Evidence-based policy making in the European Commission

The Secretariat General of the European Commission, has as part of its mission “to ensure the coherence, quality and delivery of policy, legislation and operations across policy areas and Commission departments”. Before the EU takes action the commission publishes roadmaps describing the planned initiative and prepares an impact assessment, which examines the potential economic social and environmental consequences. The objective being that “Commission initiatives and proposals for EU legislation are prepared on the basis of transparent, comprehensive and balanced evidence on the nature of the problem to be addressed, the added value of EU action and the cost and benefits of alternative courses of action for all stakeholders”. I propose to illustrate evidence-based policy making within the European Commission, with the example of the ongoing initiative to address greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture and LULUCF in the context of the 2030 EU Climate and energy framework. Agriculture accounts for approximately 10% of EU greenhouse gas emissions, while the LULUCF sector is currently a net sink. With the long-term decarbonisation of the EU, however, the share of total emissions coming from this combined land sector will increase. Consequently mitigation of agricultural emissions and protection of carbon pools will become increasingly important post 2020. As a first step, the GHG accounting rules, targets, burden sharing, incentives and flexibilities available to member states need to be determined and implemented.

WILSON Julian; 

2016-01-21

CICERO Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research

JRC99722

http://www.cicero.uio.no/en/posts/news/report-from-science-to-policy-how-to-improve-the-dialogue?utm_source=apsis-anp-3&utm_medium=email&utm_content=unspecified&utm_campaign=unspecified,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC99722,