The Revision of the EU Effort Sharing Regulation

In the context of the revision of the Effort Sharing Regulation (ESR), the obligations of the EU member countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions for the sectors that are not part of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) – the non-ETS sectors – are defined. Due to the increase of the EU-wide reduction target for greenhouse gas emissions to 55 percent by 2030 compared to 1990, the reduction targets set so far for the member states for 2030 are not sufficient to reach the target. This also applies to the previous Austrian reduction target for the effort-sharing sectors of 36 percent by 2030 compared to CO2 emissions in 2005. The EU proposes a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of 48 percent as the new target for Austria. The brief analysis presents which reduction paths for individual sectors would follow from an increase in the reduction target for the entire effort-sharing sector.