The Following Maps Show Some Of The Changes That Have Taken Place In Dubai In Recent Decades

[Karriem Drewery]

Themaps above show temperature anomalies in five-year increments since 1880. (Click on the arrow to run the animation.) These are not absolute temperatures, but changes from the norm for each area. The data reflect how much warmer or cooler each region was compared to a base period of 1951-1980. (The global mean surface air temperature for that period was 14C (57F), with an uncertainty of several tenths of a degree.)

As the maps show, global warming does not mean temperatures rise everywhere at every time by same rate. Temperatures might rise 5 degrees in one region and drop 2 degrees in another. For instance, exceptionally cold winters in one place might be balanced by extremely warm winters in another part of the world. Generally, warming is greater over land than over the oceans because water is slower to absorb and release heat (thermal inertia). Warming may also differ substantially within specific land masses and ocean basins.

In the animation at the top of the page and in the bar chart below, the years from 1880 to 1939 tend to be cooler, then level off by the 1950s. Decades within the base period (1951-1980) do not appear particularly warm or cold because they are the standard against which other years are measured.

The leveling off of temperatures in the middle of the 20th century can be explained by natural variability and by the cooling effects of aerosols generated by factories, power plants, and motor vehicles in the years of rapid economic growth after World War II. Fossil fuel use also increased after the war (5 percent per year), boosting greenhouse gases. Cooling from aerosol pollution happened rapidly. In contrast, greenhouse gases accumulated slowly, but they remain in the atmosphere for a much longer time. According to former GISS director James Hansen, the strong warming trend of the past four decades likely reflects a shift from balanced aerosol and greenhouse gas effects on the atmosphere to a predominance of greenhouse gas effects after aerosols were curbed by pollution controls.

A one-degree global change is significant because it takes a vast amount of heat to warm all of the oceans, the atmosphere, and the land masses by that much. In the past, a one- to two-degree drop was all it took to plunge the Earth into the Little Ice Age. A five-degree drop was enough to bury a large part of North America under a towering mass of ice 20,000 years ago.

Global temperature records start around 1880 because observations did not sufficiently cover enough of the planet prior to that time. The line plot above shows yearly temperature anomalies from 1880 to 2020 as recorded by NASA, NOAA, the Berkeley Earth research group, the Met Office Hadley Centre (United Kingdom), and the Cowtan and Way analysis. Though there are minor variations from year to year, all five records show peaks and valleys in sync with each other. All show rapid warming in the past few decades, and all show the last decade as the warmest.

In 1980, corporate tax rates around the world averaged 40.11 percent, and 46.52 percent when weighted by GDP.[1] Since then, countries have recognized the impact that high corporate tax rates have on business investment decisions; in 2022, the average is now 23.37 percent, and 25.43 when weighted by GDP, for 180 separate tax jurisdictions.[2]

Asian and European countries tend to have lower corporate income tax rates than countries in other regions, and many developing countries have corporate income tax rates that are above the worldwide average.

Among Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, Austria, the United Kingdom, and Turkey have announced they will implement changes to their statutory corporate income tax rate over the coming years. Additionally, the United Arab Emirates and South Africa also plan to amend their corporate income tax rates in 2023.

One hundred and forty-two of the 225 separate jurisdictions surveyed for the year 2022 have corporate tax rates at or below 25 percent.[10] One hundred and eighteen have tax rates above 20 percent but below or at 30 percent. The average tax rateThe average tax rate is the total tax paid divided by taxable income. While marginal tax rates show the amount of tax paid on the next dollar earned, average tax rates show the overall share of income paid in taxes. among the 225 jurisdictions is 22.22 percent.[11] The United States has the 81st highest corporate tax rate with a combined federal and state statutory rate of 25.81 percent.[12]

The 20 countries with the highest statutory corporate income tax rates span almost every region, albeit unequally. While eight of the top 20 countries are in Africa, Oceania appears only once and Europe twice. Of the remaining jurisdictions, four are in North America, and five are in South America.

On the other end of the spectrum, the 20 countries with the lowest non-zero statutory corporate tax rates all charge rates at or below 15 percent. Nine countries have statutory rates of 10 percent, five being small European nations (Andorra, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Kosovo, and Macedonia). The only two OECD members represented among the bottom 20 countries are Hungary and Ireland. Hungary reduced its corporate income tax rate from 19 to 9 percent in 2017. Ireland is known for its low 12.5 percent rate, in place since 2003.

Of the 225 jurisdictions surveyed, 16 currently do not impose a general corporate income tax. Except for the United Arab Emirates, all these jurisdictions are small, island nations. A handful, such as the Cayman Islands and Bermuda, are well known for their lack of corporate taxes.

Corporate tax rates can vary significantly by region. South America has the highest average statutory corporate tax rate among all regions at 28.38 percent. Asia has the lowest average statutory corporate tax rate among all regions at 19.52 percent.

In general, larger and more industrialized nations tend to have higher corporate income tax rates than smaller nations. The G7, which is comprised of the seven wealthiest nations in the world, has an average statutory corporate income tax rate of 26.77 percent and a weighted average rate of 26.24 percent. OECD member states have an average statutory corporate tax rate of 23.57 percent and a rate of 25.83 percent when weighted by GDP. The BRICS[13] have an average statutory rate of 27.40 percent and a weighted average statutory corporate income tax rate of 26.06 percent.

Only three tax jurisdictions impose a corporate income tax at statutory rates greater than 35 percent. [14] The following chart shows a distribution of corporate income tax rates among 225 jurisdictions in 2022. A plurality of countries (118 total) impose a rate above 20 percent and below or at 30 percent. Eighteen jurisdictions have a statutory corporate tax rate above 30 percent and below or at 35 percent. Eighty-six jurisdictions have a statutory corporate tax rate below or at 20 percent, and 204 jurisdictions have a corporate tax rate below or at 30 percent.

Despite a general decline in corporate tax rates around the world, OECD and non-OECD countries have also become more reliant on revenue from corporate income taxes. One cause for this change has been a shift in the jurisdictions included.[16] Secondly, the negative revenue impact of the decline in corporate tax rates was generally offset by reducing or abolishing tax relief policies. [17]

The weighted average statutory rate has remained higher than the simple average over this period. Prior to U.S. tax reform in 2017, the United States was largely responsible for keeping the weighted average higher, given its relatively high tax rate, as well as its significant contribution to global GDP. Figure 3 shows the significant impact the change in the U.S. corporate rate had on the worldwide weighted average. The weighted average statutory corporate income tax rate has declined from 46.52 percent in 1980 to 25.43 percent in 2022, representing a 45 percent reduction over the 42 years surveyed.

Over time, more countries have shifted to taxing corporations at rates of 30 percent or lower, with the United States following this trend with its tax changes at the end of 2017. The largest shift occurred between 1990 and 2000, with 48 percent of countries imposing a statutory rate below 30 percent in 2000 and only 27 percent of countries in the dataset imposing a statutory rate below 30 percent in 1990. This trend continued between 2000 and 2010, with 78 percent of countries imposing a statutory rate below 30 percent in 2010.[18]

South America saw two periods, 1990-2000 and 2010-2022, during which the average statutory rate increased slightly by less than one percentage point, although the average rate decreased over the full 42-year period.

Worldwide and regional average top statutory corporate tax rates have declined over the past four decades but have leveled off in recent years. Of 225 jurisdictions around the world, only six have increased their top corporate income tax rate in 2022, a trend expected to hold steady as countries have more efficient tax types to turn towards.[19]

The dataset compiled for this publication includes the 2022 statutory corporate income tax rates of 225 sovereign states and dependent territories around the world. Tax rates were researched only for jurisdictions that are among the around 250 sovereign states and dependent territories that have been assigned a country code by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). As a result, zones or territories that are independent taxing jurisdictions but do not have their own country code are generally not included in the dataset.

In addition, the dataset includes historic statutory corporate income tax rates from 1980 to 2021. However, these years cover tax rates of fewer than 225 jurisdictions due to missing data points. Please let Tax Foundation know if you are aware of any sources for historic corporate tax rates that are not mentioned in this report, as we constantly strive to improve our datasets.

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