Stefan Jacobi; European Commission, DG Environment
This note is meant to give brief information on the activities taken up under the Clean
Air for Europe programme (CAFE).
Background of the CAFE Programme
Based on the 6 th EAP and in order to work towards a thematic strategy on air quality, the Clean Air for Europe (CAFE) programme was initiated by the European
Commission
1
. The specific objectives of the CAFE programme are:
 to develop, collect and validate scientific information relating to the effects of ambient air pollution, emission inventories, air quality assessment, emission and air quality projections, cost-effectiveness studies and integrated assessment modelling, leading to the development and updating of air quality and deposition objectives and indicators and identification of the measures required to reduce emissions;
 to support the implementation and review the effectiveness of existing legislation, in particular the air quality framework and daughter directives, the decision on exchange of information, and national emission ceilings directive, to contribute to the review of international protocols, and to develop new proposals as and when necessary;
 to ensure that the measures that will be needed to achieve air quality and deposition objectives cost-effectively are taken at the relevant level through the development of effective structural links with the relevant policy areas;
 to determine an overall, integrated strategy at regular intervals which defines appropriate air quality objectives for the future and cost-effective measures for meeting those objectives;
 to disseminate widely the technical and policy information arising from implementation of the programme.
1 Commission Communication COM(2001)245 of 04 May 2001

Co-operation and stakeholder involvement
Co-operation and stakeholder involvement is seen as a key point of the CAFEprogramme. The CAFE secretariat is communicating regularly with the UN/ECE
Convention on Long Range Transboundary Pollution (CLRTAP) on different levels
(the Executive Body, the EMEP Steering Body and appropriate working groups and task forces) to harmonise the work in similar fields.
The CAFE-work programme and all activities initiated under the programme are being followed by the CAFE Steering Group consisting of representatives of all
Member States and Accession Countries as well as industries, green NGO’s the
UN/ECE-Convention on LRTAP, WHO, EEA and different groups of the EC of course.
Additional stakeholder consultations take place and are foreseen during the course of the different activities under CAFE, e. g. for the development of the CAFE-baseline scenario but also in terms of the specific CAFE working groups (e.g. the WG on
Target Setting and Policy Assessment and the WG PM).
As a matter of transparency information on the different working groups and the
CAFE programme as such is being made publicly available via the internet.
2
Current major activities
Major activities that have been initiated under the CAFE programme so far can be shortly summarised as follows:

Following the implementation of existing legislation
As the CAFE programme is not ‘starting from zero’, following the implementation of existing directives on air quality but also on the NEC’s is part of the integrative character of the programme. The working group on implementation, that already existed before the CAFE programme was launched, supports the EC in implementation issues. The review of existing directives partly will be integrated into the thematic strategy of the CAFE programme.

WHO-Systematic Review of Health Aspects from Air Pollution
WHO has updated its Air Quality Guidelines for Europe (AQG), providing information on adverse health effects of exposure to specific air pollutants on human health, in the 1990s. The EU used this information in the past as a basis to decide on binding air quality limit values and on target values, introduced by EUlegislation. Since the latest update of the AQG a significant amount of new information concerning the health aspects from air pollution have been derived. To provide a solid base for further considerations under the CAFE programme the
Commission asked WHO to review the new scientific evidence systematically. As for the pollutants, PM, O
3
and NO
2
were considered to be of primary importance.
A set of specific questions concerning health aspects of these atmospheric pollutants, agreed upon with the CAFE steering group, were submitted to WHO to be answered.
2 http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/environment/air/index.htm

The results of this review could also lead to a reconsideration of existing WHO-
AQG, if appropriate. The final report of this review was finished in March 2003, it is available on the internet 3 . The CAFE secretariat has provided a second set of questions for WHO to be answered until early 2004. These questions mostly are related to the first set of questions on priority substances aiming at clarification on e.g. the uncertainty of WHO-answers and the necessity to keep attention of specific population groups. Also the question on what other air pollutants are important to consider in the development of air pollution policies has been addressed. WHO has also agreed to prepare a number of additional reports e.g. on the exposure-response relationship for the priority substances PM and ozone and on the specific impact of air pollution on the children’s health.

Development of the baseline and policy scenarios and integrated assessment modelling framework
A service contract has been launched in order to ensure the development of
- a robust baseline scenario;
- an operational integrated assessment modelling framework (IAM) allowing a
sufficient number of scenarios to be analysed within CAFE;
- scenarios reflecting the various options for improving air quality in the
enlarged EU for the period up to 2020.
The tasks of this work are to derive to the best knowledge reliable information on the future development of the spatial distribution of emissions as well as the resulting ambient air quality and to provide information on the effect of different policy scenarios on ambient air quality including cost implications. The following air pollution related problems will be covered under the IAM:
- the effect of primary and secondary particles (for PM
10
and PM
2.5
),
- nitrogen oxides,
- tropospheric ozone and
- acidification and eutrophication on human health and ecosystems.
The area to be covered must include the current Member States, Accession
Countries, the relevant European Economic Area as well as Switzerland. The spatial resolution of the IAM will be 50x50 km
2
. Stakeholder consultation is considered to be an integrative and crucial part of the baseline development. The effect of current legislation on the EU- as well as on Member State level needs to be included in the CAFE baseline. Also the influence of climate policies on the level of air pollutants will be considered. The baseline scenario should be finalised towards the end of the first quarter of 2004. The work will be carried out by a consortium comprising of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
(IIASA), the Norwegian Meteorological Institute (MET.NO) and the National
Technical University Athens (NTUA). The process to develop the baseline will be accompanied by several stakeholder consultations about projections of energy and agricultural activities, including bilateral consultations between the contractor and individual stakeholders. The aim is to reach consensus on the European wide energy and agriculture scenarios.
3 http://www.euro.who.int/document/e79097.pdf

Differences are still to be expected between a scenario, based on the European wide perspective compared to a scenario based on National projections. The first stakeholder consultation took place on 27/28 May with a follow-up October this year. The bilateral consultations started in September and will continue till the end of the year. A second general stakeholder consultation is foreseen in February
2004 to review the preliminary baseline scenario.

TREMOVE
The TREMOVE environment and transport model simulation model
4
was developed to analyse in detail the costs and effects of environment and transport policies applicable in the European Union. The model was developed to support the policy assessment process within the framework of the Second European
Auto-Oil Program. It was decided to further develop this model in order to use it in the perspective of the CAFE program. For example the spatial coverage will be expanded to cover the EU15 plus Norway and Switzerland and a number of acceding countries. It is also foreseen that TREMOVE should be able to communicate data with other related modelling projects, like RAINS
5
. The developed model design and preliminary baseline of TREMOVE should be available towards the end of 2003.

EGTEI / IPTS
The credibility of the integrated assessment modelling also relays on sound information concerning the technical and economic data of all relevant production processes and their abatement options. Since there is a rapid development in this field it is necessary to update the database to be used by RAINS. Again there is a close link to the work under the LRTAP Convention and the Gothenburg protocol.
Consequently, agreed by the LRTAP Executive Body an “Expert Group on
Techno-Economic Issues” (EGTEI) was established in December 2001 to work on this update. The process to collect all necessary information in particular from member states turns out to be quite hard. However, it is crucial to have the updated database ready soon because of the tight schedule for the CAFE-baseline scenario.
In addition IPTS (JRC) has launched a study on “Emerging Technologies” in order to supplement the information to be used in the RAINS model for simulations up to 2020.

Urban scale problems
Additional efforts are necessary to deal with urban background and local scale problems. Results arising from the CITY-DELTA project 6 , initiated by the Joint
Research Centre (JRC) with participation of a large number of modelling groups, will be integrated in the baseline scenario to the extent possible to improve the spatial resolution. DG ENV will support the program with the aim to ensure an integration of the results in the RAINS model. This is expected to be possible in the second quarter of 2004.
4 http://www.tremove.org/index.html
5 http://www.iiasa.ac.at/rains/
6 http://www.rea.ei.jrc.it/netshare/thunis/citydelta

However this is not enough to look into local scale problems like street canyons.
Therefore, on the one hand it is planned to look into possibilities to derive useful information from typical ratios of urban background and urban hot spots
(statistical, empirical approach). On the other hand an attempt will be made to derive one or a limited number of street canyon models that allow a sufficiently well assessment of this hot spot situation in a large variety of European cities. This work will be supported by the European Environmental Agency (EEA)

Cost-benefit analysis
A contract on cost-benefit analysis has been launched and the contractor will start to work on it in September 2003.
The major question to be answered by this analysis is:
What would be the impacts, as well as the costs and benefits of cleaner air on health and environment (e.g. increased life expectancy, better health status, better soil and water quality, better preservation of buildings and cultural heritage) following from different policy options? Obviously this is closely linked to the
CAFE baseline scenario and IAM.

RAINS review
The Regional Air Pollution Information and Simulation model (RAINS) that will be used for the IAM, will be reviewed by a group a international scientific experts.
This work will start in the last quarter of 2003 and we expect the final in summer
2004. Additionally a model comparison of different integrated assessment models in Europe is planned.

Ex-post evaluation of policies
The general objective is to learn from the past in order to propose and develop new and more effective policies. Before proposing new policies or measures in the framework of the future thematic strategy it is essential to evaluate existing policies and instruments developed both at the EC, individual countries and on the regional or local level. This work will be supported through a call for tender for an assessment of the effectiveness of European air quality policies and measures which was launched in the summer 2003. It is foreseen that a contractor will start to work on it in the last quarter of 2003. A final report is expected in the summer of 2004.

Ex-post evaluation of short term actions
To support the decision making process on what kind of policies should be considered to further reduce air pollution an evaluation of the effectiveness of short term measures, both in space and time, will provide important information.
Another call for tender has been launched this summer to support such an evaluation. Likewise to the ex-post evaluation of policies it is foreseen that a contractor will start to work on that issue in the last quarter of 2003 and the final report will be presented in summer 2004.

Two specific working groups have been established under the CAFE programme:

The working group on target setting and policy assessment
The working group is chaired by the Commission and comprises all relevant stakeholders that are represented in the CAFE Steering Group as well. It supports the CAFE secretariat with recommendations on future indicators and targets for ambient air quality and finally recommendations on different policy options. Both kind of recommendations will feed into the integrated assessment modelling.
Concerning particulate matter there is a close link to the WG on PM.
According to the Terms of Reference the group should:
- assist in the initial setting of policy relevant air quality indicators and targets
for the baseline scenario and IAM,
- support the qualitative and quantitative assessment of the results of IAM
- make recommendations on alternative model runs for the IAM,
- assist in the analysis of policies and measures related to the development of
the thematic strategy under CAFE and
- make recommendations on options for consideration in the CAFE work
programme, as well as for the final report of the CAFE programme.
Much of the work so far has been related to the selection of indicators to be used for the baseline scenario and IAM. The indicators will be focussed on emissions, air quality and environmental impact.
For a number of these indicators targets will be selected to develop policy option scenarios. The decision on targets is foreseen towards the end of 2003. The more detailed discussion on possible policy option scenarios will be picked up as soon as the first preliminary results from the CAFE baseline becomes available.

The Working Group on Particulate Matter
As for the pollutants PM (besides ozone) has been identified as one of the key issues to be considered within the CAFE programme. As one tool in order to address the PM issue properly a CAFE working group has been established comprising of experts from different stakeholders (Member States, Industries, green NGO’s, EEA, WHO and the EC).
Major tasks (in accordance to the terms of reference) of the WG are:
 to review the current situation with regard to PM
10
and other fractions of PM taking into account new information and evidence that occurred since 1997, when the last “Position Paper on PM” was finalised,
 to evaluate possible trends of PM ambient air concentrations,
 to gather information on the attainability of the PM
10
limit values set by current legislation,
 to give recommendations on possible future targets for PM, taking into account the WHO systematic review of health aspects from air pollution,
 to review the results of the Integrated Assessment Modelling being provided for
CAFE, with regard to PM.

The group (chaired by the UK and Germany) was established in April 2002 and has the objective to finalise the revised position paper towards the end of 2003.
The draft PM position paper will be presented and discussed with European stakeholders at a workshop on 20/21 October in Stockholm. The major purpose of the workshop is to seek agreement on the content of the position paper and the potential conclusions to be drawn from it but also to consider further input and information from the participants of the workshop to the extent necessary and appropriate in order to finalise the paper.