A recent study published by UCLA researchers found that gasoline reduction reforms are curtailed so quickly that they are not being given a chance to work. The authors concluded that presidents, prime ministers and monarchs are highly constrained in their ability to change gas taxes and subsidies.

The study is the most extensive and far-reaching analysis of carbon pricing to date. The data analysis took over a decade to complete, combining 12 languages and 155 countries. The researchers discovered that 62% of the time, the tax increases and subsidy reductions were rescinded within one year. And 87% of the time, they were scrapped within five years.

Most shockingly, when the measures had been implemented by national leaders who had received the Champions of the Earth Award from the United Nations Environment Program, they were even shorter-lived than those of peer nations, the study found. 

“Nobody seems to do better than anyone else,” said lead author Michael Ross, a UCLA professor of political science and member of the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. He called the results “surprising and disturbing.” 

Given those measures’ failures, the authors write, more effective policies for curbing carbon emissions would include funding renewable energy, reducing its cost to consumers and making it more widely available.

Still, Ross believes that other market-based solutions are essential to combating climate change. “We can’t do this by governments alone,” he said. “It’s just too big of a task.”

Read more about the research findings at UCLA Newsroom.

Image Source: Sean Brenner