CATs – Carbon Taxes in Austria. Implementation Issues and Impacts

The CATs project focused on carbon taxes as a policy instrument for achieving emission reductions particularly in sectors not covered by the EU Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS). Based on a systematic review of carbon taxes in EU member countries and a qualitative assessment of the implementation barriers and success factors in frontrunner countries a model-based analysis of the effects of various carbon tax scenarios for Austria was performed. Policy recommendations were developed for Austria and the EU. The project results suggest that carefully designed CO2 tax schemes can play an important part in achieving greenhouse gas emission targets for non-ETS sectors in Austria with potentially positive distributive and macroeconomic impacts.