Energy Taxes and Their Contribution to Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction

Traditionally, carbon tax and cap-and-trade system are considered to be the main incentive-based instruments to tackle greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, scientific and political discussions often neglect the role of other energy taxes that restrict the use of fossil fuels and implicitly put the price on carbon. However, the impact of any fiscal instrument on emissions does not solely depend on value and quality of the price signal (tax rate and tax base) but is subject to the scale of its application, i.e. the coverage of emissions. In most countries, other energy taxes (e.g. excises for motor fuels) historically have a wider institutional basis, cover a larger number of polluting entities in comparison to carbon tax or cap-and-trade, which started to develop rapidly only recently. The objective of the present research is to compare the contribution of «direct» price signals (carbon tax and cap-and-trade) to greenhouse gas emissions reduction against the backdrop of «indirect» ones (other energy taxes). On the basis of data for 30 European countries in 1995–2016, several fixed-effects panel regressions were estimated. The results indicate that the impact of other energy taxes on carbon intensity is twice as high as the impact of «direct» price signals. However, the impact of the «direct» price signals tends to increase with the time. The estimation made for 2005–2016 shows that even though both «direct» and «indirect» price signals had significant negative impact on carbon intensity, neither of them was stronger than the other.