Abstract
The main purpose of this manuscript is to evaluate the extent to which the EU Cohesion Policy investments in energy savings and renewable energy in the Czech Republic contribute to climate change mitigation. While the EU Cohesion Policy and climate change mitigation have been both thoroughly studied theoretically, the novelty of the present paper lies in an analysis of their mutual relationship.
The objective of this research was to fill, at least partly, this gap. Energy savings and renewable energy sources were selected due to their high potential to mitigate climate change.
The analysis focused on a relatively long period of 16 years, including a comparison of the last three programming periods (2004-2006, 2007-2013 and 2014-2020). The analysis based on five selected indicators suggested that while the contribution of these investments to climate change mitigation in the first programming period was negligible, in the current programming period it has been rather significant.