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Factors contributing to the Europe 2020 target attainment

Betke, Saskia (2016) Factors contributing to the Europe 2020 target attainment.

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Abstract:For my bachelor thesis I decided to investigate the Europe 2020 strategy and its targets referring to climate change and energy sustainability more closely. These targets are the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 20-30% compared to 1990 levels (depending on the conditions), an increase of the share in renewable energy sources by 20% in the final energy consumption, and a 20% growth in the overall energy efficiency. My research will concentrate on possible factors explaining the progress of the member states in attaining their nationally adopted targets referring to the reducing of greenhouse gas emissions, the implementation of renewable energy sources and growth in energy efficiency. Therefore, the exact research question will state as follows: “Which factors explain the progress of the European member states in achieving the Europe 2020 targets referring to climate change and energy sustainability?”. In an attempt to answer this question I conducted a systematic literature analysis and retrieved three factors which will serve as independent variables in this study: affluence and population growth and the amount of RES support policies within the member states. I created and statistically tested six hypotheses via multivariate regression analyses in SPSS within this research. However, only one relationship shows statistical significance while also fulfilling the assumptions (linearity, independence, homoscedasticity, and normality). The hypothesis which is verified within this research is “A rise in population of the member state will result in a decrease in energy efficiency”. The other hypotheses do not contain statistically significant relationships, do not fulfill the assumptions or indicate negative instead of positive correlations. Thus, for the last Europe 2020 strategy target the factors affluence and population growth explain 62 % of the progress towards achieving the energy efficiency target.
Item Type:Essay (Bachelor)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:43 environmental science
Programme:Management Society and Technology BSc (56654)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/71101
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