Information overload? A review of databases on climate change mitigation policy

The Stockholm Environment Institute reviewed 24 climate change mitigation policy databases, finding that while data availability is increasing, it is heavily skewed toward the energy sector and industrialized nations. The analysis reveals significant gaps in information regarding the agricultural sector, sub-Saharan Africa, policy costs, and actual emission savings. Furthermore, the review notes a lack of interactivity and poor linkage between different databases, which limits potential synergies for policy makers.

• There is a significant sectoral imbalance in available policy data, with a heavy concentration on the energy sector and a lack of information on agriculture and waste. Out of 24 databases, 18 cover the energy sector, 14 cover buildings, and 13 cover transport, while only four cover agriculture and two cover waste.
• Geographical coverage is uneven, favoring high-emission countries in the global North. Germany is the most frequently covered country (appearing in 22 databases), followed by India, China, and the United States (15 each). Conversely, there is a scarcity of information for sub-Saharan Africa and Central Asia.
• Databases generally lack critical performance and financial data, such as the actual costs of policies or verified emission reductions. Only five databases provide some information on mitigation costs, and only five include estimates of emission savings, which are typically ex ante.
• The level of interactivity and data utility is low across the sampled sources. Only ten databases are considered interactive, and none allow users to perform their own calculations or simulations directly on the website.
• There is a lack of integration and synergy between different climate policy databases. Many sources overlap by describing the same energy sector policies without being linked, such as the overlap between the IEA's Addressing Climate Change database and the NewClimate Institute's Climate Policy Database.
• The prevalence of regulatory and economic instruments is high in the databases, while procedural instruments are rarely documented. Nineteen databases describe regulatory and economic/market instruments, but only seven contain information on procedural instruments.

APA

Böβner, S., & van Asselt, H. (2016). Information overload? A review of databases on climate change mitigation policy. Stockholm Environment Institute. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Climate/CARISMA-Working-Doc1-Policy-Database-Analysis.pdf

Chicago

Böβner, Stefan, and Harro van Asselt. Information overload? A review of databases on climate change mitigation policy. Stockholm Environment Institute, 2016. https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Climate/CARISMA-Working-Doc1-Policy-Database-Analysis.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Böβner |first1=Stefan |last2=van Asselt |first2=Harro |title=Information overload? A review of databases on climate change mitigation policy |publisher=Stockholm Environment Institute |date=June 2016 |url=https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Climate/CARISMA-Working-Doc1-Policy-Database-Analysis.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{bner2016information, author = {Böβner, Stefan and van Asselt, Harro}, title = {{Information overload? A review of databases on climate change mitigation policy}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2016}, month = jun, url = {https://www.sei.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/Climate/CARISMA-Working-Doc1-Policy-Database-Analysis.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }