A dataset of structural breaks in greenhouse gas emissions for climate policy evaluation

The quantitative assessment of policies aimed at climate change mitigation requires rigorously identifying abnormal changes in greenhouse gas emissions. We present a new dataset of robust level changes in greenhouse gas emissions that cannot be explained by aggregate socioeconomic fluctuations. Modern methods of structural break identification based on two-way fixed effects models are employed to estimate the size of significant level changes in emissions. The resulting dataset spans information for all major greenhouse gases in OECD countries across 37 IPCC sectors, from 1995 to 2022. The data unveils large differences in abnormal changes in emissions across gases, countries and sectors, as well as over time. Our resulting data can be applied to a broad range of research questions, including the analysis of the comparative efficacy of policy instruments to mitigate climate change.