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Systematic review of the outcomes and trade-offs of ten types of decarbonization policy instruments

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Abstract

The literature evaluating the technical and socio-economic outcomes of policy instruments used to support the transition to low-carbon economies is neither easily accessible nor comparable, and often provides conflicting results. We develop and implement a framework to systematically review and synthesize the impact of ten types of decarbonisation policy instruments on seven technical and socio-economic outcomes. Our systematic review shows that the selected types of regulatory and economic and financial instruments are generally associated with positive impacts on environmental, technological, and innovation outcomes. Several instruments are often associated with short-term negative impacts on competitiveness and distributional outcomes. We discuss how these trade-offs can be reduced or transformed into co-benefits by designing R&D and government procurement, deployment policies, carbon pricing and trading. We show how specific design features can promote competitiveness and reduce negative distributional impacts, particularly for small firms. An online interactive Decarbonisation Policy Evaluation Tool allows further analysis of the evidence.

Description

Keywords

38 Economics, 3801 Applied Economics, Social Determinants of Health, 12 Responsible Consumption and Production

Journal Title

Nature Climate Change

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

1758-678X
1758-6798

Volume Title

11

Publisher

Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Rights

All rights reserved
Sponsorship
European Commission Horizon 2020 (H2020) Societal Challenges (730403)
H2020 Framework European Commission