A key challenge facing many resource-rich countries is how to mobilize and effectively use volatile revenues from resource extraction, while addressing social and environmental externalities of mining activities. This UNEP Policy Brief examines how fiscal reforms and other complementary measures in the extractives sector can help generate additional public revenues while reducing some of the negative environmental and social impacts from mining activities.

The term environmental fiscal reform (EFR) means different things to different people. In this report, we will take EFR to mean: a range of taxation or pricing instruments that can raise revenue, while simultaneously furthering environmental goals. This is achieved by providing economic incentives to correct market failure in the management of natural resources and the control of pollution.

As the world moves on from the climate agreement negotiated in Paris, attention is turning from the identification of emissions reduction trajectories—in the form of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)—to crucial questions about how these emissions reductions are to be delivered and reported within the future international accounting framework.

For the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, China pledged to reduce the carbon dioxide (CO2) intensity of GDP by 60–65 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. This paper develops a practical spreadsheet tool for evaluating a wide range of national level fiscal and regulatory policy options for reducing CO2 emissions in China in terms of their impacts on emissions, revenue, premature deaths from local air pollution, household and industry groups, and overall economic welfare.

This book is about the practicalities of introducing a carbon tax in the United States, set against the broader fiscal context. It consists of thirteen chapters, written by leading experts, covering the full range of issues policymakers would need to understand, such as the revenue potential of a carbon tax, how the tax can be administered, the advantages of carbon taxes over other mitigation instruments and the environmental and macroeconomic impacts of the tax. A carbon tax can work in the United States.

Carbon pricing is a recurrent theme in debates on climate policy. Discarded at the 2009 COP in Copenhagen, it remained part of deliberations for a climate agreement in subsequent years. As there is still much misunderstanding about the many reasons to implement a global carbon price, ideological resistance against it prospers. Here, we present the main arguments for carbon pricing, to stimulate a fair and well‐informed discussion about it. These include considerations that have received little attention so far.

This paper reviews the key findings of a modeling analysis exploring the implications of the South African carbon tax. A carbon tax, in conjunction with the recycling of revenues, has been designed by the National Treasury as one of the key mitigation instruments in helping South Africa meet its international commitments to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 42 percent relative to business-as-usual by 2025 and for emissions to follow a ‘peak plateau and then decline’ trajectory.

This Guide has a dual purpose: (i) to provide policy makers and other policy leaders and influencers with a practical tool to help them determine whether a carbon tax is the right instrument to achieve their policy aims; and (ii) to support them in designing and implementing the carbon tax best suited to their specific needs, circumstances, and objectives.

Reflecting the growing momentum for carbon pricing worldwide, the 2017 edition of the State and Trends of Carbon Pricing targets the wide audience of public and private stakeholders engaged in carbon pricing design and implementation. This report also provides critical input for negotiators involved in the implementation of the Paris Agreement, particularly for the meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) 23 to be held in Bonn in November 2017.

The World Bank’s Partnership for Market Readiness (PMR) brings together developed and developing countries to build readiness for carbon market instruments to support cost-effective greenhouse gas emissions reductions. As part of the PMR’s Technical Work Program, the World Bank asked Vivid Economics to develop a technical note on the issue of carbon leakage and competitiveness. This issue is of interest to a range of PMR countries and is of great importance to successful design and implementation of carbon pricing policies.