• CoM
• Covenant of Mayors
• GHG emission
• Italian regions
• policy evaluation

After its launch in 2008, the Covenant of Mayors (CoM) initiative evolved over time and many Italian municipalities adhered with the objective of reducing their Greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). The aim of this thesis is to perform a policy evaluation of the initiative and, in order to assess whether emissions have diminished, three regional indexes on the participation have been created and, subsequently, data on CO_2 emissions and their determinants at regional level have been retrieved. A general overview on the state of the initiative in Italian regions is presented and several econometric regressions have been carried out to check for causality. The findings, despite the several limitations of the study, confirm a positive contribution of the initiative to the reduction of emissions.