Economic assessment of GHG mitigation policy options for EU agriculture: A closer look at mitigation options and regional mitigation costs (EcAMPA 3)

This report highlights the importance of assessing emission mitigation from a multidimensional perspective. For this, a quantitative framework to analyse the potential contribution of different technological mitigation options in EU agriculture is described in this report. Within the boundaries of the analysis, the need to consider land use, land-use change and forestry emissions and removals for a comprehensive analysis of the sector’s potential contribution to achieve certain greenhouse gas mitigation targets is highlighted. The assessment of carbon dioxide emissions and removals is also important in light of the new flexibility introduced in the EU 2030 regulation framework. Regarding a possible ranking of mitigation technologies in terms of their mitigation potential and attached costs, the analysis clearly highlights the need to consider mitigation technologies as ‘a bundle’. It is important to avoid the simple aggregation of mitigation potentials by single measures without taking into account their interactions both from a biophysical and economic perspective. Moreover, the analysis quantifies how mitigation measures might influence differently the agricultural sector in different EU Member States, stating that there is no ‘one fits all’ rule that could be followed for selecting which mitigation technologies should be implemented at regional level. In the policy context of the European Green Deal, the Effort Sharing Regulation and the CAP-post 2020, our results imply that farmers should have flexibility with regard to which mitigation options to adopt in order to find the right mix fitting to the regional circumstances.