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In this study the potential and cost consequences to reduce Dutch greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 and the potential and costs of increasing rate of energy efficiency improvement between 2010 and 2020 have been analysed. Over 150 measures to limit emissions and energy consumption have been assessed and used as the basis to analyse the possibility to reach three indicative emission targets (220, 200 and 180 Mton of CO₂ equivalents).

The measures have been combined and ranked based on minimising the national  cost of emission reduction. It appears that the identified measures can be combined to represent  a technical emission reduction potential of 90 Mton CO₂ eq emissions in 2020. This implies  a theoretical potential to reduce the national greenhouse gas emission from 251 Mton, as  projected in the Global Economy scenario (variant) for 2020, to 160 Mton. Several emission  targets, ranging from 220 to 180 Mton CO₂ eq have been studied in detail. In a cost minimising  package to limit emissions to 180 Mton CO₂ eq, the largest contribution will come from energy  savings followed by CO₂ capture and storage and nuclear energy. It must be noted that the feasibility  and availability of policy instruments to overcome the barriers to implement these measures have not been studied or taken into account. In the packages for emission reduction the rate of energy efficiency improvement will be increased from 1.0% in the baseline to 1.4-1.6% per year. An energy efficiency improvement rate of over 2% per year can theoretically be reached on the basis of the measures that were assessed. Several sensitivity analyses were performed.  They show that the national mitigation costs depend amongst others on the assumptions for CO₂ storage capacity, and acceptance of the nuclear option. Furthermore, higher oil prices do not strongly influence the feasibility of reaching the indicative emission targets or energy efficiency rates. However, they lead to a decrease of the overall costs.