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  • Taxation and Subsidies: Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies x
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Jean Chateau
,
Ms. Florence Jaumotte
, and
Gregor Schwerhoff
This paper discusses and analyzes various international mechanisms to scale up global action on climate mitigation and address the policy gap in this area. Despite the new commitments made at COP 26, there is still an ambition and a policy gap at the global level to keep temperature increases below the 2°C agreed in Paris. Avoiding the worst outcomes of climate change requires an urgent scaling up of climate policies. Recent policy proposals include the idea of common minimum carbon prices, which underlie the IMF’s international carbon price proposal (Parry, Black, and Roaf 2021) and the climate club proposal of the German government. While global carbon prices are not a new idea, the new elements are the use of carbon price floors—which allow countries to do more if they wish—and the differentiation of carbon price floors by level of development. In the absence of international coordination, countries with ambitious climate policies are considering introducing a border carbon adjustment mechanism to prevent domestic producers from being at a competitive disadvantage due to more ambitious domestic climate policies. An interesting question from the global perspective is whether border carbon adjustment would deliver substantial additional emissions reductions or incentivize other countries to join a carbon price floor agreement.
Ian W.H. Parry
,
Mr. Simon Black
, and
Nate Vernon
This paper provides a comprehensive global, regional, and country-level update of: (i) efficient fossil fuel prices to reflect their full private and social costs; and (ii) subsidies implied by mispricing fuels. The methodology improves over previous IMF analyses through more sophisticated estimation of costs and impacts of reform. Globally, fossil fuel subsidies were $5.9 trillion in 2020 or about 6.8 percent of GDP, and are expected to rise to 7.4 percent of GDP in 2025. Just 8 percent of the 2020 subsidy reflects undercharging for supply costs (explicit subsidies) and 92 percent for undercharging for environmental costs and foregone consumption taxes (implicit subsidies). Efficient fuel pricing in 2025 would reduce global carbon dioxide emissions 36 percent below baseline levels, which is in line with keeping global warming to 1.5 degrees, while raising revenues worth 3.8 percent of global GDP and preventing 0.9 million local air pollution deaths. Accompanying spreadsheets provide detailed results for 191 countries.
Ian W.H. Parry
,
Victor Mylonas
, and
Nate Vernon
Following submission of greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation commitments or pledges (by 190 countries) for the 2015 Paris Agreement, policymakers are considering specific actions for their implementation. To help guide policy, it is helpful to have a quantitative framework for understanding: i) the main impacts (on GHGs, fiscal balances, the domestic environment, economic welfare, and distributional incidence) of emissions pricing; ii) trade-offs between pricing and other (commonly used) mitigation instruments; and iii) why/to what extent needed policies and their impacts differ across countries. This paper provides an illustrative sense of this information for G20 member countries (which account for about 80 percent of global emissions) under plausible (though inevitably uncertain) projections for future fuel use and price responsiveness. Quantitative results underscore the generally strong case for (comprehensive) pricing over other instruments, its small net costs or often net benefits (when domestic environmental gains are considered), but also the potentially wide dispersion (and hence inefficiency) in emissions prices implied by countries’ mitigation commitments.

Abstract

Although the future extent and effects of global climate change remain uncertain, the expected damages are not zero, and risks of serious environmental and macroeconomic consequences rise with increasing atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations. Despite the uncertainties, reducing emissions now makes sense, and a carbon tax is the simplest, most effective, and least costly way to do this. At the same time, a carbon tax would provide substantial new revenues which may be badly needed, given historically high debt-to-GDP levels, pressures on social security and medical budgets, and calls to reform taxes on personal and corporate income. 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. This volume shows how, by laying out sound design principles, opportunities for broader policy reforms, and feasible solutions to specific implementation challenges.

Ian W.H. Parry
,
Mr. Chandara Veung
, and
Mr. Dirk Heine
This paper calculates, for the top twenty emitting countries, how much pricing of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is in their own national interests due to domestic co-benefits (leaving aside the global climate benefits). On average, nationally efficient prices are substantial, $57.5 per ton of CO2 (for year 2010), reflecting primarily health co-benefits from reduced air pollution at coal plants and, in some cases, reductions in automobile externalities (net of fuel taxes/subsidies). Pricing co-benefits reduces CO2 emissions from the top twenty emitters by 13.5 percent (a 10.8 percent reduction in global emissions). However, co-benefits vary dramatically across countries (e.g., with population exposure to pollution) and differentiated pricing of CO2 emissions therefore yields higher net benefits (by 23 percent) than uniform pricing. Importantly, the efficiency case for pricing carbon’s co-benefits hinges critically on (i) weak prospects for internalizing other externalities through other pricing instruments and (ii) productive use of carbon pricing revenues.
Mrs. Andrea Lemgruber
Many developing countries have significant natural resource endowments, presenting a remarkable opportunity to boost long-term growth. However, this opportunity comes with enormous challenges. To maximize social and economic benefits, strong governance and institutional capacity are essential. Effective and transparent tax administration is crucial for properly managing revenues from natural resources so the country may benefit economically and socially from its natural resources. Revenue Administration describes the challenges that developing countries face and presents good practices to help build countries’ long-term institutional capacity.