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<\/div>Most political efforts at tackling climate change have little effect<\/p>\n
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The vast majority of climate policies fail to significantly reduce emissions and so make little difference to stopping climate change, suggesting that governments must work much harder to identify ways to actually shift the needle.<\/p>\n
Nicolas Koch<\/a> at the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change in Berlin and his colleagues discovered this by assessing the impact of 1500 climate policies put into force between 1998 and 2022, covering 41 countries across six continents.<\/p>\n They began by using machine learning to identify moments in which a country\u2019s emissions dropped significantly, relative to a control group of other nations not included in the analysis. The researchers found 69 of these emissions \u201cbreaks\u201d and compared them with a database compiled by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) that tracks what types of climate policies were enacted when.<\/p>\n While matching policy shifts to emission changes isn\u2019t an exact science, the team was able to attribute 63 of these breaks to one or more policy interventions within a two-year interval around the break, in order to allow for lagged or anticipated effects.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Each of the 63 breaks saw a reduction in emissions by between 0.6 billion and 1.8 billion metric tonnes of carbon dioxide, but overall the researchers found that most climate policies don\u2019t achieve anywhere near this level of success. \u201cWe have a lot of policies out there that have not led to large emission reductions, and more policies do not necessarily equate to better outcomes,\u201d says Koch.<\/p>\n Many policies fail because they are too specifically targeted, he says. For example, governments may subsidise the purchase of new electric cars, but most cars on the road aren\u2019t electric, so the impact is minimal. One tool that seems highly effective is outright bans \u2013 for example, stopping coal being used to generate electricity \u2013 but as these were always used in conjunction with other measures, it was difficult for the team to identify if they worked in isolation.<\/p>\n Politicians looking for a one-size-fits-all blend of policies are out of luck, as none worked across all sectors. Pricing seems to be the most effective measure, says Koch, particularly in reducing the emissions of profit-motivated industries, but it isn\u2019t the sole solution. \u201cWhat we observe is that the most frequently used policy tools, which are subsidies and regulations, alone are insufficient,\u201d he says. \u201cOnly in combination with price-based instruments \u2013 such as carbon prices, energy taxes \u2013 can they deliver substantial emission reductions.\u201d In other words, people only cut back on emitting when doing so would hit their wallet.<\/p>\n \u201cThe key value in the paper is in identifying those clean breaks in emissions in specific sectors and countries,\u201d says Matthew Paterson<\/a> at the University of Manchester, UK. He highlights that the OECD database of policy changes has some limitations because the government documents from which it pulls its content aren\u2019t consistently reported across the world, but says it is the best available for the purposes of this study.<\/p>\n \u201cAs they say, it has been known for a while that climate policies can work best in combination, but they give us more specificity about which combinations work in which circumstances,\u201d says Paterson. That can then be used to more aggressively pursue these \u201cbreaks\u201d in order to address the emissions gap and mix policies to best tackle emissions.<\/p>\n Marion Dumas<\/a> at the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK, says the work should be useful for policy-makers, but the team\u2019s method may not fully capture the reality of policy interventions, as it looks at the emission trends \u2013 or outcomes \u2013 first, then works backwards to find the cause.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a very interesting approach, but bears considerable uncertainty concerning how to simulate the expected [emissions] trajectory and thereby identify the breaks,\u201d says Dumas. The two-year interval around each break may also be too narrow, she says, discounting the real impact of more gradual, longer-term policy changes.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s important not to overinterpret the headline result that only a few policies can be tied to emissions reductions,\u201d says Robin Lamboll<\/a> at Imperial College London, UK, who points out that smaller emissions cuts not picked up by the team\u2019s method may combine to make big differences.<\/p>\n Of course, a larger problem with identifying the most impactful measures is that policy-making doesn\u2019t happen in a vacuum and any specific policy must be palatable to the general public. \u201cIn any specific country or sector, it will be political dynamics that drive whether such a mix can be implemented or not,\u201d says Paterson.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m aware that this is politically a super-challenging thing,\u201d says Koch. \u201cIt\u2019s just there is some good news that, in general, it\u2019s possible to have these policies to achieve these very ambitious goals.\u201d<\/p>\n Topics:<\/p>\n