The coronavirus pandemic has had only a minimal impact on global warming, but has significantly overshadowed climate policy work! The necessary structural transformation of the Austrian economy is more urgent than ever in autumn 2020.

On 9 September 2019, the scientific community presented the National Energy and Climate Plan (Ref-NEKP) for Austria, developed by researchers as a reference document, outlining how our country can ensure its contribution to achieving the Paris climate targets and how the transition to a near-zero greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient economy and society can succeed. What path has Austria been on since then, and what is needed to tackle the climate crisis?

The 2019 reference climate plan and its reception

In 2019, over seventy experts in climate and transformation research developed a reference plan as the basis for a scientifically sound national energy and climate plan for Austria (Ref-NEKP) that is consistent with the Paris climate targets. This was publicly presented on 9 September 2019 and submitted to the National Climate Protection Committee (NKK).

The central aim was to support the critically necessary improvements to the official NEKP for Austria that were needed by the end of 2019 for the success of climate protection from 2021 to 2030. Whilst the scientific Ref-NEKP contributed broadly to the formation of opinion in Austria as a factual basis and likely fed into the government programme to some extent, the immediate short-term goal was almost entirely missed: the impact on the NEKP ultimately submitted by the Bierlein government was marginal. The plan even acknowledged that Austria's emissions reduction targets could not be achieved with the measures envisaged...

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