The Impact of Environmental Taxes on the Level of Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Poland and Sweden

Abstract

The research presented in the article was aimed at verifying the effectiveness of environmental taxes in reducing the level of greenhouse gas emissions. For this purpose, data provided by Eurostat in the environmental taxes category were used. They were treated as explanatory variables. Data were entered into the ARMAX models built by the authors. The dependent variable was the emission of two greenhouse gases covered by the research, namely carbon dioxide and methane. The research was carried out in Poland, for which the results obtained for Sweden were used as the benchmark. The built models made it possible to verify the relationship between environmental taxes in the categories of energy, transport, pollution, resources, and the level of CO2 and CH4 emissions. The nature of the explanatory variable was also examined. Environmental taxes can fulfill a fiscal, incentive, and redistributive function. The conducted research shows that these taxes, in fact, fulfill mainly a fiscal function, while redistributive and incentive functions are insufficient. It was also observed that the direction and strength of the impact of taxes differ depending on the greenhouse gas.

Quantile-based effect of energy, transport, and total environmental tax on ecological footprint in EU5 countries

“…According to the research outcomes, some studies have defined that ET as a beneficial tool in curbing environmental pollution (e.g., Hussain et al 2023 ; Kirikkaleli 2023 ). However, the literature does not have a consensus on the effect of ET on environmental pollution because some other studies have concluded that ET is inefficient in preventing environmental pollution (e.g., Rybak et al 2022 ; Xie and Jamaani 2022 ).…”

“…On the other hand, some countries, such as Malaysia and Latvia, have been included much less in empirical research (e.g., Loganathan et al 2020 ; Brizga et al 2022 ). Generally, aggregated level ET data has been used in the studies, whereas a few studies have preferred to use disaggregated level ET data (e.g., Loganathan et al 2020 ; Rybak et al 2022 consider ENET; Meireles et al 2021 ; Brizga et al 2022 use TRET).…”

Do Better Institutional Arrangements Lead to Environmental Sustainability: Evidence from India

“…However, China recently implemented carbon tax to improve environmental quality; initially, carbon tax has a deleterious effect on other macro-economic variables instead of environmental degradation, but it does not improve environmental quality immediately [71]. Whereas, [72] argued that environmental taxes have no significant impact on energy, and may improve the environmental quality, but are not necessary conditions.…”

Reduction of Greenhouse Gas Emissions by Replacing Fertilizers with Digestate

“…Researchers and breeders are looking for the ways to reduce these emissions, as they are associated with the lower milk yield of cows (Gislon et al 2020). In the future, these activities may be related to the taxation of such emissions (Rybak et al 2022). However, the appropriate management of livestock manure has much greater potential in reducing GHG emissions (Dalby et al 2021, Awasthi et al 2019).…”