Understanding how pollutant emissions will evolve in the future is essential for designing effective clean air policies today while taking into account the available resources in a given country.  

While air quality in the UNECE region has improved over the past few decades as a result of integrated air pollution management strategies developed under the Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (Air Convention), progress has also been uneven across the region. In particular in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia (EECCA), more efforts are needed to reduce air pollutant emissions.   

To assist countries in analyzing their air pollutant emission data and understanding how to develop their emission scenarios, UNECE organized a subregional training workshop for EECCA countries together with the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Laxenburg, Austria (6-10 November 2023).  

The workshop was tailored to countries’ data availability and needs and included hands-on training sessions on the GAINS (Greenhouse Gas – Air Pollution Interactions and Synergies) model – a model that was used to support the negotiations for the revision of the Protocol to Abate Acidification, Eutrophication and Ground-level Ozone (Gothenburg Protocol) under the Convention. The model can help assess emission reduction potentials in different countries and regions. It can simulate costs, health and ecosystems benefits of different emission control measures, analyse cost-effectiveness of measures to achieve user-defined policy targets and assess costs and benefits to maximize the benefits of policy interventions. 

The five-day in-depth training workshop helped participants in understanding how to set national emission reduction targets for 2020 and beyond, which is a necessary step in the ratification process of the Gothenburg Protocol. The workshop was funded by the European Union.