Which national policy Instruments can reduce Consumption-based Greenhouse Gas Emissions?

The INNOVATE project analysed Austria’s consumption-based greenhouse gas emissions. This report summarises the results of Work Package 3, which focused on designing and evaluating policy instruments for mitigating consumption-based greenhouse gas emissions. A set of 15 instruments addressing the sectors construction, mobility and public healthcare is described and evaluated qualitatively according to the criteria climate and cost effectiveness, distributional impact, political feasibility and flexibility. The results indicate that incentive-based instruments as well as instruments targeting infrastructure provision and the healthcare sector are most effective in reducing emissions. The most cost-effective instruments tend to be regulatory but also incentive-based, while information-based instruments perform best in terms of feasibility and flexibility.