Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Pereira, Alfredo M.
• Pereira, Rui M.

Titel

Reducing carbon emissions in Portugal: the relative roles of fossil fuel prices, energy efficiency, and carbon taxation

Ist Teil von

• Journal of environmental planning and management, 2017-10, Vol.60 (10), p.1825-1852

Ort / Verlag

Abingdon: Routledge

Erscheinungsjahr

2017

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

PAIS Index

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• We assess the role of fossil fuel prices, energy efficiency, and carbon taxation in achieving climate policy goals using a dynamic general-equilibrium model of the Portuguese economy. Given the forecasts for international fossil fuel prices, improving energy efficiency and implementing a new carbon tax have significantly different economic and budgetary effects. Greater energy efficiency reduces emissions and has a positive economic effect, but increases public and foreign debt. A carbon tax reduces emissions at a cost for the economy, but leads to positive effects on public and foreign debt. Thus, it is important to pursue both strategies. We estimate that under the reference-price scenario, a steady energy efficiency gain of 2%-2.5% per year and a carbon tax of at least 35 € per tCO 2 are needed to achieve the stated goal of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 by an amount equivalent to 40% of the emissions in 1990. These views were fully integrated in a proposal presented by the Commission for Environmental Tax Reform to the Portuguese Government in September 2014, and then discussed in Parliament in November 2014, before enacting a new carbon tax on 1 January 2015.