This report has been commissioned by the Nordic Working Groups for Environment and Economics (NME) and for Climate and Air (NKL). The report has been prepared by a consortium led by Mistra SC in cooperation with representatives from other research organizations, namely Aarhus University, University of Iceland and Cicero.
NME has in earlier projects dealt with the issue of consumption-related emissions in order to broaden the approach on how emissions originating from activities in a certain country can be reported. This project is a follow-up of these earlier reports and it attempts to give a state-of –the-art assessment of where we stand now in terms of consumption-based emissions especially from a policy point of view. In rich countries consumption-based emissions of greenhouse gases are typically higher than territorial ones. Both territorial and consumption-based emissions have decreased but it has been argued that the decrease has not been significant enough to be in line with international agreements.
The report concludes with recommendations, including improving statistics for consumption-based emissions, enhancing Nordic cooperation, and encouraging policy packages that integrate informational, economic and regulatory measures. These mixes are essential to reducing emissions effectively and ensuring broad public acceptance.
Members of the Nordic Working Groups for Environment and Economy and of Climate and Air have provided comments and inputs to the report during the work. The authors of the report are responsible for the content as well as the assessments and recommendations, which do not necessarily reflect the views and the positions of the governments in the Nordic countries.
October 2024
Magnus Cederlöf
Chair of the Nordic Working Group for Environment and Economics