Evaluation of climate policies and measures in EU member states – examples and experiences from four sectors

Improving the effectiveness of climate policy requires monitoring and evaluation of the implementation of policy measures. Also the EU requires that the member states should every two years report their implemented measures to the European Commission according to the Decision 280/2004/EC. This report studies the ex-ante and ex-post evaluations of climate policies implemented in the EU countries. The focus is especially on policies related to buildings, waste and F-gases. The objective of the study is to encourage sharing experiences of evaluations between countries and thus increase the transparency and cost-efficiency of the evaluations. The study addresses e.g. what kind of criteria and methods have been used in the evaluations, what kind of data has been utilised and what kind of limitations have been brought up in the evaluations. The need to renew the evaluation and reporting of climate policy measures has been recognised both at the EU – and member state level. The European Commission has proposed replacing the current Decision 280/2004/EC with a decree that would oblige member states to report about their policy measures yearly in more detail than currently. The results of this report are reflected against the Commission’s proposal. Based on this report, a clearer distinction should be made between regular, routine-like reporting and research-based evaluations. The report concludes that regular reporting should be restricted to standardised data that is relatively easily available. At the same time, the need to undertake periodic, more in-depth and research-based evaluations, can be emphasised

Laajojen kansallisten ohjelmien vaikutusten etukäteisarviointi - kokemuksia ympäristöarvioinneista

Ex-ante evaluations are part of thepreparation of broad national policy-orientedprogrammes. Systematic evaluations havebeen made from an environmental point of viewdue to legal requirements. The study analysesexperiences gained in the environmentalevaluations and reflects on the prospects forestablishing a standardized procedure in orderto achieve the objectives of the evaluations. Inlight of the experiences from several differentevaluations the study concludes that astandardized procedure would easily becomea fixed routine that loses touch with theactual policy-oriented programme. The broadpolicy-oriented programmes reflect multilayeredgovernance in a network setting and theirevaluations do not therefore fit into a single rigidframework. The prospects for the evaluationsto support democratic social learning processescan, however, be enhanced through a moreprofound understanding of the challenges ofnetwork-based governance

Calculations of greenhouse gas emissions of waste sector and F-gases for policy scenarios in Finland

The UN’s climate agreement and European Union necessitate evaluation of the policy sectors, the implementation of policy measures, and the achievement of the set goals. Last reporting about policies and measures for EU was done in 2011. In this report the emission impact calculations of policies and measures targeting on waste sector and F-gases are described. Policy measures of these sectors fall in the remit of ministry of environment in Finland. The procedure of calculations in waste sector is explained in detail from methods and required input data. The calculations include emissions related to solid wastes, waste waters and composting. The scenario calculations are done with the aid of Excel-spreadsheet at the Finnish Environment Institute. In addition, the report discusses briefly the economical assessment of waste sector that has been identified as a target for development. In the second part of the report, the data collection, calculation and reporting process of the F-gases are explained. More detailed explanation of emission scenario calculations has been documented in two reports written at the Finnish Environment Institute. This report presents briefly the main sources in sub-sector emission scenarios and gives and overview about the calculations

Special Issue on Experimentation for Climate Change Solutions Editorial: The search for climate change and sustainability solutions: the promise and the pitfalls of experimentation

This editorial highlights the diversity in studies of experimentation that aims for solutions to climate change and wider sustainability challenges. The diversity is reflected in the theoretical underpinnings, the agency behind experiments, the niches in which experimentation occurs, in the governance of the experiments and in experiments with governance, in the way experiments contribute to learning and sharing of knowledge across levels and scales. This implies that experimentation and experiments can contribute to transitions in very different ways and that experimentation also runs the risks of merely becoming a distraction that maintains status quo instead of contributing to transformative change. In moving forward research should explore the diversity even more, and critically evaluate and discuss the possible contributions to policy and polycentric governance

The Sustainability of agriculture in a northern industrialized country : from controlling nature to rural development

Published by MDPI AG, Basel, SwitzerlandThe concept of sustainability has been a part of theory and practice in agriculture for a long time, but the diverse roots of the concept have led to a number of different definitions of sustainable agriculture. This paper provides an overview of the policy development of sustainable agriculture in Finland by examining internal and external discourses of sustainability and the evolution in different dimensions of sustainability. We show that the debate on sustainability within European Union s Common Agricultural Policy and Finnish agri-environmental policy are reflected in attempts to implement and monitor sustainability in agriculture in Finland. However, indicators suggest a largely non-sustainable condition. This has contributed to a shift in policy objectives from sustainable agriculture to sustainable rural development, especially in the EU context. As there are commonly trade-offs between the economic, ecological and social dimensions of sustainable development, future developments in sustainable agriculture will inevitably be characterized by continuous redefinitions of problems, paradigm revisions and reassessments of actions already taken.v2012o