Pathways to a Carbon Neutral EU

EU Calc aims to provide policy and decision makers with a (relatively) easy to use tool, so as they can identify what changs are needed in what areas of our lives (e.g. behaviour, technology…) in order to reach a carbon neutral European Union by 2050, and to alert them to any likely incompatibilities that may arise if a purely sector by sector approach is taken (e.g. if we decide to use loads more biofuels in transport this will have a major impact on agriculture and land use).

Hence policy makers can play with multiple scenarios to see which changes will mitigate green house gases most. Having provided this insight/foresight (normative scenarios) the policy maker can the craft the strategy to reach the desired impact – if (as it seems) changing behaviour is needed as a an accompanying measure to technological innovation, how do we do that best? In any case it was a great pleasure to have spent yesterday in Budapest and today in Vienna with two different groups of 30-40 people, discussing both the tool and how it can best be used to provoke a real change in how policy is made. Thanks to Garret, Jörgen, Miklós, Luis, Hannes and Ana for the great support!