Publications

Attention is growing to the need to tackle climate and social issues jointly. Indeed, both climate change and climate policies affect social issues such as poverty, inequality, or access to healthcare. A well-known example is that of carbon pricing, a climate policy which can have regressive effects in some contexts. As another example, climate change induced heatwaves are disproportionately likely to impact poorer individuals who typically have more constrained access to healthcare, physical jobs in outdoor conditions, and through indirectly driving up food prices. To foster an effective and sustainable transition to low-carbon and resilient economies, policymakers need to ensure individuals do not lose more from climate policies than they already lose from the effects of climate change, but instead benefit from them.

Tense climate negotiations just ended in Bonn with limited progress on finance and the revised climate commitments under the Paris Agreement. During the opening ceremony of the sixtieth sessions of the subsidiary bodies (SB 60) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Simon Stiell –Executive Secretary– highlighted the need to “make serious progress on finance, the great enabler of climate action” and to aim for bolder, broader and inclusive third generation Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs 3.0) that “can serve as blueprints to propel economies and societies forward and drive more resilience”.

Last month, the Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, Simon Stiell, stressed how important this and next year are for the achievement of the Paris Agreement and called for “a quantum leap in climate finance” ahead of the Spring Meetings of the World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund. Indeed, with emissions required to peak before 2025, our window of opportunity is rapidly closing to keep 1.5°C within reach. More and better finance is urgently needed. Carbon pricing policies and their revenues are part of the tools available that can help fill the climate finance gap.

Carbon pricing policies and their revenues are part of the tools available that can help fill the climate finance gap. With raising revenues from carbon taxes and emission trading systems (ETSs) that have tripled since the Paris Agreement, and an upward trend that could continue in the medium-term, ‘how to use carbon revenues’ has become a crucial question. This report, prepared as an activity of the EU-funded European Union Climate Dialogues (EUCDs) project, aims to inform policymakers and practitioners on lessons learned and ways forward on the use of carbon revenues, with a comprehensive approach based on a review of international experiences.

France should publish mid-year its first multi-annual strategy for financing the ecological transition. This is a long way from the first 2015 climate strategy, which barely touched funding aspects. And it is good news. We at I4CE believe that such plans are essential tools to support the transition to low-emission, climate-resilient economies. Credible, multi-year public spending targets help to embark the private sector and the funders of public action (debt holders, international donors) in the transition, and redirect financial flows as demanded by the Paris Agreement. Comprehensive financing plans also avoid simplistic approaches based on case-by-case project appraisal on the basis of limited cost-benefit considerations, which can ultimately result in significant additional costs.

After several years of strong growth, the revenue generated by carbon pricing mechanisms (carbon taxes or markets) worldwide, as reported in our 2023 edition of the Global Carbon Accounts, stabilized at nearly USD 100 billion. This stabilization could not be more deceptive.  The future has rarely been so uncertain for carbon prices, caught between very strong opposing trends, and the next two years could mark a major turning point, for good or bad, for the use of these climate policy instruments worldwide. 

What are the carbon taxes and markets around the world, the range of carbon prices, the revenues generated, the emissions covered by these mechanisms? Find the answers to these questions, and many more, in the new edition of the Global Carbon Accounts from I4CE.

Long term national climate strategies, such as Long-Term Strategies (LTS) published to the UNFCCC, are key documents developed by governments to envision the transition to a low-carbon and climate resilient economy at the 2050 (or later) time-horizon. As of the beginning of COP 27 in Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt, on November 2022, 55 countries had submitted an LTS to the UNFCCC, answering renewed calls for countries to develop such strategies at COP 26. It is expected that additional LTS will be published shortly. 

Carbon revenues were nearly USD 100 billion in 2021. This represents a more than 80% increase year-on-year (USD 53.1 billion in 2020, USD 97.7 billion in 2021). This increase is largely driven by the rise in allowance prices on the European carbon market, which exceeded the symbolic threshold of EUR 100/tCO2 for the first time in the summer of 2022.

This I4CE report focuses on the role of countries’ Long-Term Strategies (LTSs) in the Paris alignment approaches of Development Finance Institutions (DFIs). It explores the possible roles of both the LTS development process and the resulting LTS document in providing insights on the Paris alignment of investments within investment decision-making processes. The findings are relevant for a broader range of financial institutions.

Explicit carbon pricing systems - a tax or a carbon market - continue to develop around the world. In the 2021 edition of its Global Carbon Accounts, I4CE presents the main trends and provides an overview of these public policies ...

The current economic crisis has caused a drop in the price on the European carbon market (or EU ETS for European Union Emissions Trading System) and will contribute to the increase in the surplus of allowances. This highlights how necessary it is to reform the mechanism for managing this surplus or even to implement a floor price. However, for Charlotte Vailles from I4CE and Nicolas Berghmans from IDDRI, this crisis should lead us to consider the EU ETS no longer as the "cornerstone" of decarbonisation in Europe, but as a safety net.

Explicit carbon pricing systems - a tax or a carbon market - continue to develop around the world. In the 2020 edition of its Global Carbon Accounts, I4CE presents the main trends and provides an overview of these public policies: the countries that have adopted them, the sectors covered, the price levels, the revenues generated and what is being done with them. Find all this information in graphics.

On the opening of the 25th Conference of the Parties on Climate Change (COP 25) which is  held in Madrid from 2 to 13 December 2019, I4CE-Institute for Climate Economics and the French Ministry of the Ecological and Inclusive Transition are pleased to present the 2020 edition of Key Figures on climate – France, Europe, […]

France is by no means the only country with difficulties – that is an understatement – in introducing an accepted carbon tax. And not the only one to have taken up the challenge of a public policy leading to higher energy prices for households and businesses. In 2018, the World Bank identified 29 countries or […]

I4CE’s 2019 Global Carbon Accounts present the main trends in the implementation of global carbon pricing policies in 2019.   5 key trends in 2019   As of May 1, 2019, 25 carbon taxes and 26 Emissions Trading Schemes (ETS) were operating worldwide. The jurisdictions covered by one or more explicit carbon price account for […]

Following the 2018 review of the European carbon market- the EU Emission Trading System (EU ETS)- and the significant increase in the price of allowances, many stakeholders made the assumption that it was “fit for purpose” until 2030. However, the EU ETS needs to evolve as it adapts to new developments such as the implementation of […]

COP24 in Katowice just ended and was marked by the difficult adoption of a package of practical rules - the Katowice Climate Package - on transparency, the content of national contributions or their revision. It was also a COP marked by deep concerns about the willingness of Signatory Countries to increase their climate ambition in the coming years. Currently, countries' commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will lead to global warming well above 2°C, the threshold above which our climate would jump into the unknown.

The I4CE team will be present throughout the two weeks of negotiations, in order to present its latest achievements in about ten side-events, whether on carbon pricing, climate investment tracking, climate action by financial actors or carbon certification of innovative practices in the land sector. Please see below the full list of events organized by I4CE - or where I4CE will be participating.

This policy paper, a collaborative effort of four European think tanks, aims to help French, German and EU policy makers address current environmental, economic and societal challenges. It proposes eight concrete steps where active cooperation between France, Germany and other European countries could make decisive contributions to the Energy Union that benefit all European citizens: […]