According to a report released last week by the European Environment Agency, regarding the emissions and projections information requested under the National Emission Ceilings Directive (NECD) by the end of 2009, European skies have underwent some notable improvements in air pollution in the last 20 years thanks to important policy choices.

The Directive monitors carbon monoxide, non-methane volatile organic compounds, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter and ozone precursors, whom European policy addressed through the introduction of the Euro emission standards for road vehicles and directives on Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) and Large Combustion Plants (LCP).

The report, entitled Impact of selected policy measures on Europe’s air quality, computes the levels of such pollutants in the absence of such policy interventions, showing for instance improvements in road transport, with a 80% decrease in carbon monoxide, and a 60% reduction in fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and significant reductions in industrial combustion emission of nitrous and sulphur oxides compared to a no-policy scenario. The report further identifies further objectives of the Directive and potential issues to be resolved to meet them. For instance, a more accurate monitoring will be achieved by higher quality emission inventories and projections, while a greater harmonisation of international reporting requirements would reduce monitoring costs.

The report shows that several EU states had already achieved the emission reduction imposed under the NECD or were in line to do so by 2010. The round of data submission relative to this report was conducted in a smoother way, although the report finds that further transparency in the socioeconomic assumptions used could be pursued.

The report concludes by suggesting some improvements to NECD, including the introduction of an accompanying inventory report with explanatory information on the inventory, such as whether countries report on the basis of fuel used or sold or, for some countries, better clarify which territory is covered in their submitted inventory.

The full text of the report is available at http://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/nec-directive-statusreport- 2009.

Climate Policy News

• This news is extracted from the Climate Policy News : a CMCC weekly column that summarises the latest news on international climate change agreements, the updates on the carbon market and the energy and technology updates in the realm of climate change. Go to the web page and see all previous issues since March 2007.
• This week: EU look brighter thanks to policy; Energy funds still up for grabs; Japanese climate bill: third time lucky?; The carbon market this week – Download the January 3-9, 2011 Newsletter [Pdf 106 Kb]