Theoretical analysis of costs and benefits of alternative emission reduction scenarios applying Most Effective Technologies: A modelling study

This study evaluates, within the time frame 2015–2030, how applying the Most Effective Technologies (METs) can help to attain the commitments of EU Member States to reduce emissions and improve air quality, and what would be the cost and benefits on health of such interventions. We show, analysing alternative emission reduction scenarios, that the benefit-to-cost ratio is around 16 over the EU27. However, from our results, it is also clear that, on top of the Most Effective abatement measures, climate mitigation actions (as fuel switch, energy efficiency measures) would be necessary to achieve the required level of emission reductions, because METs could not be sufficient for certain pollutants, sectors and countries. In EU27, we find that technological costs represent around 0.2% of the total GDP, displaying a large variability through member states.