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European Environmental Evaluators Network – 2015 Forum
17 & 18 September 2015 | European University Institute (EUI)
Florence School of Regulation Climate (FSR-Climate)
Florence (Italy)
‘Knowledge from climate & environment policy evaluation –
supporting the road from Paris to 2050’
Call for contributions
About the European Environmental Evaluators’ Network (EEEN) and the EEEN forums
The purpose of the international Environmental Evaluators Network (EEN) is to advance the practice,
policy and theory of evaluating environmental programmes, policies and other interventions. Since
2012, forums of the European Environmental Evaluators’ Network (EEEN) have been organised to
promote more systematic and collective learning in these areas. The Florence School of Regulation
Climate (FSR-Climate) of the European University Institute (EUI) will host the 4th EEEN Forum on 17
and 18 September 2015 in Florence (Italy). The 2015 EEEN forum aims at drawing lessons from
climate & environment policy evaluation, supporting the road from the climate summit in Paris to
2050.
The 2015 EEEN forum will bring together practitioners and users of environmental evaluation. They
will have the opportunity to share views, knowledge and experiences about the use, relevance and
future priorities for climate and environment policy evaluation from their respective viewpoints.
Environmental evaluation in support of climate & environment policies to 2050
The theme of the 2015 EEEN forum is the evaluation of climate and environment policies in view of
mid- and long-term targets. 25 years after the first assessment report of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), experience with the design of climate policy, its adoption and
implementation has significantly developed – in Europe and beyond. Yet, the “careful retrospective
assessment of public-sector interventions, their organization, content, implementation and outputs
or outcomes, which is intended to play a role in future practical situations”1 of these policies for
mitigating and adapting to climate change remains a relatively ‘young’ discipline. This is even more
true for the evaluation of the systemic changes required for a transition to a resource-efficient,
green and competitive low-carbon economy (7th Environment Action Programme).
Call for contributions
If you would like to contribute to the EEEN forum as a presenter or discussion leader, please submit
your proposal by 12 June 2015 through the form available from
http://fsr.eui.eu/Events/ENERGY/Forum/EEENForum/150917-18EEENForum.aspx. A limited
number of grants will be available to presenters and discussion leaders.
1
Vedung, Evert (2010): Four Waves of Evaluation Diffusion. Evaluation 16(3): 263–277. doi: 10.1177/1356389010372452.
Invitation to contribute: four thematic clusters
Four thematic clusters will be addressed at the 2015 EEEN forum to consolidate and enhance
evaluative knowledge on climate and environment policy. Contributions, i.e. presentations of 10-15
minutes, should relate to breakout sessions in four clusters:
1. Evaluating systemic change for a transition to a resource-efficient, green and competitive
low-carbon economy
A transition to a resource-efficient, green and competitive low-carbon economy is one of the
ambitions set out in the European Union’s 7th Environment Action Programme. Achieving
this objective depends on underpinning short- and medium-term actions and investments
with results from ex post evaluation. At the same time, more profound changes in
institutions, practises, technologies, policies, lifestyles and thinking will be required in the
long run. The first thematic cluster will evaluate past and future shifts in three systems in
view of a successful long-term transition to a resource-efficient, green and competitive lowcarbon economy:
1.1
The energy system
1.2
The food system
1.3
The mobility system
2. Evaluating progress towards mid- and long-term climate policy targets
The evaluation of progress towards targets (or policy objectives) is comparably wellestablished in environmental policy evaluation. A number of approaches, such as content
and impact evaluation, are available to evaluate policy targets and related progress. The
second thematic cluster will evaluate progress towards targets addressing different
timeframes (past/ medium & long term), different policy issues and different types of policy
instruments:
2.1
Evaluating climate mitigation strategies to 2020, 2030 and 2050
2.2
Comparative ex post evaluations of climate mitigation instruments
2.3
Ex post evaluation of investments for climate mitigation and adaptation
3. Evaluating climate change adaptation
Adaptation, i.e. actions responding to current and future climate change impacts and
vulnerabilities (as well as to the climate variability that occurs in the absence of climate
change) within the context of ongoing and expected societal change, is a rapidly evolving
policy area. Typically adaptation approaches integrate a mix of ‘grey’ adaptation (such as
large-scale engineering projects such as building dykes and coastal defences), ‘green’
adaptation (using natural methods to increase an area’s resilience to climate change) and
‘soft’ adaptation (eg. laws, taxes, financial incentives and information campaigns to
encourage resilience to climate change). About 20 European countries have adopted climate
adaptation strategies to date, a starting point for the third cluster evaluating three
categories of adaptation:
3.1
Purpose and objectives for monitoring and evaluating grey (relating to engineering and
infrastructure), green (relating to nature) and soft (managerial, legal and policy approaches
altering behavior) adaptation measures
3.2
Developing methods and indicators for monitoring and evaluating adaptation
3.3
Application of monitoring and evaluation results in policy and practice
4. Knowledge & methods for environment and climate policy evaluation
A comprehensive toolbox of methods and extensive knowledge is already available in the
area of environment and climate policy evaluation. Synthesising the knowledge and
identifying the right tools for addressing specific evaluation questions often remains a
challenge. The fourth cluster will therefore look at both well-established and more recent
practice for environment and climate policy evaluation:
-
4.1
Evaluating climate and energy policy experiments and policy innovations
4.2
Regulation vs. market-based instruments – comparing their worth, merit and value
4.3
Evidence synthesis – creating an evidence base for climate policy interventions
Lead questions for all four thematic clusters are:
What are key findings from retrospective climate & environment policy evaluation to
support the road from Paris to 2050?
What are examples of good practice for attributing changes to specific interventions? If such
attribution is not feasible, what alternative methods are used?
What are the avenues for enhancing the evaluation of long-term transformative changes
towards sustainability?
Audience
The 2015 EEEN forum welcomes evaluators and users of evaluation from all relevant fields and
disciplines working in academia, government agencies, non-governmental organisations, European
and international institutions and companies.
Format
The EEEN forum wants to create a space for a lively, creative, cutting-edge dialogue. The forum is
organised around a number of plenary keynote speeches, panel discussions, thematic contributions
by the participants and networking events.
Questions?
If you have any questions in relation to the 2015 EEEN forum, please address the EEEN planning and
organising team (details below).
We hope to meet you in Florence!
The EEEN planning and organising team
(Xavier Labandeira and Barbara Morganti, FSR-Climate/ European University Institute; Lisa Eriksson, Swedish
Environmental Protection Agency; Paula Kivimaa, SYKE; Johannes Schilling and Zuzana Vercinská, European
Environment Agency)
The EEEN Advisory Group
(Andrew Pullin, Collaboration for Environmental Evidence; Eeva Primmer, SYKE; Edwin Zaccai, Université Libre
de Bruxelles; Kris Bachus, KU Leuven; Matt Keene, US EPA; Marleen Van Steertegem, Flemish Environment
Agency (VMM); Odile Heddebaut, IFSTTAR)