The theme of the 15th Global Conference on Environmental Taxation (GCET) conference was environmental taxation and emissions trading in an era of climate change, September, 2014, Copenhagen. Keynote speakers included experts from WTO, the World Trade Organizations, and IMF, the International Monetary Fund as well as academics that have played a role, e.g. in Portugal’s Green Tax Committee.
Major output from the conference is a book on Carbon Pricing: Design, Experiences and Issues: “Carbon Pricing reflects upon and further develops the ongoing global debate into how to design carbon pricing, and how to utilize the financial proceeds in the best possible way for society. The world has recently witnessed a significant downward adjustment in fossil fuel prices, which has negative implications for the future of our environment. In light of these negative developments, it is important to understand the benefits of environmental sustainability through well-documented research. This book considers the design of carbon taxes and examines the consequential outcomes of different taxation compositions as regulatory instruments. Expert contributors assess a variety of national experiences to provide an empirical insight into the use of carbon taxes, emissions trading, energy taxes and excise taxes. The overarching discussion concludes that successful policies used by some countries can be implemented in other jurisdictions with minimum new research and experimentation.”
Photo credit: Les Haines/Flickr
