Nigel Topping: Pricing carbon will help deliver on promises made in Paris

Nigel Topping asserts that carbon pricing is a critical tool for meeting the Paris Agreement's objectives, noting that over half of national pledges submitted before COP21 reference market mechanisms. He highlights a growing global momentum, including China's planned national emissions trading scheme and the private sector's shift toward internal carbon pricing. Topping advocates for significantly higher price levels—specifically at least $30-40 per tonne to facilitate a switch from coal to gas—and promotes the updated Carbon Pricing Pathways to guide governments and investors toward prices sufficient to limit global temperature rises to below 2°C.

• The High Level Panel on Carbon Pricing aims for 50% of global emissions to incur a cost by 2030, proposing that the international community double the amount of global emissions covered by carbon pricing by the end of the current decade and double it again ten years later.
• Carbon pricing is already being deployed by 40 countries and more than 20 cities, states, and provinces, with no evidence that these policies negatively impact economic competitiveness.
• Significant momentum for carbon pricing is evident in specific national actions: China is set to launch the world's largest national emissions trading scheme in 2017, Canada is discussing a national carbon price, and the EU is reforming its system to strengthen price signals.
• The private sector is increasingly adopting internal carbon pricing to guide investments and innovation, with over 1,000 companies informing CDP they would price their own emissions by 2017.
• To drive a transition from coal to gas and achieve full economic decarbonisation, carbon prices need to be significantly higher than current levels, specifically at least $30-40 per tonne.

APA

Topping, N. (2016). Nigel Topping: Pricing carbon will help deliver on promises made in Paris. We Mean Business Coalition. https://www.wemeanbusinesscoalition.org/blog/nigel-topping-pricing-carbon-will-help-deliver-on-promises-made-in-paris/

Chicago

Topping, Nigel. Nigel Topping: Pricing carbon will help deliver on promises made in Paris. We Mean Business Coalition, 2016. https://www.wemeanbusinesscoalition.org/blog/nigel-topping-pricing-carbon-will-help-deliver-on-promises-made-in-paris/.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |last1=Topping |first1=Nigel |title=Nigel Topping: Pricing carbon will help deliver on promises made in Paris |publisher=We Mean Business Coalition |date=21 April 2016 |url=https://www.wemeanbusinesscoalition.org/blog/nigel-topping-pricing-carbon-will-help-deliver-on-promises-made-in-paris/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{topping2016nigel, author = {Topping, Nigel}, title = {{Nigel Topping: Pricing carbon will help deliver on promises made in Paris}}, publisher = {We Mean Business Coalition}, year = {2016}, month = apr, url = {https://www.wemeanbusinesscoalition.org/blog/nigel-topping-pricing-carbon-will-help-deliver-on-promises-made-in-paris/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }