A recent report from the International Monetary Fund, IMF, underlines the urgency of ending the subsidies of fossil fuels and implementing carbon taxes globally. This report contains a global…
A recent report from the International Monetary Fund, IMF, underlines the urgency of ending the subsidies of fossil fuels and implementing carbon taxes globally. This report contains a global, regional and country-specific update. The message is very clear: The world needs a correct price on carbon that accounts for its real costs, but currently the development is heading the wrong way.
The chapter by Shoibal Chakravarty and E. Somonathan focuses on coal, which accounts for a whopping 64% of India’s CO2 emissions in 2021. Since coal combustion also releases other deadly pollutants and particulates, its elimination would have collateral local environmental benefits. The current tax accounts for 20–40% of the price of coal paid by coal-burning power plants, which the authors consider to be well below the level which would internalise even the local component of the pollution externality.
The climate targets agreed upon in the Paris Agreement will eventually need to be backed by ambitious climate policies. Putting a price on carbon and abolishing subsidies on fossil fuels is usually widely agreed upon by economists to be the economically efficient solution (High-Level Commission on Carbon Prices 2017). An increasing amount of countries, including low- and middle-income economies (LMICs), have already introduced (or plan to do so) carbon pricing schemes.
EfD Kenya held a workshop on the Inclusive Green Economy (IGE) program to present the National Policy Review (NPR) draft and the IGE project concept note to relevant stakeholders. The guests gave some…
The participants in Inclusive Green Economy (IGE) program – IGE fellows – have now met on several occasions for seminars, workshops, and discussions. Meet Mustefa Abu from the Ministry of Agriculture…
– Analyzing policy attitudes is important for understanding environmental policy feasibility.
– Pure self-interest is not sufficient to explain people’s policy positions. There are other factors that are also important for policy attitude formation.
– Policy packaging, earmarking and revenue recycling can potentially change people’s policy positions.
What does it take to make a transition to a green economy successful? In many cases, green reforms have encountered protests and even political unrest. Meet Niklas Harring , a researcher at the…
Many firms don’t fully disclose the risk of their assets losing their value if climate policies are introduced. This in turn exposes investors to risks. To help those who want to invest in sustainable…
Economists argue that carbon taxation (and more generally carbon pricing) is the single most powerful way to combat climate change. Since this is so controversial, we need to explain it better, and to be precise, the efficiency gains are largest when the costs of abatement are strongly heterogeneous. This is often—but not always—the case. When it is not, standards can fill much the same role.