Physical Address
23,24,25 & 26, 2nd Floor, Software Technology Park India, Opp: Garware Stadium,MIDC, Chikalthana, Aurangabad, Maharashtra – 431001 India
A recent global study published in the journal Science has found that only 63 out of 1,500 climate policies from across the world were effective in slashing emissions. Also, not a single climate policy from India was able to achieve the necessary scale of emission reduction to get into the successful list. This comes at a time when the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had recently claimed that India is the only G20 nation to achieve climate targets under the Paris Agreement ahead of schedule.
A team of researchers from the University of Oxford, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), and the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC) documented the findings in an OECD climate policy database for effectiveness, in a first of its kind comparison and ranking of a global dataset of policies.
Using a methodology developed by Climate Econometrics at the Oxford Martin School’s Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET Oxford), researchers measured ‘emission breaks’ following policy interventions. This break detection technique, known as indicator saturation estimation, leverages a form of machine learning to objectively analyze break indicators for all potential dates.
The findings were stark: Across four sectors, 41 countries, two decades, and 1,500 policies, only 63 interventions had a significant impact, reducing total emissions by 0.6 to 1.8 Gt CO2.
Despite these results, the authors highlight a silver lining: policymakers can draw valuable lessons from these 63 effective cases where climate policies achieved meaningful emission reductions, offering a path to get back on track.
What did the authors say?
Study co-author Dr Moritz Schwarz, an Associate at the Climate Econometrics Programme at the University of Oxford said, “Our results inform contentious policy debates in three main ways. First, we show evidence for the effectiveness of policy mixes. Second our findings highlight that successful policy mixes vary across sectors and that policy-makers should focus on sector-specific best practices. Third our results stress that effective policies vary with economic development.”
“Scaling up good practice policies identified in this study to other sectors and other parts of the world can in the short term be a powerful climate mitigation strategy…The dashboard that we make available to policy-makers provides an accessible platform to conduct country-by-country, sector-by-sector comparisons and to find a suitable policy mix for different situations,” said study co-author Professor Felix Pretis, Co-Director of the Climate Econometrics Programme at Nuffield College, University of Oxford.
Study co-author Ebba Mark, researcher at the Calleva Project at INET Oxford, said the world needed to get back on track to meeting the Paris Climate Accord targets. ‘Meeting the Paris Climate objectives necessitates decisive policy action and this research shows the way. Data from the UN estimates that there remains a median emissions gap of 23 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent by 2030. The persistence of this emissions gap is caused not only by an ambition gap but also a gap in the outcomes that adopted policies achieve in terms of emissions reductions.’
The team reached the following conclusions:
Policy Mixes Are More Effective: Climate policies tend to be more impactful when combined with other measures. For example, pairing carbon pricing with subsidies results in larger effect sizes than implementing these policies individually. The researchers also found that bans on coal-fired power plants or combustion engine cars, when implemented in isolation, do not lead to significant emissions reductions. These measures need to be complemented by additional policies within a well-designed policy mix to be truly effective.
Different Needs for Developed and Developing Countries: The effectiveness of climate policies varies by region. In developed countries, carbon pricing is notably effective, while in developing countries, regulatory measures prove to be the most powerful.
Closing the Paris Emissions Gap Is Achievable: By focusing on the 63 cases where climate policies have been effective, the current emissions gap to meet the Paris Targets could be reduced by 26% to 41%, making a significant contribution toward global climate goals.
What is working for the UK and USA
The country-by-country analysis revealed that the UK has made significant progress in the electricity sector. Notably, two consecutive ’emission breaks’ were detected after the mid-2013 introduction of a carbon price floor, which set a minimum price for UK power producers. However, in other UK sectors, the study found no major emission reductions attributable to policy interventions, beyond what could be expected from long-term economic and population trends.
In the US, carbon emissions in the transport sector have decreased following measures implemented after the financial crisis. While effective climate policies in the transport sector are generally challenging to achieve, this success stands as a positive example for global climate policy. Nonetheless, the absence of significant climate policy successes in other sectors, such as power and industry, highlights the substantial challenges that remain.
References:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adl6547
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2024-08-23-effectiveness-1500-global-climate-policies-ranked-first-time
https://climate-policy-explorer.shinyapps.io/climate-policies-dashboard/explorer
Banner image: Canva
