Emissions-weighted Carbon Price

This note describes the data and methods used to calculate the emissions-weighted carbon price (ECP), a sector or economy-wide average price on CO2 emissions. A major benefit is that it provides a methodology to measure sector- or economy-level average prices consistently across jurisdictions. To the best of our knowledge, the ECP data constitute the first centralized and systematic assessment providing a consistent description of carbon prices that simultaneously includes price information disaggregated at the sector(-fuel) level, extends back to 1990 to include price information for the earliest carbon taxpricing policies, and accounts for as many sector(-fuel) exemptions as accurately possible. The methodology and data currently available allow to readily expand the calculation to new national or subnational jurisdictions, should some of their emissions become subject to a carbon pricing mechanism, as well as to new greenhouse gases.

It is calculated for 46 national and 31 subnational jurisdictions (13 Canadian provinces and territories, 11 US states, and 7 Chinese provinces) over 1990–2022. The average World CO2 price is also calculated. For national jurisdictions, the emissions-weighted price accounts for the prices arising from carbon pricing instruments introduced in their respective subnational jurisdictions. For instance, the emissions-weighted price for the United States includes the prices arising from state-level carbon pricing mechanisms.