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The quantification of the effect of climate change mitigation actions is a very useful exercise that can be used to meet a variety of objectives, such as informing policy design, enhancing policy implementation, assessing policy effectiveness, justifying budget allocation, and attracting climate finance. It is also a reporting requirement according to the reporting framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Monitoring Mechanism Regulation of the European Union (EU) about climate change relevant information. However, the reporting of emissions savings associated to mitigation actions by EU Member States is not complete, according to recent technical reports of the European Environmental Agency. The purpose of this paper is to present a methodological framework that can be used to quantify the effect (i.e. emission reductions) of the mitigation actions. It is based on comprehensive and transparent models and formulas that could be easily tracked and reproduced. The proposed framework could be easily applied by EU Member States, but also by other non-EU countries, to enhance the reporting of climate change related information to European Commission and UN bodies. By applying the methodological framework for Greece, as a case study, it was possible to estimate the effect of implemented policies and measures for historical years (ex-post analysis), but also to estimate the projected effect (ex-ante analysis) of implemented, adopted and planned policies for future years (e.g. 2030).

Air pollutants emissions from traffic are very closely connected to urban air quality, in a local scale, as well as to global problems like climate change, in a large scale. Road transport air pollutants emissions represent, in most cases, a critical parameter for a comprehensive and successful understanding of the mechanisms governing the air pollutants concentrations. Hence, reliable estimations and comprehension of road transport emissions are indispensable in order to set reliable strategies in the direction of air pollution abatement and management of air pollutants and greenhouse gases emissions. In this framework, in the present work, the emissions of air pollutants from road transport in Greece will be presented for the whole period 1990-2009 as it was found that a detailed, accurate and reliable emissions inventory was missing. The whole period emissions variation has clarified the impact of the change in the vehicle fleet, the engine technologies and the fuel quality. The calculated results have revealed that the age of the vehicles and the corresponding engine technology are the critical parameters determining the amount of the pollutants emitted. This was mainly observed in both passenger cars and heavy duty vehicles demonstrating the importance of a renewal programme of the old circulating vehicles in order to set an effective air pollution abatement strategy. Passenger cars were found to be responsible for the major part of most air pollutants emissions except from nitrogen oxides and particulates emissions. Heavy duty vehicles contribute more than 66% to nitrogen oxides and particulates emissions. For the whole time period, all calculated pollutants present a decreasing trend, with the exception of carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide which increase constantly, ranging from −96% for sulphur dioxide to −1% for PM10.