Powerful options are needed to achieve the large-scale emission reductions required under the Paris Agreement. Putting a price on carbon pollution is one of the most potent and efficient strategies governments and corporations can use to reduce carbon emissions and combat climate change. As of 2018, 88 countries are considering use of carbon pricing initiatives as part of their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), through emissions trading within or across borders,international crediting, carbon taxation, and other measures.
Over the past several years, we have seen a proliferation of carbon pricing approaches around the world and an increase in the diversity of such approaches. Research has underpinned much of the progress made to date and helped understand, inter alia, design features of carbon pricing instruments; success factors for effective implementation; ways to address market and competitive distortions; and the role and alignment of companion policies. In addition, a growing body of experience and data is accumulating from the operation and modelling of different carbon pricing approaches, from which much can be learned. The application of carbon pricing instruments has revealed new or persistent challenges around market stability and liquidity; managing transitions and impacts in relation to carbon intensive sectors and communities; addressing overlapping policies; combining carbon pricing instruments; expanding the scope of carbon pricing to various heterogeneous sectors of the economy; and adjusting system designs over time to realize committed ambition levels.
Research and analysis can serve as the lynchpins for effective carbon pricing design and implementation. With the goal to strengthen the knowledge base on carbon pricing and foster an improved understanding of the evolving challenges to its successful application, the CPLC is convening researchers, practitioners, and interested stakeholders at a CPLC Research Conference on February 14–15, 2019, in New Delhi, India. Leveraging its high-level membership of governments, the private sector, and civil society organizations, CPLC will draw on outcomes of this conference to help bridge the existing gap between theory and practice, and to inform future decisions taken by policy makers and corporate leaders.
The Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition (CPLC)—hosted by the World Bank Group—was established to provide a forum for collaborative personal and organizational leadership on carbon pricing. It aims to foster bold leadership on many levels—by governments, companies, and the academic and NGO communities—to drive action and collaboration to implement effective carbon pricing policies and bring an increasing share of global emissions under a carbon pricing instrument.
The two-day Conference is structured around six central themes: (1) Learning from Experience, (2) Carbon Pricing Design, (3) Concepts and Methods, (4) Political Economy, (5) Decarbonizing the Economy, and (6) Emerging Frontiers. Each day will feature plenary sessions with leading experts, as well as concurrent sessions covering the six themes. Day 1 is dedicated to themes 1–3 and Day 2 is dedicated to themes 4–6. Sessions will consist of presentations from a combination of leading researchers as well as young and emerging academics in the carbon pricing practice.