Greenhouse gas emissions in Danish environmental assessments: a critical review

ABSTRACT

Climate change is a key focus in society, and environmental assessments (EAs) are seen as key instruments to inform decision-makers about climate consequences of plans and projects. Previous research has, however, identified shortcomings of practice of assessing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and their significance, and this paper aims to unfold current practices with a focus on Denmark. From an initial set of 762 Danish EA reports published between 2017 and 2021, researchers scrutinized 102 of them to assess their handling of GHG emissions. The findings show that climate change mitigation receives continuous sparse attention and is only to a limited extent included in the scope of the EA. Moreover, analysis of GHG emissions only involves few phases in a life-cycle perspective, GHG emissions are seldomly deemed significant, and justifications provided are varied and frequently inadequate. The results contrast with the increasing focus in society on climate change as a pivotal concern across numerous societal activities. The repercussions of this current practice are discussed. Finally, a research agenda to support better practice is outlined.

Highlights

• Increased focus on climate change has not had a major impact on Danish EA practice.

• Increasing GHG emissions are almost never assessed as significant.

• Nine types of justifications for the significance of GHG emissions are identified.

• Assessing GHG emissions directly against national total emissions is misleading.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate change
• significance
• life-cycle thinking
• EIA
• GHG emissions
• SEA

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The Environmental Assessment Day is a recurring annual conference hosted by the Danish Center for Environmental Assessment. The conference primarily revolves around environmental assessment of plans, programs, and projects as well as different aspects related to planning and environment (Kørnøv et al. 2022).

2. DREAMS is a research project funded by Innovation Fund Denmark, with the goal of improving EA.

practice through digitization https://dreamsproject.dk/

3. Institute of Environmental Management & Assessment (IEMA), Guide: Assessing Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Evaluating their Significance, 2nd Edition, 2022

Additional information

Funding

This research is made possible by the Innovation Fund Denmark (Grant agreement number, 0177-00021B DREAMS).