Transcript “Environment and Climate Change” 2

Cohesion
Policy
2007 - 13
Ex post evaluation of cohesion policy programmes 2000-2006 co-financed by
the European Fund for Regional Development (Objective 1 and 2)
Work Package 5b
“Environment and Climate
Change”
Adam Abdulwahab
Evaluation network meeting
Brussels, 25 February 2010
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Cohesion
Policy
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Overview of ToR - 1
• Scope:
– ERDF environment, including relevant
parts of CF
– Climate change: exploratory
• Task 1: Conceptual basis
• Task 2: Environment Strategies in MS
– Focus: 14 “big spenders” (ES, IT, DE, EL,
PT, FR, PL, IE, UK, CZ, SK, HU, LV, FI)
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Cohesion
Policy
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Overview of ToR - 2
• Task 3: Main Outcomes
– Output & result Indicators
– Effectiveness of major sectoral OPs (in IE,
EL, SK, PT, HU, CZ)
• Task 4 & 5: Case Studies
– General Regional: 10
– Waste management: 3
– Climate change: 3
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Policy
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Conceptual Limitations
• Impact of environmental infrastructure
on growth is not well explored in
European context
– Short term vs long term
– Incremental improvements
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Financial Allocation
• Environment-related interventions, 20002006: €25.5 billion (21% of total ERDF
allocation)
• 86% in 7 MS (DE, EL, ES, FR, IE, IT, PT) and
• 50% to only 3 countries - EL, ES, PT
• Sectors
–
–
–
–
Rehabilitation and planning (45%)
Environmental infrastructure (44%)
Environment-friendly technologies (7%)
Energy infrastructure (4%)
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Significant Contribution to
Environment…
• Water supply
– No. of projects: 3913
– Additional population served: 14.1 million
• Wastewater
– No. of projects: 6211
– Additional population served: 20.4 million
• Solid waste
– No. of projects: 2637
– New capacity of waste treatment: 231,649 m3/day
– Unauthorised landfills closed/rehabilitated: 964
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…with factors limiting
effectiveness…
• Investments were often oversized
• Financial sustainability of investments was not
always ensured
• With the introduction of the 'polluter pays principle',
some households in poorer regions refused to
connect to the network, especially in the EU-10
• The four cohesion countries (EL, ES, IE, PT)
delayed the introduction of the polluter / user pays
principles, relying more heavily on European funds
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Cohesion
Policy
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…and limited short-term
contribution to growth
• The need to comply with European directives
was the main driver of investments in
environmental infrastructure. Main reasons are:
– Impact of environmental infrastructure on economic
development is unexplored in literature
– The Commission also supported the view that an
environmental measure is justified even if its only effect
is environmental
– Capacity problems in implementation favoured
selecting projects according to maturity to be
implemented, wider socio-economic impacts were less
important
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Cohesion
Policy
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Rehabilitation and Planning
• Important mainly in Objective 2 regions
• Only sporadic evidence that they had
strong impact on economic development
• Evaluation focusing on environmental
infrastructure => further analysis needed
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Policy
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Climate Change
• Not top priority until 2005
• 120 OPs supported some intervention linked to
climate change, with total amount of €2.3 billion
• More exploratory and smaller interventions
• Mainly targeted enterprises
– Create capacity for renewable energy production
– Energy savings through new technologies
• Data is not available whether projects really needed
public investments
• Wider short-term economic impacts are mixed; can
lead to both increased competitiveness or decreased
employment
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Policy
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Implications
• Institutional capacity must be seriously
improved
• Financial sustainability needs more attention
• The “green economy” - need to move beyond
environmental infrastructure
• Reviewing objectives: Investing in
environment is a political choice
• Ensuring synergies between environmental
infrastructure and economic growth
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Policy
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Thank you for your attention
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