Road to green future - Decision making model for the environmental and energy sector

The mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions has become one of the most important topics on the agenda of EU- and national policy-makers. The importance of the climate change issue is exponentially growing from year to year, gathering specialist from the academic, economic and energy fields in the hope of finding the best solutions in fighting the negative effects of the phenomenon. This challenge has issued an intense debate around the doctrines on which policymakers ground the process of law making. Two of the most debated theories are the neoclassic economic doctrines, on which the major part of the climate change regulation is based, and the innovation economic doctrines, which gained a lot of popularity and supporters in the academic field for the last couple of years. The paper presents the advantages and opportunities of current climate change legislation, as well as their disadvantages and limits. Furthermore it focuses on emphasizing common issues that lead to the failure of climate change legislation and implicitly cause economic loss, lowering the attractiveness of future investments. Based on our research we have developed a decision making model for legislation and regulations of the environmental and energy sectors. The developed model offers guidelines to policy-makers of the energy field and aims both environmental and economic sustainability.