French President Nicolas Sarkozy has confirmed the details of a carbon tax that will take effect from 2010 and will be imposed upon households and businesses using oil, gas and coal.
According to
The Tocqueville Connection President Sarkozy declared during a visit to a heat pump factory in Culoz, a town in Eastern France close to the border with Switzerland, that now is the "time to create green taxation".
Ending speculation as to how much the tax, which polls show only has the support of about one third of the French population, would actually be President Sarkozy announced that it would be set at €17 (£15, $25) for every ton of carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted.
Attempting to allay fears that the new tax, introduced as a part of the battle against global warming, may cause some French households to struggle financially the President has said that other forms of taxation will be cut and taxpayers would find themselves receiving what have been described as "green cheques".
The
BBC cites a report by the French newspaper Le Monde which states that 70 per cent of carbon emissions in France will be covered by the tax, creating annual revenue of €4.3bn (£3.8bn, $6.3bn).
Much of France's electricity is produced by nuclear reactors and will not be subject to the tax. Heavy industries and power firms already covered by the
European Union Emission Trading System will also be exempt.
The new tax has attracted criticism from both the left and right in French politics, some of whom suspect that it is simply intended to generate more revenue for the government as it struggles to keep the finances of the nation in order. Although
The Tocqueville Connection suggests that President Sarkozy may also have one eye on the UN conference on climate change that is being held in December in the Danish capital Copenhagen, believing that his credibility at the conference will be boosted by the introduction of the carbon tax.
Nordic countries such as Denmark, Sweden and Finland have led the way in Europe in taxing carbon emissions, introducing taxes concerned with protecting the environment as far back as the early 1990s.
An effort by the U.K. authorities to impose an environmental tax on retail purchases of petrol/gasoline, through the use of the
Fuel Duty Escalator (FDE), met such strong opposition from the transport sector that the automatic increase in the tax, which took place on an annual basis from 1993, was dropped in 1999, with the FDE being ended completely in 2000 following nationwide protests.
