RESEARCH ARTICLE Modeling of policies for reduction of GHG emissions in energy sector using ANN: case study—Croatia (EU) Tomislav Bolanča 1 & Tomislav Strahovnik 2 & Šime Ukić 1 & Mirjana Novak Stankov 1 & Marko Rogošić 1 Received: 18 July 2016 /Accepted: 8 May 2017 # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2017 Abstract This study describes the development of tool for testing different policies for reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in energy sector using artificial neural net- works (ANNs). The case study of Croatia was elaborated. Two different energy consumption scenarios were used as a base for calculations and predictions of GHG emissions: the business as usual (BAU) scenario and sustainable scenario. Both of them are based on predicted energy consumption using different growth rates; the growth rates within the second scenario re- sulted from the implementation of corresponding energy effi- ciency measures in final energy consumption and increasing share of renewable energy sources. Both ANN architecture and training methodology were optimized to produce network that was able to successfully describe the existing data and to achieve reliable prediction of emissions in a forward time sense. The BAU scenario was found to produce continuously increas- ing emissions of all GHGs. The sustainable scenario was found to decrease the GHG emission levels of all gases with respect to BAU. The observed decrease was attributed to the group of measures termed the reduction of final energy consumption through energy efficiency measures. Keywords GHG emissions . Artificial neural network . Energy consumption . Energy sector Introduction The world of today faces global warming and climate changes as one of the most severe problems. A relatively rapid increase of global temperature is affecting most of the world ecosystems and is threatening with the possible extinction of species that are unable to migrate or adapt fast enough (Brierley and Kingsford 2009; Ridgwell and Valdes 2009). Also, the extreme weather conditions became very frequent recently and are oc- casionally causing elementary disasters that take human lives and can severely affect economies of the stricken countries. The emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs), especially of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), are considered as the main cause of global warming (Soytas et al. 2007). Yet, the global energy system is still dominated by fossil fuels whose combustion accounts for 80% of anthropogenic GHG emissions; this is the largest individual human influence on climate (Quadrelli and Peterson 2007). Therefore, solving the problem of GHG emissions and diminishing their impact on environment be- came an important issue for researchers and policy makers in a large number of countries, especially the highly developed ones. The United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992 and Kyoto Protocol in 2005, as the extension of UNFCCC, were the first and probably the most important global efforts to mitigate GHG emissions. After them, many other conferences were held involving ne- gotiations about the reduction of GHG emissions. Yet, along with the climate change combat, the economic growth still remains a priority for national governments (Nader 2009). Accordingly, their policy focuses on the sustainable develop- ment. This term, which arose in the 1980s, implies human Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues * Tomislav Strahovnik tstrahovnik@hera.hr Tomislav Bolanča Tomislav.Bolanca@fkit.hr 1 Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Technology, University of Zagreb, Marulićev trg 19, Zagreb, Croatia 2 Croatian Energy Regulatory Agency, HERA, Ulica grada Vukovara 14, Zagreb, Croatia Environ Sci Pollut Res DOI 10.1007/s11356-017-9216-x