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Research article2015Peer reviewed

Cost-effective nutrient and green-house gas management in the Baltic Sea region

Gren, Ing-Marie; Säll, Sarah

Abstract

We analyse cost-effective multi-target management of nutrient and GHG emissions, the challenge of which arises from the multi-pollutant emission of several sources and multifunctional capacity of abatement measures. The simple theoretical analysis shows that that simultaneous management of targets on both nutrients and GHG emission lower costs compared with separate management when i) the same source emits more than one pollutant, and ii) measures are complements in pollutant abatement. The application to the Baltic Sea region, where countries face intergovernmental targets on nitrogen and phosphorus loads and on carbon emissions, shows that multi-target compared with separate target management can reduce total abatement costs by 11% or approximately 1.5 billion Euro, which corresponds to 0.1% of total GDP in the region. The main reasons for this gain are the consideration of effects on both carbon and nitrogen emissions from combustion of fossil fuels, and the optimal use of land use measures which affects carbon and nutrient sequestration. However, the gains are unevenly distributed among the riparian countries, where Poland makes the largest and Russia might even face a loss

Keywords

cost-effectiveness; nutrients; green-house gas emission; pollutant sinks; Baltic Sea

Published in

Environmental Economics
2015, Volume: 6, number: 1, pages: 80-90