Policy Scenarios for Climate Protection: Study on Behalf of the Federal Environmental Agency Volume 4: Methodological Guideline for Assessing the Impact of Measures for Emission Mitigation

Abstract

In 1990 the German Federal Government set itself the goal of a 25% reduction of the emission of carbon dioxide in the year 2005 based on the 1990 level and has reaffirmed this goal many times. In past years, numerous policy measures for environmental protection have already been taken and additional measures are being planned or discussed at the moment. In order to evaluate national policy efforts for climate protection with respect to reaching this goal, the effects of previous and future measures must be quantified as reliably as possible. Impact analyses of policy measures for climate protection are also part of the national obligation to make an annual report under the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC). The corresponding guidelines of the FCCC "Policies and Measures" (Geneva, 17 July 1996) contain general criteria for the description of the measures and their effects, which are to be displayed in a sectorally differentiated manner. However, the concepts on which the classification of the measures and effects is based are in part not clearly defined. The question also remains of the methodological procedures with which the effects of the policy can be estimated with sufficient precision and to which of the individual measures they can be allocated. Against this background, the Federal Environmental Agency (UBA) has, within the framework of its environmental research plan, charged the Research Centre Julich with the implementation of a project "Policy Scenarios for Climate Protection". In this context, the findings and instruments from the IKARUS project', which is supported by the Federal Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Technology (BMBF), should be made available for reports by the Federal Government as well as strategy assessments as part of the FCCC. The comprehensive project was implemented by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (FhG-ISI), the Programme Group Systems Analysis and Technology Evaluation of the Research Centre Julich (STE) and the Institute of Applied Ecology [...