Energy and transport vulnerability of households in the context of emissions trading : an analysis for 10 EU member states
by Dr. Johanna Cludius, Nelly Unger, Dr. Viktoria Noka, Dr. Katja Schumacher (Oeko-Institut e.V., Berlin) ; the authors thank Theresa Dolinga for her research assistance ; on behalf of the German Environment Agency ; report performed by: Oeko-Institut e.V. ; edited by: Section V 3.3 Economic Aspects of Emissions Trading, Auctioning, Evaluation - Hans Zschüttig & Julian Hirsch
Energy and transport poverty and vulnerability are a central building block in the debate around many energy and climate policy issues and have gained firm hold in EU directives, regulations and documents. National governments need to establish indicators for both energy and transport poverty and vulnerability, to fulfil reporting requirements to the EU and to develop and target suitable policies and measures. In this report, we focus specifically on those indicators and results relevant to the new EU emissions trading system covering buildings and road transport (ETS 2) and the Social Climate Fund (SCF). The goal of this study is to show the scope of options available to the Member States by identifying "vulnerability structures" related to home heating and transport. We look at a selection of ten Member States from different regions of the EU and study vulnerability structures within and across these Member States by applying 17 indicators for both energy and transport poverty and vulnerability. We find a high degree of heterogeneity in vulnerability patterns within and between Member States, highlighting the different focal points of each indicator. For vulnerability related to heating, indicators that rely on expenditures of households generally show higher shares of vulnerable households than self-reported indicators. For vulnerability in the transport sector, no clear pattern emerges when comparing results across European regions - we rather find country-specific effects. Indicators without an income threshold likely overestimate the share of vulnerable households especially in high-income Member States. While we are able to estimate a whole range of vulnerability indicators for the ten countries, important data gaps and data quality issues exist. Additional data on the energy performance of a building, as well as the access to essential services would be very valuable in this regard. Based on the results on vulnerability patterns across the EU, we evaluate the means available to support vulnerable households through the SCF. The amount of funding that will be available per vulnerable household is directly related to the indicator chosen to identify those households. The funding per household will be higher if the targeting is very concise and the group of recipients is small. The funding per vulnerable household can be increased if additional, national resources are made available to support vulnerable households. This is particularly important for most Northern and Western European countries that receive only a small share of the SCF funding.
