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Article “Never let a serious crisis go to waste: the introduction of supplemental carbon taxes in Europe” published in the Journal for Public Policy

The Journal of Public Policy recently published the article „Never let a serious crisis go to waste: the introduction of supplemental carbon taxes in Europe” by Fabio Bothner and several colleagues from the Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg and the Technische Universität Braunschweig. The article analyzes the introduction of national CO₂-taxation in the European Union. The authors examined when and under which conditions European states participating in the emissions trading scheme introduce an additional CO₂-tax.

Based on the results of a Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA) and insights gained from several case studies the authors reach two main conclusions. First, political actors attempt to take advantage of public budget crises to introduce taxes on carbon dioxide emissions. Second, the likelihood of CO₂-taxation is highest when push and pull factors coincide, i.e., when increased problem pressure from missed climate goals is met by governments that are sensitive to environmental issues.

This article not only enhances the literature on the introduction of CO₂-taxation in the European Union. The authors also make a methodological contribution by combining the Multiple Streams Approach (MSA) with the QCA method.

The article is openly accessible and available at: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-public-policy/article/never-let-a-serious-crisis-go-to-waste-the-introduction-of-supplemental-carbon-taxes-in-europe/A1E699D149C9E85605377CA87105FA5D