Europe’s Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) was a pioneer in cross-border climate ambition. However, action is still needed on tackling the two sectors it does not include: buildings and transport. In Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) these sectors lag behind European front-runners, and the pace for necessary emissions reduction. 

Our project focuses on improving these sectors in the CEE region, as well as on a European scale, through policy.  

CEE countries have common challenges, however, there are significant differences between the effectiveness of policy instruments used. Our project recognises this as a great opportunity for regional learning and collaboration.

By bringing local experts into the policy design process, the Climate Policy Frontier project aims to make a tangible contribution to the improvement of climate policy in these sectors.  The project provides the space for collaborative learning through regional workshops, and  the analytics to assess the potential for regional best practices and their compatibility with the Paris Agreement.

Through the envisaged actions, the project will:

• Help enhance climate action and international transfer of best practices. These focus specifically on accelerating emissions reductions from the transport and buildings sectors in the CEE region and beyond;
• Enable the CEE states to implement policy solutions for effective emissions reduction;
• Harmonise climate action efforts between and beyond the CEE countries, acknowledging factors that are responsible for current uneven progress;
• Increase ambitions in the non-ETS sectors and use the potential of existing solutions in these areas to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The project is being led by a consortium of WiseEuropa (Project Lead), Climate Analytics, Expert Forum (EFOR) and Climate Strategies.

The project is funded by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, under the European Climate Initiative (EUKI).

The project has raised climate action and ambition in the building and transport sectors in selected countries: Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria through identifying best practices.

Stakeholder engagement and collaborative learning is at the heart of the project, and have been facilitated through a series of regional workshops. Here, national experts from government, policy, industry and NGOs worked together to assess the identifying common challenges and opportunities to work together for solutions.

This identified pathways forward, expanding networks and helping to build a community on low-carbon transport and building transition in the CEE region.