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Category: Analysis

Description: Carbon pricing is the centerpiece of many plans to address climate change around the world, but the political dynamics shaping the design of these policies remain obscure. This is especially true for Global South countries, which are critical for mitigating future climate change yet the subject of relatively little research on the political economy of carbon pricing. We adopt a mixed methods approach—a survey containing embedded experiments and interviews—to examine the views and preferences of elites directly involved in developing carbon pricing in the Global South. We focus our analysis on three key tensions policymakers navigate in their carbon pricing journeys: the dual imperatives of technical efficacy and political feasibility; the priorities of actors in government, industry, and civil society; and the views of domestic stakeholders and international experts. Through this work, we illuminate the politics driving the ostensibly technocratic process of designing carbon pricing policies in the Global South.