Climate policies that achieved major emission reductions: Global evidence from two decades
Annika Stechemesser of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) presented a global study of climate policies associated with major reductions in carbon-dioxide emissions, with Thomas Wencker (DEval) moderating.
10 November 2025 | 13:00 GMT to 13:30 GMT | Belém, Brazil
The presented study asked in which countries experienced major drops in emissions and which policies were in place at those times. It´s building on a database covering about 30,000 policies in 51 countries from 1998 to 2022. The analysis examined the buildings, electricity, industry, and transport sectors. Machine learning first detected structural breaks in sectoral emissions. Difference-in-differences estimation then quantified the size of the identified reductions. The researchers linked active policies to each break as possible contributors and compared patterns across the resulting cases. They identified 69 large reductions in 41 countries. Most of the detected breaks occurred in the building sector, while electricity produced the fewest. Policy packages were associated with large reductions more consistently than isolated measures. Pricing instruments were the main exception because they also appeared in successful cases as stand-alone policies. Pricing played a particularly prominent role in developed economies. Effective combinations nevertheless varied by sector and level of economic development. The analysis did not establish that every policy active around a structural break caused the reduction. Agriculture was excluded because comparable policy data were unavailable. Geographic coverage was also limited, particularly in Africa. The study measured carbon-dioxide reductions but did not assess public acceptance, reversibility, or cost-effectiveness. Stechemesser cautioned against transferring a policy package directly to a dissimilar national context. The associated Climate Policy Explorer allows users to examine countries, sectors, policy types, estimated counterfactuals, and downloadable data. For mitigation practice, the evidence directs attention from policy counts toward observed emissions changes, complementary instruments, and context-specific policy design.