Background

This dataset contains information on carbon pricing mechanisms (carbon taxes or cap-and-trade) introduced around the world since 1990. To date, it is the most comprehensive attempt at providing a consistent-across-jurisdiction description of carbon pricing mechanisms in terms of their sectoral (and fuel) coverage as well as the associated price signal.

Source: https://github.com/g-dolphin/WorldCarbonPricingDatabase

Feature information

The .csv files in the national and subnational folders contain the carbon pricing schemes' institutional variables for 198 national and 94 sub-national jurisdictions. For each jurisdiction and each year between 1989 and 2020, these variables are recorded at the sector or sector-fuel level.

The first five columns of each dataframe (.csv file) record the keys of each entry. The corresponding column titles are: jurisdiction, year, ipcc_code, iea_code, Product.

The remaining columns record the variables' value. The following variables are included.

• tax: a binary variable indicating coverage (1) or not (0) by a carbon tax
• ets: a binary variable indicating coverage (1) or not (0) by an emission trading system
• tax_rate_excl_ex_clc: tax rate in current local currency unit per tonne of CO2
• tax_ex_rate: rate of exemption applicable (e.g. 0.1 if a 10% reduction on full rate is granted)
• tax_rate_incl_ex_clc: net tax rate (accounting for exemption) in current local currency unit per tonne of CO2
• tax_curr_code: ISO code of the currency in which the tax rate is recorded (e.g. EUR for euro)
• ets_price: price of an emissions allowance in current local currency unit per tonne of CO2
• ets_curr_code: ISO code of the currency in which the allowance price is recorded (e.g. EUR for euro)

Different tax rates (in LCU/tCO2) applicable to different fuels

It may be the case that different tax rates are applied to different fuels within the the main fuel categories (i.e. Coal/peat, Natural Gas, Oil). This comes in the form of differentiated applicable tax rates or varying exemption rates. This the case for Mexico and Argentina, for instance.

In such cases, the value recorded in the dataset is the highest rate applicable to the fuel category. The fuel- and/or sector-fuel-specific rates are recorded in the country notes associated with each country.

"NA" values

“NA” values indicate that the column is "not applicable" for the particular row you are looking at. There are two instances in which "NA" is used: 1. In keys columns: in the column iea_code, there is only such a code for IPCC Energy sectors, not the others. 2. In variables columns: there will be an “NA” entry if there is no such scheme in place, i.e. if the value of the corresponding coverage binary column is set to 0.