- Implementing these environmental initiatives might potentially salvage our Earth.
About a decade ago, worldwide initiatives aimed high: by 2050, no further climate-harming greenhouse gases should be discharged. We've got more than twenty years left, but the road to this goal is long and tough. Governments, corporations, and societies have been striving to cut emissions through incentives and regulations for quite some time now. There's no shortage of strategies, schemes, and actions, but no one can predict with certainty how much they'll ultimately contribute.
An international team of researchers has recently delved into this issue for the first time. They analyzed nearly 1500 climate-related policies from 41 countries implemented between 1998 and 2022.
The findings are bleak: in most instances, these policies fail to make a substantial impact, according to the researchers, publishing their findings in the journal "Science". Only in 69 instances did significant CO2 reductions occur. Researchers from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and the MCC in Germany, as well as their counterparts from Oxford, Paris, and Victoria in Canada contributed to this study.
Effective climate action relies on a mix
The study's analysis uses data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and finds that a combination of policies works best for the climate. This is particularly effective for popular subsidy and regulatory measures. In 70% of cases, reductions in emissions were due to at least two or more instruments.
The most significant improvements were made in the building sector, followed by transportation, industry, and electricity. The combination of measures is particularly successful when it involves a pricing tool, such as energy taxes, CO2 prices, or emissions trading. However, there are measures that also contribute to the effect when combined. For instance, information measures, like climate-neutrality labels, according to the study.
Unfortunately, it's impossible to quantify the individual impact of each measure in the total package. They can either amplify or diminish the climate-friendly impact.
Germany shines in transportation
The researchers suggest tailoring packages of measures to different sectors. In the sectors of industry and electricity, price setting is particularly effective, while in transportation and construction, conversion measures are more suitable.
The study highlights the United Kingdom as a positive example. There, the introduction of a carbon price for British power generators in 2013, along with a series of other control measures and incentives, led to a noticeable reduction in emissions in subsequent years. Similar observations were made by the researchers in China. There, too, the government relied on a carbon price, but also withdrew subsidies from the fossil industry and invested in sustainable, efficient energy sources.
According to the study, Germany excels in a challenging sector: the transport sector. In the early 2000s, the country saw the most emissions reductions thanks to the transportation sector. Higher prices in road traffic due to the eco-tax reform (1999) and the truck toll (2005) resulted in decreased greenhouse gas emissions.
Promising measures fall short
The findings offer hope on the one hand: "If political leaders focused more on the effective methods we've identified, we could potentially witness more significant emission reductions in the future," the study report suggests.
However, the authors caution that these measures are far from sufficient. By 2030, countries have a gap of 23 gigatons of CO2 equivalents to fill. Even if the countries could repeat their past achievements, efforts would need to be substantially increased to bridge the emissions gap, the researchers conclude.
The Commission, recognizing the bleak findings, has already taken a number of steps to ensure that the effective climate action strategies identified in the study are implemented more effectively. This includes tailoring packages of measures to different sectors and emphasizing the use of pricing tools in certain sectors.
The implementation of these effective strategies could potentially lead to more significant emission reductions, as suggested by the study, but the authors warn that these measures alone are not enough to bridge the current emissions gap by 2030.
