Austria's climate policy: strong gap in international comparison!

Austria's climate policy: strong gap in international comparison!

Austria apparently played a modest role in the international climate competition. A recently published study by the Vienna University of Economic Affairs shows that greenhouse gas emissions have only been reduced by a maximum of 2.5 percent since 2005, despite numerous political measures. These results were obtained by the scientists Talis Tebecis and Jesús Crespo Cuaresma and are published in the journal "Scientific Data". The researchers reported that Austria reached its peak with 79 million tons of emissions in 2005 and that the total emissions were reduced by 26 percent by 2023, which, however, means only marginal successes without more effective political strategies.

While the Austrian emission savings appear weak in European comparison, Germany is an example of a more active approach. According to Tebecis's study, 131 political measures were identified in Germany, which showed significant reduction effects, while Ireland even had 261 successes. In contrast, Austria remains far from the ambitious goals of reducing domestic emissions by 48 percent by 2030. Even if all measures are implemented as planned, the actual reduction was only about 35 percent.

Requirements for climate policy measures

Additional findings provides a comprehensive analysis of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research (PIK) in which internationally carried out climate policy measures were examined. This study shows that only 63 of 1,500 evaluated measures were classified as effectively to reduce at least five percent of emissions. Representatives of this study, including the authors Nicolas Koch and Annika Stechemesser, warn that a successful mix of political instruments is necessary to actually achieve effective success.

The importance of effective combinations of regulation and price incentives such as CO2 taxes is emphasized in this context. Examples from different cities and countries make it clear that dogmatic bans alone are not sufficient. Instead, it requires an interactive approach to make sustainable changes and achieve the climate goals, while the European Union is aiming for the ambitious goal of climate neutrality by 2050