The state of Baden-Württemberg pledges to uphold the federal government's commitment to an on average reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 21% in the years 2008-2012 as compared to 1990. The national climate plan accordingly enacts the reduction of CO2 emissions until 2005 by 25%. Owing to the interrelatedness of the subject the state governance has furthermore installed in its regional objectives ("Umweltplan 2000") the goal set forth by the EU of doubling by the year 2010 the share of renewable energies in primary energy consumption as well as power generation.

As part of designing a climate protection programme to implement the goals related to this comprehensive climate protection scheme in Baden-Württemberg, the State Ministry for Environment and Transport required the economic evaluation of several discrete measures for the reduction of greenhouse gases. The ZEW was therefore addressed to conduct a study on the "Economic evaluation of proposed measures for the reduction of greenhouse gases". The first part of the project took to a first qualitative assessment of the measures. The second part involved the quantitative analysis of the macroeconomic effects of the measures as modelled in various scenarios. The third part of the project dealt with the appreciation of the proposed measures within the framework of national and international climate policy in order to provide recommendations for further actions regarding the progression of the state's climate protection strategy.