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Global Climate Change Digest
A Guide to Information on Greenhouse Gases and Ozone Depletion
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FROM VOLUME 3, NUMBER 3, MARCH 1990

NEWS...
CARBON TAXES

Item #d90mar63

Several European Community members are considering or implementing taxes on emissions of car-bon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The Netherlands has instituted a tax based on carbon content of fuels, as of January 1990, resulting in a gasoline tax of 13 cents per 100 liters; Norway has raised existing fossil fuel taxes for 1990 (Global Environ. Change Rep., p. 4, Dec. 22, 1989).

Sweden is considering a tax on emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases of 3.8 cents per kilogram of carbon dioxide released from various fossil fuels, corresponding to a gasoline tax of 40 cents per gallon. The proposal has received criticism from Swedish groups for either being too weak or misguided, or causing steep gasoline price increases. A vote on corresponding legislation could be taken this spring. (See World Clim. Change Rep., pp. 19-20, Jan. 1990, or a summary of the proposal in Ambio, 18(8), p. 462.)

A recent British report advocates an energy tax within the European Community to combat global warming. (See REPORTS/GENERAL AND POLICY, this Global Climate Change Digest issue--Mar. 1990.) A previous report by David Pearce, commissioned by the U.K. Environment Ministry, recommended a similar "polluter pays" approach for Britain. (Global Climate Change Digest, REPORTS/FROM BRITAIN, Dec. 1989.)

In the United States, a Congressional Budget Office study, discussed at a Transportation Research Board hearing in January and soon to be released, found that even with heavy taxing of fossil fuel emissions, doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide would be postponed only 20 years with great economic cost. (See Greenhouse Effect Rep., p. 3, Jan. 1990.)