The need for effective global climate action is becoming increasingly urgent. A first-of-its-kind investigation has found policies worldwide that have done what is needed to rein in pollution that drives up the temperature of the planet, and the results of this analysis have been surprising. The Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change in Berlin, where Nicolas Koch and his colleagues work, made this discovery by analyzing the effects of one thousand five hundred climate policies that were implemented between the years 1998 and 2022. These policies covered forty-one countries spread across six continents.
Only sixty-three “success stories” were discovered by the researchers. These may be solitary initiatives or combinations of policies that generate significant reductions in climate pollution. In a statement, the researchers noted that the data provide a template for what works, despite the fact that the small sample size may be discouraging.
We basically do the reverse of what other people have done before. We first look at (climate pollution) effects, and then try to explain the effects with policies, explained Nicolas Koch, an environmental economist at the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change in Germany, and a lead author on the study.
In order to identify nations that had considerable reductions in pollution in their construction, power, industry, and transportation sectors between the years 1998 and 2022, the researchers combed through massive volumes of climate data. On average, these countries experienced reductions of 19%. As a next step, they compared these to the policies that those countries had implemented or reinforced during the same time period.
What are the countries that did best?
Following the financial crisis that occurred in 2008, the US transportation sector experienced a considerable reduction in the amount of pollution that contributed to the warming of the planet. According to the findings of the study, this was the result of a combination of tax benefits for low-carbon automobiles and a reform in emissions requirements for fuel efficiency levels. However, through the implementation of a coal phase-out plan, a carbon price cap for UK power companies, higher air pollution standards, and subsidies for clean energy sources between the years 2015 and 2016, the United Kingdom was able to significantly reduce the amount of pollution that was caused by electricity that was responsible for warming the world.
It would not be enough to narrow the distinction between where emissions have fallen and where they need to be in order to effectively rein in catastrophic warming, even if the most successful measures that have been implemented up to this point were ramped up to a worldwide level.
