Environmental Impact Guidance
Step 2: Estimate the change in emissions of greenhouse gases as a result of your policy
There are two important impacts that your policy could have on emissions. You should consider both, although one may be more important than the other.
A) Direct Changes in Emissions
Your policy may also directly reduce (or increase) levels of greenhouse gas emissions. You should attempt to quantify this change in emission levels by identifying the additional effects that your policy will have on emissions over and above the effects of any existing policies. If a policy is being put forward as part of a package of policy measures, ideally the package should be appraised as a whole.
Estimating what changes your policy will make to emissions requires you to predict what behavioural changes your policy will bring about and how they will affect emissions from the sectors described above. You should also consider whether your policy will have an indirect effect on emissions. For example, is an indirect effect of your policy an increase in energy use or an increase in the use of transport?
If you are using a consultant to help you carry out the RIA, they may be able to consider the actual size of the impact in terms of tonnes of emissions of greenhouse gases increased or decreased. If you do not have this sort of help, you may find the UK Emission Factor Database useful (part of the National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory) - see http://www.naei.org.uk/emissions/selection.php
If you cannot find the activity affected by your policy within the Database, you may only be able to make a qualitative assessment of the impact of your policy on greenhouse gas emissions. You should also consider whether your policy will have an effect on emissions outside of the UK.
B) Impacts on Technological Development
An important aim of UK climate change policy is to stimulate the production of technology that results in lower greenhouse gas emissions. Ideally, you should look into possible future changes or improvements in technology as a result of your proposed policy and come to a quantification of future emissions saved. Equally, you should also consider whether your policy discourages technological development which may otherwise have occurred and reduced emissions of greenhouse gases.
If you are using consultants, they may be able to estimate the carbon impacts of your policy from technological development. Otherwise, you can simply state the technological change that may come about from your policy and attempt to qualitatively describe the effect that technological change resulting from your policy may be expected to have on emissions.
| John does not think that his policy will lead to technological developments over the time scale he is considering. However, he considers that improvements to fuel consumption may be made over the longer term which will reduce emissions per kilometre travelled, and plans to include this qualitatively in his RIA. He has also calculated that his policy will result in an extra 1 thousand tonnes of fuel being consumed in total, spread roughly equally over a ten year period, due to the increase in rail freight. His analysis shows that this is unlikely to be offset by a reduction in fuel use elsewhere, e.g. from road transport. He has therefore checked the Emissions Factor Database and sees that this will result in an increase of 857 tonnes of carbon, 0.13 tonnes of methane and 1.2 tonnes of nitrous oxide. |
Page last modified: 16 November 2004
Page Published: 16 November 2004