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Publication Laka-library:
External Costs. Research results on socio-environmental damages due to electricity and transport (2003)

AuthorEuropean Commission
Date2003
Classification 6.01.0.10/65 (COSTS)
Front

From the publication:

Foreword

European socio-economic research plays a key role in providing policy-makers 
with a substantiated scientific background. In the field of energy, transport and 
environment, a scientific and rigorous analysis can help to assess a renewable 
electricity target, an energy tax, a quantified objective to reduce greenhouse gases 
emissions, a state aid exception for clean energies or a standard for energy efficiency.

The determination of the external costs caused by energy production and 
consumption, i.e. the monetary quantification of its socio-environmental damage, 
goes in the same direction. Indeed, external costs have to be quantified before they 
can be taken into account and internalised. This is precisely the goal of the ExternE 
(External costs of Energy) European Research Network active from the beginning 
of the Nineties. These multidisciplinary teams of researchers adopted a common 
methodology, conducted case studies throughout Europe and succeeded in 
presenting robust and validated conclusions.

Within this coherent framework, the ExternE results allowed different fuels and 
technologies for electricity and transport sectors to be compared. Policy actions 
could therefore be taken to tax the most damaging fuels and technologies (like oil 
and coal) or to encourage those with lower socio-environmental cost (such as 
renewables or nuclear). The internalisation of external costs will also give an 
impetus to the emergence of dean technologies and new sectors of activity for 
research-intensive and high added value enterprises.

European citizens want to live in a more sustainable world. The consideration of 
external costs is one way of re-balancing social and environmental dimensions with 
purely economic ones. The assessment of "externalities" answers a social demand 
and European research should help to lay down the basis for improved energy and 
transport policies.

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