The role of agriculture in the European Commission strategy to reduce air pollution

One of the ma n EU pol cy nstruments, the Themat c Strategy announced the rev s on of the D rect ve on Nat onal Em ss ons Ce l ngs w th new em ss on ce l ngs that should lead to the ach evement of the agreed object ves w th pr or ty g ven to f ne PM. Th s paper h ghl ghts the role of the agr cultural sector n the cost-effect ve em ss on control strateg es for the EU-27. To support the quant tat ve costeffect veness analys s, the GAINS ntegrated assessment model has been used. In the EU-27, agr cultural act v t es are respons ble for the major ty of NH3 em ss ons and about 4 % of PM2.5; n the future the relat ve contr but on to PM em ss ons s expected to ncrease. Implementat on of current em ss on control leg slat on s est mated to reduce em ss ons of most pollutants n the EU-27 by 40 60 % by 2020. For ammon a, however, em ss ons are est mated to decl ne by only 10 %, ma nly as a consequence of the expected decl ne n cattle numbers; tak ng full account of the N trate D rect ve mpact m ght result n a further 10 % reduct on. Also the total control costs are much lower for agr culture than n several other sectors. Although the total potent al for techn cal em ss on control measures s s gn f cantly lower for ammon a than for other pollutants, ammon a offers the largest scope for further em ss on reduct ons on top of the measures requ red by current leg slat on. In the opt mal strategy, a s gn f cant reduct on of ammon a s expected, wh ch s assoc ated w th relat vely large costs, represent ng about 20 % of total add t onal costs over the current leg slat on basel ne. However, w th respect to the total control costs, agr culture rema ns among the smaller sectors. The analys s performed shows that ndependent of the env ronmental object ve (exclud ng an ozone-only case) the em ss on reduct ons n agr culture, pr mar ly of NH3, play an mportant role n atta n ng targets spec f ed n the Themat c Strategy and represent about 20 to 40 % of the add t onal costs of the strateg es analyzed. Only n the scenar o where full mplementat on of the N trate D rect ve was assumed s the share of agr culture lower.