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Jakob Skovgaard

Jakob Skovgaard

Associate professor | Senior lecturer | Principal investigator BECC

Jakob Skovgaard

Mapping and clustering the adoption of carbon pricing policies : what polities price carbon and why?

Author

  • Jakob Skovgaard
  • Sofía Sacks Ferrari
  • Åsa Knaggård

Summary, in English

Carbon pricing, including carbon taxes and emissions trading, has been adopted by different kinds of polities worldwide. Yet, beyond the increasing adoption over time, little is known about what polities–countries as well as sub- and supranational entities–adopt carbon pricing and why. This paper explores patterns of adoption (both implemented policies and those scheduled to be) through cluster analysis, with the purpose of investigating factors that could explain polities’ decisions to adopt carbon pricing. The study contributes empirically by studying carbon taxes and emissions trading together and by ordering the polities adopting carbon pricing into clusters. It also contributes theoretically, by exploring constellations of variables that drive the adoption of carbon pricing within individual clusters. We investigated 66 adopted policies of carbon pricing, which were divided into five clusters: early adopters, North-American subnational entities, Chinese pilot provinces, second-wave developed polities, and second-wave developing polities. The analysis indicates that the reasons for adopting carbon pricing have shifted over time. While international factors (climate commitments or influences from polities within the same region) are increasingly salient, domestic factors (including crises and income levels) were more important for the early adopters. Key policy insights Carbon pricing has become a global mainstream policy instrument. Economic and fiscal crises provide windows of opportunity for promoting carbon pricing. The international climate regime can support the adoption of carbon pricing through mitigation commitments and international financial and technical assistance. Learning between polities from the same region is a useful tool for promoting carbon pricing. Carbon intensive economies tend to prefer emissions trading over carbon taxes.

Department/s

  • Department of Political Science
  • BECC: Biodiversity and Ecosystem services in a Changing Climate

Publishing year

2019

Language

English

Pages

1173-1185

Publication/Series

Climate Policy

Volume

19

Issue

9

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Topic

  • Economic Geography

Keywords

  • Carbon pricing
  • carbon tax
  • cluster analysis
  • emissions trading
  • policy adoption

Status

Published

Project

  • A price on carbon emissions: What makes states adopt carbon pricing policies?

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1469-3062