China profiles itself as a country with an ambitious climate and environmental policy. In 2020, President Xi Jinping announced his intention to make China a carbon-neutral country by 2060, while adding that China’s total emissions should reach an absolute peak before 2030. To honor these commitments, China needs to step up ambitions on its emission trading system to contribute to global decarbonization efforts. China launched its national carbon market in 2021, and it immediately became the world’s largest in terms of covered emissions.

At a time when few would contest that climate change presents the great existential challenge of our era, it is remarkable that globally, carbon pricing remains marginal. Carbon taxes and carbon markets (or emissions trading schemes), of different sorts cover less than a fifth of global carbon emissions as of 2022. Nevertheless, the number has been on the rise and it is no stretch to claim that the European Union with its ETS launched in 2005 has played a pivotal role in the proliferation of carbon pricing. Now, the introduction of CBAM should serve as a reminder that the Union is serious about the need for global climate action.

Deployment of renewable energy can provide enormous benefits for local populations and economies, creating value for both the natural environment and society. This is especially true when compared to fossil energy sources and the traditional use of biomass. Research on the impacts of renewables emphasises their multiple socio-economic benefits, far beyond their potential to mitigate climate change. Deployment of renewables creates employment opportunities and contributes to growth in gross domestic product. The energy transition is projected to result in a global net gain in employment, with more jobs created by ramping up renewable capacity than lost by phasing out fossil energy.

Increasing auctioning revenues from the EU ETS, the EU's carbon market, provides a great opportunity to fund the green transition and help the EU achieve its ambitious climate targets. Evidence has shown that carbon taxes are often directly passed on to consumers especially when it comes to transport and heating fuels. As people’s living costs will surely increase as a result of carbon taxation, it is crucial they will get something in return. Otherwise, green policies in Europe can be severely undermined. Carbon dividend serves as a great policy tool to protect vulnerable households while being a fair, practical and an “elegant solution in its simplicity, transparent in its accessibility to public scrutiny and clear in its signals and benefits.” This research study showed that significant revenues from the Union's carbon market will be generated because of the increasing EUA price. The proposed scheme of returning at least 40% of auctioning proceeds to households would assure that most vulnerable families are protected from increasing prices related to carbon taxation while incentivizing low-carbon investment.

Evidence of the Covid-19 pandemic is to be found reflected in figures recording the total amount of carbon dioxide emissions, but the “positive” impact has been short-lived. Even by December 2020 emissions associated with energy use were 2% higher than in December 2019. The year 2020 was also one of the three hottest years since measurements began, whilst at the same time rounding off the hottest ever decade. Measured concentrations of emissions indicate that the world is on track to warm by more than 3°C by the end of the century, far exceeding the safe temperature target set in the Paris Agreement (PA). Clearly, it is not desirable to wait for disasters or crises to prompt concerted action on climate change mitigation, but rather to employ well-thought-out decarbonization strategies sooner rather than later. The purpose of this publication is to provide an expert assessment of the Czechia's foreign policy and to make recommendations to its relevant actors for the future.

In April 2021, after a contentious process, the Czech government presented a new version of its draft Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP), with significant changes relative to previously released drafts. Throughout the process, civil society actors have criticized the lack of opportunities for effective participation. Overall, we find that the measures included in the draft plan, which should go hand in hand with Czechia's overarching climate policy, with investments of €7bn, equaling 3.3% of Czechia’s GDP (2020), can make a positive contribution to the green transition, though there are several specific shortfalls.