THE IMPACT OF CARBON TAX POLICIES ON FUTURE CARBON EMISSIONS FROM PAKISTAN’S ENERGY SECTOR USING THE TIMES MODELING FRAMEWORK

Global warming and climate change have gained a lot of attention in recent times, since these phenomena lead to socio-economic instability in modern society. Mankind is now well aware of the harmful effects caused by environmental emissions. As a result, research into techniques for reducing environmental emissions is of utmost importance. This paper has discussed a methodology which can be utilized to fight this battle against climate change. More specifically, using the Pakistan Integrated Energy Model (Pak-IEM), forecasts for carbon emissions are performed out to the year 2040. A base case with no carbon tax on the energy system is used as a reference for comparison of final results. In the other two cases, the impact of enforcing a carbon tax policy on the energy sector of Pakistan is explored. The energy sector is among the primary culprits responsible for the harmful carbon emissions, and this paper shows whether a carbon tax policy would help in reducing carbon emissions in Pakistan. The results reveal that a carbon tax policy does in fact help in reducing emissions, more specifically, a reduction of 17 MtCO2 was seen as compared to a base case with no carbon tax policy.