A focus of domestic environmental subsidies is the financial support of measures that help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These have clearly gained in importance over the past decade: by 2004, more than 99 percent of subsidised measures were relevant for the climate.

In Austria, as in the majority of EU countries, greenhouse gas emissions are currently rising most strongly in the transport sector. In view of the Kyoto commitments and the EU's greenhouse-gas policy, the reduction of transport-related emissions therefore is a matter of great urgency. This...