Climate policy dashboard

The IFCMA Climate Policy Database organises policy instruments into different instrument categories and instrument groups as per their operating mechanisms. The main instrument categories are 5: Economic instruments, Regulatory instruments, Information instruments, Government consumption and investment instruments, and Voluntary approaches. Each of these instrument categories is further divided into instrument groups. Economic instruments are split into taxes, subsidies and trading schemes, while regulatory instruments are split into performance standards, technology standards and framework regulations. The following figure summarises the main instrument categories and instrument groups in the IFCMA Climate Policy Database. 

Click on each instrument group to see which instruments are included in each category.

The attributes characterising policy instruments capture multiple dimensions of the design and implementation of policy instruments. This approach is intended to support various uses and analytical purposes, opening new avenues for comparative and empirical policy analysis, and especially mutual learning a key objective of the IFCMA.

The regulated asset is the item targeted by the policy instrument; this can be a structure (e.g. boilers and turbines), a fuel (e.g. coal or gas), emissions, more generic objects such as products and inputs, as well as intangible assets (e.g. income).

The regulated agent is the legal entity (person or institution) that must legally comply with the instrument and is liable for any non-compliance or receives the established benefits or information. Regulated agents can include households, firms, governments, or non-governmental organisations.

The regulated activity refers to the actions or activities regulated by the policy instrument. These activities are usually defined by the legal obligation established by the instrument and carried out by the regulated agent. 

This attribute reports the legal obligation or benefit established for the regulated agent by the policy instrument. The requirement can be either qualitative or quantitative, which is more common. For quantitative obligations or benefits, often present for economic and regulatory instruments, the intensity attribute specifies the level of obligation or the benefit. For example, in a case of the carbon tax, it refers to the tax rate per tonne of CO2e emitted; for an emissions standard, it provides the emission limit value; and for a feed-in-tariff, the payment received per unit of renewable electricity generated. Examples of instruments imposing qualitative requirements include information instruments requiring energy audits or framework standards requiring e.g. the adoption of Best Available Techniques (BAT).