ABSTRACT

Carbon taxation affects carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions through the price of fossil fuels, and hence can also affect emissions of air pollutants. Based on this fact, this study aims at exploring the impact of the carbon tax in Japan on various pollutants’ emissions, using a regression-based approach. The main contribution of this study is to assess the impact of a tax that is mainly directed at cutting CO₂, on other gases, namely sulphur dioxide (SO₂), suspended particulate matter (SPM), carbon monoxide (CO) and nitrogen oxide (NO_X), as well as analyzing the impact of this tax on different sectors of the Japanese economy. Our results imply that the introduction of the carbon tax in Japan effectively reduced non-CO₂ greenhouse gases (GHGs) and pollutants, even when controlling for demographic and economic variables. The results of this study can be explained by a partial decoupling of fossil fuel consumption and GHG emissions, possibly through investment in anti-pollution measures.

摘要

碳税通过化石燃料的价格影响二氧化碳 (CO ₂ ) 排放，因此也会影响空气污染物的排放。基于这一事实，本研究旨在使用基于回归的方法探索日本碳税对各种污染物排放的影响。本研究的主要贡献是评估主要针对减少 CO ₂的税收对其他气体的影响，即二氧化硫 (SO ₂ )、悬浮颗粒物 (SPM)、一氧化碳 (CO) 和氮氧化物(NO _X )，以及分析这种税收对日本经济不同部门的影响。我们的结果表明，日本引入碳税有效地减少了非 CO ₂温室气体 (GHG) 和污染物，即使在控制人口和经济变量的情况下也是如此。这项研究的结果可以通过化石燃料消耗和温室气体排放的部分脱钩来解释，可能是通过投资于抗污染措施。