Researchers at Australian National University have found that carbon pricing does in fact lead to lower emissions of carbon dioxide.
The research used data from 142 countries over a period of two decades, and subjected it to econometric techniques that control for other relevant factors, including policies such as feed-in tariffs, improving technologies, population and economic growth, economic shocks, renewable portfolio standards, and “a long list of other factors.” Annual growth rate of CO2 emissions among the 43 that had a carbon price in some form, at the national level or below, averaged around 2% less than countries without.
As the researchers comment, while it is impossible to fully control for all relevant influences on emissions growth, their estimates suggest that the emissions trajectories of countries with and without carbon prices “tend to diverge over time.”
The research is available here.