Suchergebnisse

The international community has agreed to decarbonise the economy in order to avoid uncontrollable consequences of climate change. Cur- rently, there are many political measures underway to reach this goal, both on the global and national level. However, these actions are insuf- ficient and often inefficiently designed. This paper illustrates why pro- tecting the climate whilst maintaining economic growth is possible, al- beit highly challenging. We argue that a coherent regulatory framework is urgently required: Comprehensive carbon pricing is a necessary con- dition to achieve ambitious emission reductions in a growing economy. However, carbon pricing will not be sufficient in isolation – the EU emis- sions trading scheme needs to be supplemented with national policies in order to decarbonise Austria efficiently. Looking at the Austrian trans- port and agricultural sector, we highlight how well-designed climate policy creates opportunities for both the economy and the society as a whole.

By taxing rents, governments can avoid a trade-off between productivity-enhancing public investment and efficiency losses from raising funds. However, it is unclear whether the rents present in a growing economy are sufficient to finance the socially optimal investment. We prove that the social optimum can be attained if the income share from a fixed factor, such as land, exceeds the public investment requirement. We thus translate the Henry George Theorem from urban economics to neoclassical and endogenous growth settings: here, the socially optimal land rent tax rate is below 100%. Our finding may address the underfunding of national infrastructure investments.

Empirical evidence shows that low-income households spend a high share of their income on pollution-intensive goods. This fuels the concern that an environmental tax reform could be regressive. We employ a framework which accounts for the distributional effect of environmental taxes and the recycling of the revenues on both households and firms to quantify changes in the optimal tax structure and the equity impacts of an environmental tax reform. We characterize when an optimal environmental tax reform does not increase inequality, even if the tax system before the reform is optimal from a non-environmental point of view. If the tax system before the reform is calibrated to stylized data—and is thus non-optimal—we find that there is a large scope for inequality reduction, even if the government is restricted in its recycling options.

The Paris Agreement's very ambitious mitigation goals, notably to 'pursue efforts' to limit warming to 1.5°C, imply that climate policy will remain a national affair for some time. One key obstacle to very ambitious national mitigation is that some policy makers perceive this to be in competition with major goals of fiscal policy, such as public investment or debt reduction. However, climate policy may actually contribute to these other objectives. Importantly, many fiscal implications of substantial carbon prices, which are essential for stringent mitigation targets such as the 1.5°C goal, have long been neglected by economic analyses of climate change mitigation. We systematically review recent contributions on interactions between climate policy and public finance, which include many topics beyond the classic `double dividend' of environmental tax swaps. We can thus identify new conclusions about climate policy designs that may overcome fiscal objections and research gaps. We find that national climate policy often aligns with other objectives, provided that climate policies and fiscal policies are integrated well. A first class of interactions concerns public revenue-raising: carbon pricing can replace distortionary taxes and alleviate international tax competition; climate policy also changes asset values, which impacts the base of non-climate taxes and boosts productive investment. Second, they concern public spending, which needs to be restructured as a part of climate policy, while carbon pricing revenues may be recycled for public investment. Third, distributional impacts of climate policies include changes to household expenditures, to asset values and to employment; balancing them often requires fiscal policies. Our findings underline that jointly considering climate policy and fiscal policy can help to make substantial mitigation politically feasible.

The Paris Agreement's very ambitious mitigation goals, notably to 'pursue efforts' to limit warming to 1.5°C, imply that climate policy will remain a national affair for some time. One key obstacle to very ambitious national mitigation is that some policy makers perceive this to be in competition with major goals of fiscal policy, such as public investment or debt reduction. However, climate policy may actually contribute to these other objectives. Importantly, many fiscal implications of substantial carbon prices, which are essential for stringent mitigation targets such as the 1.5°C goal, have long been neglected by economic analyses of climate change mitigation. We systematically review recent contributions on interactions between climate policy and public finance, which include many topics beyond the classic `double dividend' of environmental tax swaps. We can thus identify new conclusions about climate policy designs that may overcome fiscal objections and research gaps. We find that national climate policy often aligns with other objectives, provided that climate policies and fiscal policies are integrated well. A first class of interactions concerns public revenue-raising: carbon pricing can replace distortionary taxes and alleviate international tax competition; climate policy also changes asset values, which impacts the base of non-climate taxes and boosts productive investment. Second, they concern public spending, which needs to be restructured as a part of climate policy, while carbon pricing revenues may be recycled for public investment. Third, distributional impacts of climate policies include changes to household expenditures, to asset values and to employment; balancing them often requires fiscal policies. Our findings underline that jointly considering climate policy and fiscal policy can help to make substantial mitigation politically feasible.

The gap between actual carbon prices and those required to achieve ambitious climate change mitigation could be closed by enhancing the public acceptability of carbon pricing through appropriate use of the revenues raised. In this Perspective, we synthesize findings regarding the optimal use of carbon revenues from both traditional economic analyses and studies in behavioural and political science that are focused on public acceptability. We then compare real-world carbon pricing regimes with theoretical insights on distributional fairness, revenue salience, political trust and policy stability. We argue that traditional economic lessons on efficiency and equity are subsidiary to the primary challenge of garnering greater political acceptability and make recommendations for enhancing political support through appropriate revenue uses in different economic and political circumstances.

In March 2019, German-speaking scientists and scholars calling themselves Scientists for Future, published a statement in support of the youth protesters in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland (Fridays for Future, Klimastreik/Climate Strike), verifying the scientific evidence that the youth protestors refer to. In this article, they provide the full text of the statement, including the list of supporting facts (in both English and German) as well as an analysis of the results and impacts of the statement. Furthermore, they reflect on the challenges for scientists and scholars who feel a dual responsibility: on the one hand, to remain independent and politically neutral, and, on the other hand, to inform and warn societies of the dangers that lie ahead.

In March 2019, German-speaking scientists and scholars calling themselves Scientists for Future, published a statement in support of the youth protesters in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland (Fridays for Future, Klimastreik/Climate Strike), verifying the scientific evidence that the youth protestors refer to. In this article, they provide the full text of the statement, including the list of supporting facts (in both English and German) as well as an analysis of the results and impacts of the statement. Furthermore, they reflect on the challenges for scientists and scholars who feel a dual responsibility: on the one hand, to remain independent and politically neutral, and, on the other hand, to inform and warn societies of the dangers that lie ahead.