Baseline Scenario for the EU and Overview of Policy Simulations

Following the theoretical presentation of the previous chapters, a large number of simulations were carried out with the latest version of the GEM-E3 model. The main goal was to investigate the impact of reaching alternative QELROS (Quantitative Emission Limitation and Reduction Objectives) for the European Union by the year 2010. The evaluation of the impact of the environmental policy was then derived by comparing the results of the policy runs to a baseline scenario, that was again derived with GEM-E3 but under the assumption that no new environmental policy would be implemented in the EU till 2010.