Over the past year and a half, Klimaatverbond Nederland (a Dutch association of decentralised governments, focused on climate policy), together with the umbrella organisations of municipalities, provinces and water boards and the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management, has been working on the development of internal CO2 pricing as an instrument to combat climate change.

Research and experiments in this programme yielded a lot of understanding about the many possibilities of these instruments. The joint effort has given us insight into the conceptual basis of CO2 pricing, its potential and the development that is still needed to make optimal use of it. We investigated – linked to practice – how a price on greenhouse gas emissions can reduce the carbon footprint of decentralised governments. These insights are written down in a number of documents: an essay that places CO2 pricing in societal context; an overview of the results of over ten practical studies; and the scientific reports that underlie this. These documents have been collected on this website in dutch.

This booklet forms the english language  synthesis of the joint work. In addition to the key insights, it gives a brief look into the future. How can we further develop CO2 pricing into an even more powerful tool in the fight against the climate crisis?