Assessing the synergistic reduction effects of different energy environmental taxes: the case of China

Imposing any tax among carbon tax, sulfur tax and nitrogen tax on fossil fuels will also reduce the other two air pollutants. Neglecting the synergistic effect of each energy environmental tax and levying carbon tax, sulfur tax and nitrogen tax at the same time will overestimate the abatement cost of air emissions. This study adopts a partial equilibrium model which uses linear demand and supply curves to illustrate the emission reductions in carbon tax, sulfur tax and nitrogen tax. The synergistic reduction effects of CO₂, SO₂ and NO_x are firstly evaluated under the implicit tax scenario of resource tax and consumption tax on fossil fuels. Then it is compared with the synergistic reduction effects of CO₂, SO₂ and NO_x under different explicit tax scenarios of increasing tax rate on carbon tax, sulfur tax and nitrogen tax. If the synergistic reduction effect of explicit environmental taxes is better, this research aims to find one kind of environmental tax among carbon tax, sulfur tax and nitrogen tax with the best synergistic reduction effect and to provide a decision support for the policy makers of energy environmental taxes. The results indicate that explicit environmental taxes have better synergistic reduction effects compared with the current implicit environmental taxes. And explicit sulfur tax can lead to the largest synergistic reduction effects of CO₂, SO₂ and NO_x. Therefore, the policy makers of energy environmental taxes could consider adopting the explicit sulfur tax to reduce various environmental air emissions at the largest amount.