Climate action: combining strategies, reducing emissions

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A combination of measures – from carbon pricing and fossil fuel taxation to research and investment in renewables – is the best route to effective climate action. This is the finding of an international study that compared climate policies in 40 countries over decades and has appeared in the journal Climate Policy. The research team, which includes experts from LMU and the Universities of Barcelona, Lausanne, and Oslo, examined policies and their effects on the climate over a period of 32 years.

“As governmental climate policy efforts are expanding, evaluating their effectiveness has become increasingly challenging due to numerous coexisting policies,” explains Professor Christoph Knill, Chair of Empirical Theories of Politics at LMU and co-author of the study. In particular, it is difficult to consider the effects of individual policy instruments in isolation because the effects of numerous other measures also play a role. “The aim of our study was to conduct a country-specific evaluation to determine which climate action policies can bring the greatest benefits.”

Effective environmental protection in Norway and Sweden

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The international team analyzed climate policies and their effects between 1990 and 2022. Using a novel statistical method that allows multiple parameters of individual instruments to be modeled simultaneously, the researchers were able to evaluate the effectiveness of 1,737 individual climate policies. At the same time, they ensured that only initiatives with sufficient empirical evidence were included in the model.

The researchers concluded that a diverse and comprehensive repertoire of policy instruments is more effective than relying on individual measures. “Effective climate action does not hinge on one optimal measure,” says Christoph Knill. “Rather, political strategies are effective when several measures are implemented over a longer period of time and are well coordinated.”

In the paper, the team cites Sweden and Norway and how their broad policy mixes are highly effective for climate action.

Guidance for decision-makers

According to the study, certain policies are particularly effective: carbon pricing and fossil fuel taxation, scientific climate research, and investment in renewables have been effective to an above-average extent over longer periods of time and across national borders, in combination with a wide variety of other climate action policies.

The findings of the study are intended to provide practical guidance to policymakers in identifying the most effective instruments in their respective national contexts. According to the analysis, countries such as Australia, Canada, and Japan could effectively reduce their carbon dioxide emissions by increasing fossil fuel taxes.

Moreover, the newly developed statistical model can be applied to other rapidly growing policy areas to assess the effectiveness of measures.

Publication:

Xavier Fernández-i-Marín, Markus Hinterleitner, Christoph Knill, Yves Steinebach: “Effective Climate Policies for ‘All Seasons’: Novel Evidence from 40 Countries”. In: Climate Policy 2026