Towards a Climate-Neutral Europe: Curbing the Trend

This book explains the EU’s climate policies in an accessible way, to demonstrate the step-by-step approach that has been used to develop these policies, and the ways in which they have been tested and further improved in the light of experience. The latest changes to the legislation are fully explained throughout.

The chapters throughout this volume show that no single policy instrument can bring down greenhouse gas emissions. The challenge facing the EU, as for many countries that have made pledges under the Paris Agreement, is to put together a toolbox of policy instruments that is coherent, delivers emissions reductions, and is cost-effective. The book stands out by the fact it covers the EU’s emissions trading system, the energy sector and other economic sectors, including their development in the context of international climate policy.

This accessible book will be of great relevance to students, scholars and policy makers alike.

The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9789276082569, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Jos Delbeke is a Professor at the School of Transnational Governance at the European University Institute in Florence and at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Belgium, from which he holds a PhD in Economics (1986). He was Director-General of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Climate Action from its creation in 2010 to 2018, and has worked for the European Commission since 1986.

Peter Vis retired from the European Commission in 2019. He was previously an Adviser in the Commission’s in-house think-tank, the European Political Strategy Centre. Over his career he worked in several Directorates-General of the European Commission. For the academic year 2014–2015 he was the EU Visiting Fellow at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford, UK. He was Chief of Staff to Connie Hedegaard, European Commissioner for Climate Action (2010–2014). He has an MA (History) from the University of Cambridge, UK.