Policy interventions and components overview

Policy interventions are implemented in a model component (mostly one). The result of this implementation affects other model components. Each component contains a Policy intervention Table on its 'Policy issues' page describing the effects of policy interventions. Use the link in the 'Affects components' column to navigate to the components Policy issues page, (*) denotes the implementing component.

Policy intervention	Description	Affects component
Afforestation policies	Increasing forest area to sequester CO2 in biomass which helps to achieve stringent climate targets.	Agricultural economy(*) Carbon cycle and natural vegetation
Agricultural trade policies	Changes in agricultural trade policies are applied to the corresponding quota (export or import quota) or border taxes.	Agricultural economy(*) Ecosystem services Land-use allocation Terrestrial biodiversity
Apply emission and energy intensity standards	Apply emission intensity standards for e.g. cars (gCO2/km), power plants (gCO2/kWh) or appliances (kWh/hour).	Emissions
Avoiding deforestation	Here comes description
Capacity targets	It is possible to prescribe the shares of renewables, CCS technology, nuclear power and other forms of generation capacity. This measure influences the amount of capacity installed of the technology chosen.	Emissions Energy conversion(*)
Carbon tax	A tax on carbon leads to higher prices for carbon intensive fuels (such as fossil fuels), making low-carbon alternatives more attractive.	Climate policy(*) Emissions Energy conversion(*) Energy demand(*) Energy supply Human development
Change in grazing intensity	Change in grazing intensity, usually more intensive. This would require better management of grasslands, including for example the use of grass-clover mixtures and fertilisers, bringing the length of the grazing season in tune with the period of grass production, and rotations.	Land-use allocation(*) Livestock systems Terrestrial biodiversity
Change market shares of fuel types	Exogenously set the market shares of certain fuel types. This can be done for specific analyses or scenarios to explore the broader implications of increasing the use of, for instance, biofuels, electricity or hydrogen and reflects the impact of fuel targets.	Emissions Energy conversion Energy demand(*) Energy supply
Change the use of electricity and hydrogen	It is possible to promote the use of electricity and hydrogen at the end-use level.	Emissions Energy conversion(*) Energy demand
Changes in consumption and diet preferences	Interventions that target consumption changes or changes in dietary preferences	Agricultural economy(*) Aquatic biodiversity Ecosystem services Land-use allocation Livestock systems Nutrients Terrestrial biodiversity
Changes in crop and livestock production systems	General changes in crop and livestock production systems, e.g. more efficient production methods to create higher production per unit of input, or other systems like organic farming	Agricultural economy(*) Aquatic biodiversity Ecosystem services Nutrients Terrestrial biodiversity Water
Changes in feed ration	Change in the share of grass in the feed rations of cattle, sheep and goats, usually a decrease, meaning grass will be substituted by feed crops and the livestock system will be more intensive.	Livestock systems(*)
Climate change adaptation	Adaptation to climate change reduces climate damage. The model can optimally calculate the optimal adaptation level based on marginal adaptation costs and marginal avoided damage, but an alternative adaptation level can be used as well.	Climate policy(*)
Closing the yield gap	This intervention increases actual yields (reduces the gap between potential and actual yields), usually realized by better management.	Agricultural economy(*) Crops and grass Human development Terrestrial biodiversity
Effort- or burden-sharing of emission reductions	Evaluation of burden-sharing or effort-sharing regimes. Which regions or countries should contribute, when and by how much to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions?	Climate policy(*)
Emission trading policy	Analysis of the effect of rules for trading emission credits on regional abatement costs.	Climate policy(*)
Energy tax or subsidiy	Changing the prices through energy tax or subsidy for the various energy carriers influences the choice of technology and thus the level of emissions.
Enlarge protected areas	Increase in areas with protected status, as well the size of the areas as the numer of parks.	Agricultural economy Aquatic biodiversity Ecosystem services Land-use allocation(*) Terrestrial biodiversity
Excluding certain technologies	Certain energy technology options can be excluded in the model for environmental, societal, and/or security reasons.	Emissions Energy conversion(*)
Expanding Reduced Impact Logging	Increasing the share of produced wood yielded with Reduced Impact Logging (RIL) practices instead of conventional logging practices.	Carbon cycle and natural vegetation Forest management(*) Terrestrial biodiversity
Financing climate policy	Developed countries could provide financial resources to assist developing countries by implementation of mitigation and adaptation policies. To mobilise these funds, several mechanisms exist, of which the effect can be analysed	Climate policy(*)
Hydropower	Construction of dams and reservoirs in rivers	Aquatic biodiversity(*)
Implementation of biofuel targets	Policies to enhance the use of biofuels, especially in the transport sector. In the Agricultural economy component only 'first generation' crops are taken into account. The policy is implemented as a budget-neutral policy from government perspective, e.g. a subsidy is implemented to achieve a certain share of biofuels in fuel production and an end-user tax is applied to counterfinance the implemented subsidy.	Agricultural economy(*) Emissions Energy supply Land-use allocation Terrestrial biodiversity
Implementation of land use planning	Application of zoning laws or cadastres, assigning areas to certain land uses.	Agricultural economy Ecosystem services Land-use allocation(*)
Implementation of sustainability criteria in bio-energy production	Sustainability criteria that could become binding for dedicated bio-energy production, such as the restrictive use of water-scarce or degraded areas.	Emissions Energy supply(*) Terrestrial biodiversity
Improve behaviour	Reduce the health impacts of malnutrition and inadequate access to safe drinking water, basic sanitaion and modern sources of energy, through, for example, improving female education, promoting good hygiene and providing good indoor good ventilation	Human development(*)
Improve quality of access	Improve the quality of access to drinking water, sanitation and modern sources of energy, through, for example, household connections to drinking-water supply and the use of LPG or kerosene instead of traditional biomass on improved biomass stoves	Human development(*)
Improved irrigation efficiency	Improved irrigation efficiency assumes an increase in the irrigation project efficiency and irrigation conveyance efficiency.	Water(*)
Improved manure storage	Improved manure storage systems (ST), considering 20% lower NH3 emissions from animal housing and storage systems.	Nutrients(*)
Improved rainwater management	Improved rainwater management assumes a decrease in the evaporative losses from rainfed agriculture and the creation of small scale reservoirs to harvest rainwater during the wet period and use it during a dryer period. Both measures lead to more efficient use of water and increased yields on rainfed fields.	Water(*)
Improvement of feed conversion	Improvement of feed conversion ratio of small ruminants, such as sheep and goats. This means other breeds will be used that need less grass to produce the same amount of meat.	Livestock systems(*) Nutrients
Improving energy efficiency	Exogenously set improvement in efficiency. Such improvements can be introduced for the submodels that focus on particular technologies, for example, in transport, heavy industry and households submodels.	Emissions Energy conversion Energy demand(*) Energy supply
Increase access to food	Increase access to food by targeting food prices for the poorest households	Human development(*)
Increase access to water	Increase access to safe drinking water and improved sanitation by lowering prices and investing in infrastructure	Human development(*)
Increase forest plantations	Increase the use of wood from highly productive wood plantations instead of wood from (semi-) natural forests.	Carbon cycle and natural vegetation Forest management(*) Terrestrial biodiversity
Increase natural carbon storage	It should be noted that policy measures to increase carbon storage often generate certain co-benefits, such as the restoration of watershed and wildlife habitats, and the prevention of soil erosion.	Ecosystem services
Increased livestock productivity	A change in production characteristics, such as milk production per animal, carcass weight and off-take rates, which will also have an impact on the feed conversion ratio; in general, this will be lower in more productive animals	Land-use allocation Livestock systems(*)
Increased storage capacity	Increasing storage capacity assumes that the total water volume stored in large reservoirs will increase. This can either be established by an increase of the capacity of existing reservoirs, or by building new reservoirs.	Water(*)
Integrated manure management	Better integration of manure in crop production systems. This consists of recycling of manure that under the baseline scenario ends up outside the agricultural system (e.g. manure used as fuel), in crop systems to substitute fertiliser. In addition, there is improved integration of animal manure in crop systems, particularly in industrialised countries.	Nutrients(*)
Intensification or extensification of livestock systems	A change in the distribution of the production over pastoral and mixed systems; usually to a larger share of the production in mixed systems, which inherently changes the overall feed conversion ratios of ruminants.	Agricultural economy Land-use allocation Nutrients
Intensification/extensification of livestock systems	A change in the distribution of the production over pastoral and mixed systems; usually to a larger share of the production in mixed systems, which inherently changes the overall feed conversion ratios of ruminants.	Agricultural economy Land-use allocation Nutrients
Mitigate environmental changes	Mitigating environmental changes, such as climate change, biodiversity loss and water stress
More sustainable forest management	Sustainable forest management aims for maintaining long-term harvest potential and good ecological status of forests (e.g. the nutrient balance and biodiversity). This can be implemented by (i) enlarging the return period when a forest can be harvested again; (ii) only using certain fractions of the harvested biomass and leave the remaining part in the forests.	Carbon cycle and natural vegetation Forest management(*)
Non-CO2 taxation policies	Taxes greenhouse gas emissions in agriculture to achieve cost-optimal mitigation in the agricultural sector.	Agricultural economy(*)
Production targets for energy technologies	Production targets for energy technologies can be set to force technologies through a learning curve.	Energy conversion
Provision on improved stoves for traditional bio-energy	Increases the efficiency of bio-energy use.	Energy demand(*) Human development
REDD policies	The objective of REDD policies it to reduce land-use related emissions by protecting existing forests in the world; The implementation of REDD includes also costs of policies.	Agricultural economy(*) Carbon cycle and natural vegetation Emissions
Reducing health risk	(primary) prevention, i.e. eliminating or reducing the health risk
Reduction of waste/losses	Reduction of losses in the agro-food chain and waste after consumption.	Agricultural economy(*) Land-use allocation Terrestrial biodiversity
Reduction proposals (pledges)	Evaluation of current reduction proposals by countries and policy options (for the next 10-20 years).	Climate policy(*)
Restrictions on fuel trade	As part of energy security policies, fuel trade between different regions can be blocked.	Energy conversion Energy supply(*)
Sanitation measures	Increase the access to improved sanitation, and connection to sewage systems; institution of wastewater treatment installations; recycling of human waste for substitution of synthetic fertilisers.	Nutrients(*)
Subsidies on modern energy	Reduces the costs of modern energy to reduce traditional energy use (can be targeted to low income groups).	Energy demand(*) Human development

(*) Implementing component.

Related overviews

• Policy interventions overview