ETC/ACM
Services
Work Plan
Main objectives of ETC/ACM
- To provide support to frame and implement EU policy and legislation, and related work under international conventions. Focus is on the EU-ECCP (European Climate Change Programme) and follow-up of CAFE (Clean Air for Europe) and related legislation, such as the Greenhouse Gas Monitoring Mechanism and the Air Quality Directives, and on the international conventions UNFCCC and CLRTAP.
- To contribute to EEA main reports through assessments on air pollution and climate change mitigation. Deliverables are quality assured information, indicators and assessments of past trends, current state and prospective development. Where possible assessments for EEA reports will be combined with assessments for policy and legislative frameworks to ensure synergies.
- To support EEA member countries in their reporting to the European Commission and international conventions, and to work with them to further streamline information collection and reporting procedures to ensure information is obtained and used in the most efficient way.
Partnership with the EEA Member Countries
The priority of the ETC/ACM is to co-operate with the member countries of the EEA and the European Commission to consolidate and further improve the quality and scope of the flow of data and information. A sound and active partnership with the member countries is required:
- to collect and to control the quality of basic observational data on the environment
- to develop high quality methodologies for environmental assessments where information is integrated across geographical and sectoral barriers
- to provide reliable information for policy makers and to increase and maintain the awareness of the general public for the state of the environment, how the pressures from modern society affect the environment, and how to formulate responses to reduce and control negative impacts on the environment
- to streamline reporting requirements.
Framework for assessment
The ETC/ACM has no means to develop, improve or maintain current models, but will use models that depend on the research and developments (funded and organised outside the ETC) at institutes that are part of the ETC/ACM. The ETC/ACM aims to improve linkages between the current models and harmonise the data exchange. This must lead to an improved efficiency in performing scenario studies in order to:
- Analyse the full causality chain (as encapsulated in the DPSIR framework) in order to appraise the legitimisation of environmental policies (impact on human health and ecosystems), the sectoral contributions and to identify the dynamics of the system
- Extend the current multi-pollutant/multi-effect approach (as applied for the acidification issue) to climate change and urban air quality (i.e., particulate matter, ozone and NO2). Including these two issues we aim to better understand the secondary benefits of policies in one area and we are able to identify 'no-regret' policies that avoid negative spillover
- Develop performance and policy-effectiveness indicators to support policy makers and to appraise progress of policies (e.g., distance-to-target analysis) and adequacy of these policies (e.g., decomposition analysis of key factors)
- Increase the credibility of (integrated) assessments carried out within the ETC/ACM supports on the relevance and quality of the observational and other data and methods used. Such credibility is built when the partnership with the EEA member countries functions and the work in the ETC/ACM is carried out in dialogue with other experts as well as with stakeholders.
Work plan 2012
The work plan consists of
- Indicators, dataflows and databases;
- Support to climate change policies;
- Support to air quality and air emissions policies;
- Scenarios and sectoral reports;
- ETC management and links to EIONET.
The work plan is subdivided into tasks and documented in the Implementation Plan 2012 (700kb; Version of January 2012).
Independent of the Implementation Plan the ETC/ACM participates also in another project of the EEA: