D4.1 Report on assessment of low-carbon pathways for economic growth, industrial competitiveness and employment in EU countries

Summary

The INNOPATHS project aims to provide a fully-fledged assessment of the technology, policy, energy and socio-economic impacts of decarbonisation strategies for the EU. In this context, the deliverable D4.1 aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of the activity growth, employment, trade and competitiveness effects of current and future European energy and climate policy measures. This deliverable presents a series of research papers which provide insights on the socio-economic impacts of climate policies towards the transformation of the European Union (EU) economy in line with the EU Green Deal and the long-term strategy for climate neutrality by mid-century. The analysis is not limited to the long-term developments, but also considers the mid-term developments (up to 2030) that need to take place to pave the way towards the restructuring of the European economy towards decarbonisation. In addition, the analysis explores the socio-economic impacts of past and current energy and climate policies, in particular related to the impacts on employment, skills, trade, carbon leakage and embodied emissions. Finally, the research papers present new methodological improvements developed in the task 4.1, both related to advanced econometric and statistical techniques as well as beyond the state-of-the-art modelling enhancements in the macro-economic GEM-E3 model which allow an improved representation of energy system transformation, climate policy instruments, financial sector and endogenous technology progress induced by innovation.