Greenhouse gas emissions in Europe: a retrospective trend analysis for the period 1990–2008

This report presents a retrospective overview of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emission trends in Europe from 1990 to 2008, with a particular focus on the underpinning drivers and the influence of EU policies. The analysis is based on the combination of decomposition analyses to identify the respective influence of each identified driver and an overview of the main EU policies and their likely effects on these drivers. The period covered by the analysis stops in 2008. As a result, the analysis does not address the effects of the recent economic crisis on GHG emissions. This reinforces the conclusion on long-term emission drivers. The report covers the EU-27 and presents results for the other European Environment Agency (EEA) member countries (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland and Turkey) and Croatia (EU candidate country, together with Turkey) as far as data are available.