UDTR Global Rights of Nature Radar

An Eco-Centric Critique of India's DeFacto Carbon Tax Regime

Identification

Public canonical key

doi:10.5281/zenodo.21734680

Authors

Swetha Josco & Dr. Ashwani Singh

Reported year

2026

Reported language

en

Source type

article

First detected

2026-11-09T19:17:28.425167+00:00

Last metadata observation

2026-11-09T19:17:28.425167+00:00

Last HTTP verification

Not checked

Institutions reported by the source

Amity University Bengaluru

Documentary abstract — original language

Climate change has become a major global challenge for which effective legal, fiscal and regulatory frameworks are needed to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and promote sustainable development. Carbon taxation is one of the market-based environmental instruments that has received international recognition as an effective instrument to internalise the environmental costs and promote the transition to a low-carbon economy. Countries like Sweden and Finland have shown that a well-designed carbon tax regime can drastically reduce carbon emissions without sacrificing economic growth and industrial competitiveness. India, in contrast, currently lacks a comprehensive carbon tax regime, instead adopting a piecemeal approach through measures such as coal cess, energy taxation policies, the Perform, Achieve and Trade (PAT) scheme, and the Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (CCTS). The study critically evaluates the regulatory effectiveness of the existing carbon-related fiscal and environmental framework in India and whether these fragmented mechanisms operate as a de facto regime of carbon taxation. The paper examines the legal, economic and institutional challenges to India's carbon governance, including enforcement, corporate accountability, policy fragmentation and socio-economic inequality. Additionally, the study performs a comparative analysis of the carbon taxation models of Sweden and Finland to identify best practices and regulatory approaches for the Indian context. The study contends that genuine regulatory effectiveness requires a carbon tax architecture that is not only well-structured, transparent, and institutionally robust, but explicitly anchored in ecological carrying-capacity thresholds and the intrinsic worth of natural systems alongside India's developmental and climate commitments.

Identifiers

OPENALEX

W7172103901

DOI

10.5281/zenodo.21734680

Documentary context

Documentary family

Scholarship

Source-reported types

article

Jurisdictions studied — explicit sources

IN

Entity mentions are not evidence of legal recognition. Jurisdiction studied is separate from author affiliation country.

Sources

OpenAlex · Record 1 · Record 2

• DOI · https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21734680
• OpenAlex · https://openalex.org/W7172103901

Documentary status

Relevance pending

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