S. VIIPreface

The postgraduate LL.M. program in International Tax Law at WU (Vienna University of Economics and Business) has an excellent reputation not only because of its outstanding curriculum and excellent faculty but also because of its exceptional students. Each year, the master’s theses are composed on a topic that is both timely and general, and the outcomes are published in a book. This practice has become a custom.

This year’s volume of the renowned “Series on International Tax Law” is dedicated to the topic of “Environmental Taxation”. During the past years, the relevance of environmental taxes and carbon taxes as policy tools to tackle climate change has gained importance across the world. The shift towards climate-resilient economies has placed environmental taxation at the center of both national and international climate policy considerations. This volume seeks to offer a comprehensive examination of the legal, economic, and administrative foundations of environmental taxes, carbon taxes, and environmental tax incentive schemes.

Part I lays the theoretical and conceptual groundwork of environmental taxation. This part elaborates on energy taxes and carbon taxes, referring to...