A carbon tax will not curb current emissions in sub-Saharan Africa and is unlikely to prevent future carbon lock-in effects. Meanwhile, a carbon tax could hit the poor in this region, thus the international community should be careful in pushing sub-Saharan Africa towards carbon taxation.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals
Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription
$32.99 / 30 days
cancel any time
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$259.00 per year
only $21.58 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on SpringerLink
- Instant access to the full article PDF.
USD 39.95
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
References
Carbon Pricing Leadership Report 2021/22 (World Bank, 2022).
Guepie, G. et al. Implications for African Countries of a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism in the EU (The African Climate Foundation, London School of Economics and Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa, 2023).
Vrolijk, K. & Sato, M. World Bank Res. Obs. 38, 213–248 (2023).
Pendrill, F. et al. Science 377, eabm9267 (2022).
Crezee, B. et al. Nat. Geosci. 15, 639–644 (2022).
Rose, J., Bensch, G., Munyehirwe, A. & Peters, J. World Dev. Perspect. 25, 100401 (2022).
Steckel, J. C., Hilaire, J., Jakob, M. & Edenhofer, O. Nat. Clim. Change 10, 83–88 (2020).
Timilsina, G. R. J. Econ. Lit. 60, 1456–1502 (2022).
Ameli, N. et al. Nat. Commun. 12, 4046 (2021).
Dorband, I. I., Jakob, M., Kalkuhl, M. & Steckel, J. C. World Dev. 115, 246–257 (2019).
Greve, H. & Lay, J. J. Assoc. Environ. Resour. Econ. 10, 121–158 (2023).
Rose, J., Ankel-Peters, J., Hodel, H., Sall, M. & Bensch, G. npj Clim. Action 3, 96 (2024).
Steckel, J. C. et al. Nat. Sustain. 4, 1005–1014 (2021).
Songwe, V., Stern, N. & Bhattacharya, A. Finance for Climate Action: Scaling up Investment for Climate and Development (Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, London School of Economics and Political Science, 2022).
Climate Watch Historical GHG Emissions (World Resources Institute, 2022); https://www.climatewatchdata.org/ghg-emissions
Acknowledgements
We thank J. Steckel, H. Medhin and D. Ankel for valuable comments. J.A.-P., J.R. and J.L. received funding from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF, funding code 011A1807A DECADE).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ankel-Peters, J., Bensch, G., Dabadge, A. et al. Tax carbon cautiously for sub-Saharan Africa. Nat. Clim. Chang. 15, 7–9 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-024-02213-w
Published:
Version of record:
Issue date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-024-02213-w
