Narrow Your Choices

Refine By Countries

Refine By Series

Refine By Language

Refine By Date

—

Refine By IMF Taxonomy

Refine By JEL Taxonomy

Refine by LOC Taxonomy

Refine By THEMA Taxonomy

  • Print
  • Save

Political Science > Environmental Policy

You are looking at 1 - 10 of 12 items for :

  • Type: Journal Issue x
  • United Kingdom x
Clear All Modify Search
Cover Departmental Papers
The Energy Security Gains from Strengthening Europe’s Climate Action
Geoffroy Dolphin, Romain A Duval, Hugo Rojas-Romagosa, and Galen Sher
Following the 2022 energy crisis, this paper investigates whether Europe’s ongoing efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions can also enhance its energy security. The global computational general equilibrium model analysis finds that individual policy tools, including carbon pricing, energy efficiency standards, and accelerated permitting procedures for renewables, tend to improve energy security. Compared to carbon pricing, sector-specific regulations deliver larger energy security gains and spread those more evenly across countries, benefitting also some fossil-fuel-intensive economies in Central and Eastern Europe. This finding strengthens the case for a broad climate policy package, which can both achieve Europe’s emissions-reduction goals and deliver sizeable energy security co-benefits. An illustrative package, which would cut emissions in the EU, UK, and EFTA by 55 percent with respect to 1990 levels by 2030, is estimated to improve the two energy security metrics used in this paper by close to 8 percent already by 2030. Beyond the policies analyzed in the model, the paper also discusses the technology, market design, and supply chain reforms that Europe needs for an energy-secure green transition.
Keywords:
Climate change; energy security; Europe; carbon tax; economic growth; emissions trading; greenhouse gas emissions; energy prices; diversification; technological change; climate policy package; Europe's Climate action; climate policy instrument; IMF Library; Imports; Climate policy; Non-renewable resources; Central and Eastern Europe; Global
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Pakistan: Technical Assistance Report–Public Investment Management Assessment–PIMA and Climate PIMA
International Monetary Fund. Fiscal Affairs Dept.
This Technical Assistance report on Pakistan presents public investment management assessment (PIMA) and Climate PIMA. This report finds that while Pakistan scores slightly above average compared to the emerging market economies that have undertaken the PIMA to date there are still significant gaps in key areas the impede the delivery of critical infrastructure services in Pakistan. Pakistan has taken some important steps to improve public investment management, including through reforms incorporated in the Public Financial Management Act 2019 and the 2021 Manual for Development Projects. With Pakistan’s highly constrained budgetary resources, selecting the right projects for funding becomes even more critical. Government has some skilled staff that can move reforms to address these challenges forward, though it will be difficult. While some staff have a good understanding of strong practices, achieving implementation through changed approaches and culture across the public sector requires focused and sustained effort. Building knowledge of climate change aspects at all stages of the project cycle is also a priority.
Keywords:
Public Investment Management; Climate Change; Public financial management; Infrastructure Governance; climate PIMA; management ASSESSEMENT-PIMA; IMF's Fiscal Affairs Department; management institution; D. investment allocation; auditor general; Public investment spending; Budget planning and preparation; Climate policy; Infrastructure; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Public Support for Climate Change Mitigation Policies: A Cross Country Survey
Ms. Era Dabla-Norris, Salma Khalid, Giacomo Magistretti, and Alexandre Sollaci
Building public support for climate mitigation is a key prerequisite to making meaningful strides toward decarbonization and achieving net-zero emissions. Using nationally representative, individual-level surveys for 28 countries, this paper identifies the current levels and drivers of support for climate mitigation policies. Controlling for individual characteristics, we find that pre-existing beliefs about policy efficacy, perceived costs and co-benefits (e.g., cleaner air), and the degree of policy progressivity are important drivers of support for carbon pricing policies. The knowledge gap about climate mitigation policies can be large, but randomized information experiments show that support increases (decreases) after individuals are introduced to new information on the benefits (potential costs) of such policies.
Keywords:
Climate mitigation policies; survey; experiments; mitigation policy; policy progressivity; carbon pricing; climate mitigating policy; IMF working paper 23/223; Climate policy; Climate change; Greenhouse gas emissions; Global; Europe
Cover IMF Working Papers
Willingness to Pay for Clean Air: Evidence from the UK
Giorgio Maarraoui, Walid Marrouch, Faten Saliba, and Ada Wossink
This paper uses life satisfaction data to help the design of climate mitigation policies in the United Kingdom. We assess the effects of the exposure to ambient pollutants on long-term life satisfaction and short-term mental health in the UK. We estimate augmented Cobb-Douglas utility functions using pooled and random effects ordinal logit models. Results show that increases in NO2, PM10 and PM2.5 significantly decrease the odds of longterm happiness and short-term mental health in the UK. The willingness to pay for clean air is also significant and increases with level of education. These measurements derived can be used as benchmarks for pollution abatement subsidies or pollution taxes and can help in projecting a more comprehensive assessment of costs and benefits.
Keywords:
Air Pollution; Happiness; Policy Valuation; Climate Change; Environmental Policies; Pollution Taxes; Pollution Abatement Subsidies; life satisfaction data; dataset description; air pollutant; pollutants' correlation; household data; ordinal Logit; Income; Europe; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Regional Disparities in Europe
Mr. Ravi Balakrishnan, Mr. Christian H Ebeke, Melih Firat, Mr. Davide Malacrino, and Louise Rabier
While the level of disparities across regions in 10 advanced European economies studied in this paper mostly reflects productivity gaps, the increase since the Great Recession has resulted from diverging unemployment rates. Following the pandemic, this could be further exacerbated given teleworkability rates are lower in poorer regions than in high-income regions, making them ex-ante more vulnerable to the pandemic’s likely material impact on the prevalence of remote work. Preliminary evidence from 2020 confirms that regional disparities between countries increased during 2020. A further concern is that the pandemic might accelerate the automation of jobs across Europe, something which often happens following recessions. While lagging regions have lower ex-ante vulnerabilities against the routinization, the transformation of jobs through sectors with higher routinization rates in these regions could increase their vulnerability to technological change over time. The green transition could also lead to challenges for regions that have benefitted from carbon-intensive growth strategies. Finally, the paper discusses the role for policies—including placed-based ones—in reducing disparities in the face of the aforementioned short, medium, and long-term risks.
Keywords:
Regional inequality; teleworkability; automation; climate change; workability rate; growth tradeoff; productivity gap; The Green; IMF staff calculation; Greenhouse gas emissions; COVID-19; Employment; Climate policy; Global financial crisis of 2008-2009; Europe
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
United Kingdom: Technical Assistance Report-Public Investment Management Assessment: Climate Change Module
International Monetary Fund. Fiscal Affairs Dept.
The UK has one of the most ambitious climate mitigation targets in the world, achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. Long-term emissions reduction targets are legally-binding, there is a well-developed climate change framework including governance frameworks for mitigation and adaptation. Interim national targets or “five-year carbon budgets” are submitted to parliament for approval and there are National Adaptation Programs. The UK has reduced its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 44 percent between 1990 and 2019, but it will likely be exposed to severe climate change risks such as increased flooding.
Keywords:
A. climate change framework; B. climate change objective; climate change governance framework; I. climate change; climate change risk priority area; Climate change; Public investment spending; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Impact of COVID-19 on Attitudes to Climate Change and Support for Climate Policies
Mr. Adil Mohommad and Evgenia Pugacheva
This paper inquires into how individual attitudes to climate issues and support for climate policies have evolved in the context of the pandemic. Using data from a unique survey of 14,500 individuals across 16 major economies, this study shows that the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic increased concern for climate change and public support for green recovery policies. This suggests that the global health crisis has opened up more space for policy makers in key large economies to implement bolder climate policies. The study also finds that support for climate policies decreases when a person has experienced income and/or job loss during the pandemic. Protecting incomes and livelihoods in the near-term is thus important also from a climate policy perspective.
Keywords:
Climate change; climate policy; public opinion; COVID-19; climate policy perspective; climate policies decrease; health shock; climate issue; climate mitigation policy; Climate policy; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Structural Breaks in Carbon Emissions: A Machine Learning Analysis
Jiaxiong Yao and Mr. Yunhui Zhao
To reach the global net-zero goal, the level of carbon emissions has to fall substantially at speed rarely seen in history, highlighting the need to identify structural breaks in carbon emission patterns and understand forces that could bring about such breaks. In this paper, we identify and analyze structural breaks using machine learning methodologies. We find that downward trend shifts in carbon emissions since 1965 are rare, and most trend shifts are associated with non-climate structural factors (such as a change in the economic structure) rather than with climate policies. While we do not explicitly analyze the optimal mix between climate and non-climate policies, our findings highlight the importance of the nonclimate policies in reducing carbon emissions. On the methodology front, our paper contributes to the climate toolbox by identifying country-specific structural breaks in emissions for top 20 emitters based on a user-friendly machine-learning tool and interpreting the results using a decomposition of carbon emission ( Kaya Identity).
Keywords:
Climate Policies; Carbon Emissions; Machine Learning; Structural Break; Kaya Identity; machine learning methodology; machine learning analysis; user-friendly machine-learning tool; emission level; energy intensity; Greenhouse gas emissions; Climate policy; Climate change; Carbon tax; Machine learning; Global
Cover Policy Papers
Strengthening Infrastructure Governance for Climate-Responsive Public Investment
International Monetary Fund. Fiscal Affairs Dept.
Countries have committed, through the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), to pursue climate targets and policies that would limit global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels. A shift toward green public investment will help to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In addition, substantial public investment will be necessary to build public infrastructure that makes economies more resilient to climate change and related natural disasters. Climate change mitigation and adaptation challenges thus compound preexisting needs for public investment to foster the economic recovery from the pandemic and to meet the SDGs in a broader range of areas, often in a context of limited fiscal space. Against this backdrop, a priority for all countries is to manage their public investment efficiently and effectively. To help countries improve the institutions and processes for infrastructure governance (the planning, allocation, and implementation of public investment), the IMF developed in 2015 the Public Investment Management Assessment (PIMA), which has already been applied in over 70 countries. However, the current PIMA does not provide a sufficiently tailored assessment of how public investment management can support climate change mitigation and adaptation. To fill this gap, this paper introduces a new module to the to the current Public Investment Management Assessment (PIMA) framework, the “Climate-PIMA” (C-PIMA), whose goal is to help governments identify potential improvements in public investment institutions and processes to build low-carbon and climate-resilient infrastructure.
Keywords:
fiscal policy; climate change; infrastructure governance; public investment management; C-PIMA framework; transparency policy; climate PIMA; climate change mitigation; State asset insurance policy; Climate change; Public investment spending; Infrastructure; Natural disasters; Global; Climate finance
Cover IMF Working Papers