Over the past quarter of a century, only 63 of 1500 climate policies have been termed successful, as per a new study report titled “Climate Policies that achieved major emission reductions: Global evidence from two decades”.
This study was led by Climate Econometricians at the University of Oxford, teaming up with the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, and the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change. The 3 institutions’ researchers evaluated climate policies implemented between 1998 and 2022 across 41 countries in 6 continents.
Out of the total policies examined, only 63 successful policy interventions were identified, with total emission reductions between 0.6 billion and 1.8 billion metric tonnes of Carbon Dioxide.
The researchers stated that the policymakers and governments must learn from the 63 effective policies to design better climate policies that may result in minimised meaningful reductions.
As per the report, climate policies work better as part of a policy mix instead of being implemented alone. For example, it would be more effective to combine carbon pricing with a subsidy.
The study finds developing nations have different climate policy needs than developed nations. According to them, carbon pricing has been more successful in developed nations while regulations work better in case of developing nations.
“Meeting the Paris Agreement climate targets necessitates better knowledge of how climate policies work in reducing emissions at the necessary scale”, the report states. As per the study, the current emission gap to meet the Paris Agreement targets could be narrowed by 26 percent to 41 percent.
