PETRA: The Role of Persistence in Tackling Austria’s Climate Target – Policies for The Transport Sector

Austria was one of the first countries to ratify the 2015 Paris Agreement. Yet, the policy instrument package to meet its commitment and to be implemented in Austria is still to be developed and negotiated. One sector of particular and growing concern is Austrian transport sector. Transport emissions have grown significantly, in 2017 amounting to more than 46% of Austria’s greenhouse gas emissions (without emission trading). Despite its considerable dynamics, the transport sector is crucially governed by “systemic delays”, caused by long-lasting infrastructure and vehicle stocks in operation for multiple years. For a reliable policy analysis prospective in time, the quantification of the system’s memory and persistence is important. In PETRA, these characteristics are linked with policies that had a succinct impact on the Austrian transport sector in the past allowing to improve evaluating the delay and effectiveness of future policies aiming at reducing transport related emissions.

PETRA is novel in that it aims 1) at establishing a robust relationship between nationally and internationally relevant policies and the diffusion of their impact (e.g., the share of new vehicle fleets in the market); and 2) at quantifying the memory persistence effect determined by the remainder of the system (e.g., the share of still existing old vehicle fleets). To our knowledge, such a retrospective policy-response analysis has not yet been carried out at this level of disaggregation, neither in Austria nor elsewhere. This analysis will help (i) modelers to generate more robust prospective emission scenarios (or to test existing ones in terms of plausibility); and (ii) decision-makers to better understand the effectiveness of their emission reduction policies over time and vis-a-vis uncertainty.

Last edited: 29 April 2021