by Gunnar Boye Olesen, OVE

At April, 8-9 there was an informal seminar"Energy pricing policies for controlling C02 emissions". This was the first seminar on this topic with both "experts" from OECD, EC- Commission and USA, and a number of NGOs from both side of the Atlantic. An environmental tax on energy is an important part of most climate stabilization strategies, and more and more people favour tax on polluting energy consumptions over other taxes. So there were good reasons to make such a seminar. Also because the climate treaty is being negotiated now and EC is discussing C02/energy taxations.

At present only the the Nordic countries have CO-taxes, where the Danish C02-tax is in function from May, 15 this year. In USA, there will apparently not be any national CO2-tax in the first few years. But the individual states can make their own pollution-taxes, and at the moment the state of Maryland is preparing such a tax, that should come into function next year.

In Europe, EC is considering a CO2/energy tax, but the proposal is opposed by most industrial lobby-groups, and some of the Southern countries in EC. Spain is the strongest opposer among the countries. According to the information et the seminar, there has not been any deeper analyses of the consequences of such a tax in Spain. So it is quite possible that the Spanish government is opposing this because it does not know the impacts, rather than because of negative impacts for Spain.

On the seminar, there was also the discussion about a CO2-tax contra an energy tax. The Swedish NGOs preferred a CO2-tax as the easiest one to explain. Then they would combine it with a nuclear fuel tax, not to give nuclear power windfall profits. The NGO-representatives from other countries favoured an energy-tax, as they did not believe it possible to pass a nuclear fuel tax in any country. At present, there is no nuclear fuel tax in any country, that is comparable to the proposed or present CO2/energy taxes.

There was no conclusion from the seminar, but a large number of paper were presented. Further information can be obtained by OVE or:

Climate Network Europe 44, rue de Taciturne 1040 Bruxelles, Belgium Ph: +32-2-2310180. Fax: + 32-2-2305713.

World Resources Institute 1709 New York Avenue N.W. Washington DC 20006, USA Ph: +1-202-6386300. Fax: + 1 -202-6380036.