Working Paper
Taxing extractive resources in the transition to a low-carbon future

This paper explores the potential impacts of the transition to a low-carbon future for the taxation of extractive resources. The global debate on climate change has firmly moved on from the question of whether countries ought to shift towards such a future to that of how they are going to achieve it.

Offering a succinct summary of the global community’s collective understanding of the challenge at stake and the policy options that are on the table for advancing the transition within the geographic boundaries of their sovereign countries, the paper highlights the overbearing dichotomy that is playing out between the environmental awareness and concerns of high-income and resources-consuming advanced economies and the developmental aspirations of low-income and emerging market economies.

It reflects on the global imperative to further the low-carbon transition by means of nation-states pursuing carbon pricing and other downstream-focused policy measures for domestic revenue mobilization in low-income countries.