4-November-2013
English
Economic textbooks predict that taxes and emission trading systems are the cheapest way for societies to reduce emissions of CO2. This book shows that this is also the case in the real world. It estimates the costs to society of reducing CO2 emissions in 15 countries using a broad range of policy instruments in 5 of the sectors that generate most emissions: electricity generation, road transport, pulp & paper and cement, as well as households’ domestic energy use. It finds wide variations in the costs of abating each tonne of CO2 within and among countries, as well as in the sectors examined and across different types of policy instruments. Market-based approaches like taxes and trading systems consistently reduced CO2 at a lower cost than other instruments. Capital subsidies and feed-in tariffs were among the most expensive ways of reducing emissions.
8-October-2013
English
This paper reviews the political economy of the Canadian province of British Columbia (BC) tax in three periods: its origins, its survival in the face of political backlash, and its longer-term prospects. The BC launched North America’s first revenue-neutral carbon tax reform. The tax, applied to all combustion sources of fossil fuels, was introduced at a rate of CAD 10 per tonne of CO2.
3-October-2013
English
This paper describes the features of the tax, recounts the story of its interplay between fiscal adjustment and helping meet the obligations to raise taxes, and implications for competitiveness and carbon leakage, environmental effectiveness and equity issues, and draws conclusions regarding why it happened, and provides tentative insights for other countries in a similar situation.
28-January-2013
English
This publication provides the first systematic statistics of effective energy tax rates – on a comparable basis - for each OECD country, together with ‘maps’ that illustrate graphically the wide variations in tax rates per unit of energy or per tonne of CO2 emissions.
21-September-2012
English
This report aims to help environmental and other competent authorities in OECD countries to promote green business practices among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It analyses different ways to establish environmental regulatory requirements for facilities with low environmental risk (most of which are SMEs).
30-March-2012
English
Environment Ministers reviewed the implementation of the Environmental Strategy, discussed priorities based on the Environmental Outlook to 2050 which is a strong case for green growth policies and adopted a policy statement as input to Rio+20 UN Conference.
21-March-2012
English
Environmental conditions are likely to have an effect on people’s sense of life satisfaction, both directly and indirectly. In this paper, the effects of individual and contextual factors on satisfaction with environmental quality and life satisfaction are assessed.
4-July-2011
English
This working paper reviews the recent empirical literature related to quantification and valuation of the human health impacts of air pollution, hazardous chemicals, unsafe water and sanitation, and their use in cost-benefit analysis, as an input to environmental policy decision-making.
1-July-2011
English
This paper examines empirically whether countries with relatively more lax environmental regimes have a comparative advantage in their competition for foreign direct investment.
14-June-2011
English, , 638kb
This policy brief presents a guide for policy makers to environmentally related taxation that is included in the OECD Publication "Taxation, Innovation and the Environement".