What can Croatia do to Change the Climate?
The Croatian public express a strong desire to help reduce emissions and work towards a better climate future.
They should be engaged as critical actors in the effort to reduce Croatia’s impact on climate change and adapt as well.
They should be engaged as critical actors in the effort to reduce Croatia’s impact on climate change and adapt as well.
The Cost of MitigationTo avoid dangerous climate change resulting from an increase in temperature of over 2ºC, global GHG emissions must be cut by 50-85% by
2050. Croatia’s trajectory for emissions growth in the Business as Usual (BAU) case is estimated to result in 42 million tones of CO2e in 2020, which represents a 36% increase from 2006 levels of 30.83 million tonnes of CO2e. The EU has committed to reducing emissions by 20% by 2020 and Croatia has committed under the Kyoto Protocol to reducing emissions by an average of 5% from the agreed upon 1990 levels of 36 million tonnes by 2012. Croatia will also share at least part of the EU commitment for 2020. There are many “no regrets” mitigation measures that will actually save money and provide an economic benefit to Croatia. Most of these are related to energy efficiency. There are many other measures that will either be cost-neutral or cost a relatively small amount. In total, it is projected that Croatia should be able to stabilize its emissions at around 30 million tonnes with a slight economic benefit due to energy saved. In addition to measures that are not likely to be too expensive, there are other mitigation options which may be good to implement either because of their social popularity (such as solar panels) or additional benefits aside from mitigation. For example, increasing the carbon content in agricultural soils would decrease net emissions and have a positive impact on soil moisture. According to the estimate in the NHDR, Croatia could theoretically achieve a 30% cut in emissions by 2020, from the baseline of 36 million tones per year. The economic costs of achieving this reduction in 2020 are estimated to be EUR 115-536 million in that year. |
Institutional Analysis for MitigationCroatia has made a firm commitment to reducing emissions by introducing a carbon fee, promoting renewable energy, encouraging
energy efficiency, and committing to GHG reductions under the Kyoto Protocol. There is a good amount of technological and intellectual capacity in Croatia to reduce emissions. Various businesses, NGOs and expert organizations are already engaged. Better coordination and information sharing would make progress easier. This is especially true among state actors that are not already heavily engaged such as the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Rural Development, the Ministry of the Sea, Transport and Infrastructure, and the Ministry of Tourism. |
Sources:
http://www.hr.undp.org/
http://meteo.hr/index_en.php
http://croatia.hr/en-GB/Homepage
http://www.eea.europa.eu/
http://www.hr.undp.org/
http://meteo.hr/index_en.php
http://croatia.hr/en-GB/Homepage
http://www.eea.europa.eu/