Birds Directive, the Habitats Directive, and the Natura 2000 network of protected areas do not apply in Iceland. Icelandic nature conservation law has often been seen as weaker and somewhat subject to political discretion. In other areas like waste management, circular economy, and land use, our regulatory framework is also thinner than the EU's. Our per-capita greenhouse gas emissions aren't as low as the renewable energy headline suggests once transport and industry are included.
What would membership change?
EU membership would mean adopting the full environmental acquis, including areas where we'd need to raise our own standards. For a country that values its natural environment, this is arguably a benefit rather than a cost — it would embed us in the world's most ambitious framework for environmental protection, with enforcement mechanisms and funding streams that the EEA doesn't provide.
The question isn't really "who's ahead" but "which path gives us the strongest environmental framework going forward." Full membership provides tools that the EEA alone does not.
Sources and further reading:
- European Commission: European Green Deal — overview of the EU's climate and environmental strategy.
- Environment Agency of Iceland: Greenhouse Gas Emissions — annual reports on Iceland's greenhouse gas emissions (National Inventory Report).
- EU Regulation 2024/1991 on Nature Restoration (Nature Restoration Law) — binding targets for ecosystem restoration across the EU.
- Eurostat: Greenhouse gas emissions per capita — comparison of per-capita emissions across European countries.
- EFTA: EEA-Lex database — overview of EU environmental legislation currently in force in the EEA.
- EU Regulation (EC) No. 1907/2006 (REACH) — the regulation on registration, evaluation, and authorisation of chemicals, applicable in the EEA.