Scenarios of cost-effective emission controls after 2020

Amann, M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1963-0972, Heyes, C. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5254-493X, Schoepp, W. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5990-423X, & Wagner, F. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3429-2374 (2012). Scenarios of cost-effective emission controls after 2020. [[TSAP Report #7]], Version 1.0 (Editor: M. Amann), DG-Environment of the European Commission, Belgium (November 2012)

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Abstract

Although emissions of most air pollutants are expected to significantly decline in the coming decades, the magnitude of the remaining impacts of poor air quality on human health and ecosystems will still be substantial. Technical and non-technical measures will be still available to reduce emissions and resulting impacts below the "current legislation" baseline levels.

However, these additional measures come at certain costs. It is estimated that full implementation of all available technical emission control measures would require up to 0.32% of GDP in 2030, and thereby increase total costs of air pollution control by more than 50%.

The GAINS optimization offers a tool for a systematic analysis of the cost-effectiveness of further measures. This report presents a series of illustrative optimization calculations addressing the health and ecosystems impact indicators that have been employed for earlier cost-effectiveness analyses for the 2005 Thematic Strategy on Air Pollution and the 2012 revision of the Gothenburg protocol.

As a first step, a series of calculations determined for each of these endpoints the increase in emission control costs for gradually tightened "gap closure" targets between the current legislation and the full application of all available technical measures. Costs increase most rapidly for improvements of health impacts (for ozone and PM), while significant progress at comparably low costs is possible for eutrophication and acidification.

In a second step, illustrative joint optimizations for multiple targets have been conducted, aiming at arbitrarily chosen gap closure targets of 25/50/75% for all impact indicators in 2030. The costs of the portfolios of measures that meet these targets range from Euros 0.3 bn/yr to Euros 9.9 bn/yr for the most ambitious case.

In a further step, the temporal interactions between emission reductions that have been optimized for a more distant year (e.g., 2030) and potential interim targets for earlier years are discussed. While there are several alternatives for securing temporal consistency of targets over time to avoid regret investments, the choice of the temporal path of environmental ambitions remains a political decision, depending on the weight given to environmental improvements in the near term versus the long-term target.

All calculations presented in this report must be considered as illustrative, since they do not yet include the forthcoming final TSAP baseline scenario that will build on the latest expectations of economic development and energy use.

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