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Technical Work Program
Developing Guidance and Sharing Experiences on Carbon Pricing

The technical work program complements countries’ readiness activities by providing technical support on those carbon pricing elements that are common across countries. Its objectives are to facilitate experience and knowledge sharing; develop practical guidance on common issues; identify good practice and common standards; and to help build necessary capacity. Click here to read the current work plan and here for an update on progress in achieving the FY19 program.

Knowledge Products and Exchanges

The Knowledge Center contains links to the latest publications and reports. In addition, the technical work program organizes country-to-country exchanges, technical workshops, trainings and e-learnings that can be used by all countries as they design and put in place their carbon pricing policies. Drawing on country experience, global industry experts, and in-house resources, the Technical Work Program produces a number of knowledge products and exchanges on specific topics. Topics for these activities are driven by country need, as identified in MRPs or requested by Participants.

Thematic Work Streams

The technical work program focuses on five main areas:

  • Emissions Trading: An emissions trading system (ETS) is a tool that uses market forces to reduce emissions at the lowest possible cost. For more information on how these systems work and operate in practice, see the Emissions Trading in Practice: A Handbook on Design and Implementation
  • Carbon Taxes: A carbon tax is levied on GHG emissions where emitters will pay a tax on their emissions output. For more information on how carbon taxes are built and work in practice, see the Carbon Tax Guide: A Handbook for Policy Makers
  • Offsets and Crediting: Many PMR Participants are pursuing some form of crediting instrument, whether it is an offset program to complement an ETS, carbon tax, or other domestic policy; or a scaled-up crediting instrument to be the primary vehicle to provide incentives for emission reductions.
  • Emissions Data: National systems to monitor, report and verify emissions reductions are an important cornerstone for any mitigation tool, including those that price carbon. Such systems provide guidelines to entities responsible for reporting emissions and provide credible mechanisms for data management and data validation. This also includes a focus on data management and registries for corporate and facility level reporting, as well as allowance transactions. For common guidance on the design and implementation of MRV systems to support carbon pricing, see the Guide for Designing Mandatory Greenhouse Gas Reporting Programs
  • Benefits of Carbon Pricing and Communications: In addition to reducing emissions, carbon pricing systems can deliver a number of health, economic and social benefits to a jurisdiction. These range from cleaner air, job creation and benefits to the tax system. How these benefits can be identified, measured and maximized through carbon pricing is a focus of this work stream. In addition, given stakeholder and public support for these instruments will be critical for the adoption and durability of carbon pricing, how policy makers communicate about carbon pricing is also examined here.

Current Work and Activities

FY20 highlights include the regional workshops on Communicating Carbon Pricing and both a face to face and an online course on Carbon Taxes. A report on measuring emissions will also be finalized by the end of this fiscal year. Furthermore, the State and Trends of Carbon Pricing 2020 will be launched before summer.

In addition to above, the PMR Secretariat has commissioned five guidance reports in FY20 and will continue working on these reports in FY21 (until Dec 2020): (i) development co-benefits of carbon pricing; (ii) selecting a carbon pricing instrument; (iii) a crediting Guide; (iv) an update to the ETS Handbook; and (v) a report on ETS governance. In line with the wrap up of the PMR program, a note on lessons learned under the PMR, assessment of country MRP outputs as well as an archive of PMR outputs and documents will be compiled.