Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
countries within the 2020 climate and energy package is described in the second
column of Table
5.1
: for instance, if Spain does not participate to the 2020 climate
package, it would impose an additional 14.74 % to costs of the complying group. If
we suppose Italy does not make effort to reach the RES target to 2020, the cost pen-
alty associated to this partial participation would lead to additional cost of 6.73 %
for the other participating countries. The additional costs Germany imposes on EU
participating countries by noncomplying the RES target would amount to 29.47 %.
If France does not make efforts to reach the RES target, it would cost an additional
12.21 % to the EU as a whole. Values are different in case of the EU12 member
countries. Indeed, there is still a strong relationship between income and polluting
emissions: a country with large GDP tends to increase global emissions, unless the
increase in income stimulates a reduction in GHG intensity. The relative increase
in GHG emissions calls for RES production in order to meet the goals of environ-
mental policy. If we suppose Poland does not make efforts to reach the RES target
to 2020, the cost penalty associated to partial participation would cost an additional
4.55 % on EU participating countries. For instance, by considering Bulgaria and the
Czech Republic, the relative percentages amount respectively to 0.44 and 1.11 %.
Different levels of penalty factors are obtained in the cases of ENESH and
RESSH scenarios. Our estimates, extended to 2030, show that the penalty factor is
basically lower in the ENESH scenario with respect to RESSH scenario, meaning
that defection is less expensive for the EU as a whole in the case in which the future
cost reduction (as explained above) of each country is taken according to the rela-
tive share of the country in the total EU energy consumption rather than the share
of RES deployment. Let us take a numerical example. The penalty associated to the
nonparticipation of Spain in the 2030 framework would impose additional costs
on the remaining EU countries for an amount of 14.64 % in the ENESH scenario
versus 15.78 % in the RESSH scenario. Then, different levels of penalty factors in
all the three cases described mean that there are different abatement costs across EU
member states.
It is therefore necessary a cooperative scenario based on the minimization of
the overall costs for the EU, even if this involves the implementation of compensa-
tion mechanisms. A similar mechanism would also be a tool to revitalize the EU
ETS market. Now more than ever there is a need for EU countries to feel united,
overlooking immediate personal interests. The key idea of our scenario is that the
EU appears as a single entity at the tables of global negotiations on environmental
policies. This provides that the RES shares are disconnected from the interests of
each country and therefore RES shares purely follow a logic of cost minimization of
the EU. If this policy will lead to unequal concentrations of RES production in the
territories because of environmental vocations of each country, then there should
be a fair mechanism for compensation among EU countries. This may be the way
to resume the leadership that was the spirit of the 2020 climate and energy package
through which the EU intended to act as a leading example in the world.
We think it is possible to implement a procedure of minimization of the overall
costs for the EU. Indeed, we have simulated a social welfare function to minimize
the EU overall costs for a given amount of total RES target at European level. In
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