Green Taxes

[Humphrey]

The government’s response to climate change is…..put a tax on a bunch of stuff. Unsurprising really since this has been the government’s response to every problem since the sixteenth century. I used to look back on the likes of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson as a bunch of self righteous tax dodging nincompoops but in the light of the taxation fetish in this country they look remarkably far sighted. Of course I could be wrong and this could be a stroke of brilliance. Anyone got any thoughts on the issue?.

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[Gubbins]

It does sort of make sense to GET money from a problem, rather than SPEND money on the same problem, especially if it discourages people to do/have whatever the tax is on. That said, it's not a system without faults.

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...but then again, that is only my opinion.

[Icarus]

If the rationale is to impose taxes for environmental reasons then the least the government should do in return is to spend the revenue the taxes generate on environmental things, rather than piss the money away on useless Labour policies. Although it would probably be more likely to hope for the environment to magically fix itself overnight than to expect that to happen.

[ascii]

If a green tax works, then it should be revenue neutral.

Eg raise fuel tax => more tax pounds from petrol => people drive less => tax take decreases.

I'm not an economist so that might be rubbish, but if green taxes do not alter people's behaviour, then they are not working. Good green taxes should not produce that much extra revenue to spend on environmental issues or useless policies.

Humprey - if you are not in favour of green taxes do you

a) think we don't need to do anything about global warming

b) in favour of some fancy cap and trade system

c) have a magic bullet to save the planet that no one else has thought of.

[the racing tortoise]

my understanding of it was that green taxes are supposed to make people and companies take into account various social costs which otherwise they can get away with not paying. ie. the real 'cost' to the enviroment of chucking chemicals into the sea.
without green taxes the cheapest option here financially speaking (and what other way would shareholders think) would be to go ahead and do it. all you need is a truck. in real terms however, (including enviromental damage done) it is probably one of the most expensive options. The point of green taxes is to force people and companies to include in their calculations costs which would not neccessarily be charged to them.

that said, there is alot of grey with regards to those costs and things will often get very political.

Quoting ascii from 10:56, 30th Oct 2006
If a green tax works, then it should be revenue neutral.

Eg raise fuel tax => more tax pounds from petrol => people drive less => tax take decreases.

your example doesn't work, demand for fuel is fairly inelastic, so raising tax on it will generate extra revenue, as the quantity of fuel sold will not change enough to offset the price rise. If you mean that all money taken out should go back to repairing the damage done, then I would agree. Unfortunately often there is no practical way.

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A fish swims into a wall and says "DAM"

[Humphrey]

Quoting ascii from 10:56, 30th Oct 2006

Humprey - if you are not in favour of green taxes do you

a) think we don't need to do anything about global warming

b) in favour of some fancy cap and trade system

c) have a magic bullet to save the planet that no one else has thought of.

Increased taxation is not a ‘magic bullet’, it’s a lump hammer solution to a fairly subtle problem. To be successful the taxation on the consumer has to be so prohibitive as to change the consumer’s behaviour. People need to drive to work and an extra £40 on their airfares is not going to make them change cheap flight culture. Furthermore any benefits from the small decrease in emissions are considerably outweighed by the increase in emissions from China and India. It is an attempt to do something about the problem but really it has more to do with eco-popularity and civilisational self-loathing than anything else. I think these taxes have been inevitable for some time so I think its somewhat futile to argue against their introduction. I would hope very strongly that the money raised goes towards researching and assisting the introduction of clean technologies which will make these taxes unnecessary eventually.


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[ascii]

Quoting Humphrey from 12:10, 30th Oct 2006

Increased taxation is not a �magic bullet�, it�s a lump hammer solution to a fairly subtle problem. To be successful the taxation on the consumer has to be so prohibitive as to change the consumer�s behaviour. People need to drive to work and an extra �40 on their airfares is not going to make them change cheap flight culture. Furthermore any benefits from the small decrease in emissions are considerably outweighed by the increase in emissions from China and India. It is an attempt to do something about the problem but really it has more to do with eco-popularity and civilisational self-loathing than anything else. I think these taxes have been inevitable for some time so I think its somewhat futile to argue against their introduction. I would hope very strongly that the money raised goes towards researching and assisting the introduction of clean technologies which will make these taxes unnecessary eventually.

I agree that reducing Britain's behaviour will be futile unless we see reductions in the US, across the rest of the EU, and limit the growth in China and India.

However I don't agree that global warming is a "subtle" problem. Nicholas Stern's review, suggests some very big numbers if we don't act soon. There has been a broad scientific consensus about climate change for a while, but now economists are beginning to agree as well.

If taxation is a mallet, then what is the more delicate "chisel" that you would prefer?

[Griggsy]

Quoting Humphrey from 12:10, 30th Oct 2006

Quoting ascii from 10:56, 30th Oct 2006

Humprey - if you are not in favour of green taxes do you

a) think we don't need to do anything about global warming

b) in favour of some fancy cap and trade system

c) have a magic bullet to save the planet that no one else has thought of.

Increased taxation is not a ‘magic bullet’, it’s a lump hammer solution to a fairly subtle problem. To be successful the taxation on the consumer has to be so prohibitive as to change the consumer’s behaviour. People need to drive to work and an extra £40 on their airfares is not going to make them change cheap flight culture. Furthermore any benefits from the small decrease in emissions are considerably outweighed by the increase in emissions from China and India. It is an attempt to do something about the problem but really it has more to do with eco-popularity and civilisational self-loathing than anything else. I think these taxes have been inevitable for some time so I think its somewhat futile to argue against their introduction. I would hope very strongly that the money raised goes towards researching and assisting the introduction of clean technologies which will make these taxes unnecessary eventually.


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http://www.livejournal.com/users/humphrey_clarke/

Spot on...if there's no effective, decently priced alternative to driving to work or heating our homes with gas/electricity then people will be prepared to pay taxes however expensive they are. Having said that, people in the UK should start to realise the phenomenal taxation that Gordon Brown is putting on them, how does he continue to get away with it??

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'I run wild in the shadowy jungle of erotic adventures.'

[Humphrey]

Quoting ascii from 12:35, 30th Oct 2006

Quoting Humphrey from 12:10, 30th Oct 2006

Increased taxation is not a �magic bullet�, it�s a lump hammer solution to a fairly subtle problem. To be successful the taxation on the consumer has to be so prohibitive as to change the consumer�s behaviour. People need to drive to work and an extra �40 on their airfares is not going to make them change cheap flight culture. Furthermore any benefits from the small decrease in emissions are considerably outweighed by the increase in emissions from China and India. It is an attempt to do something about the problem but really it has more to do with eco-popularity and civilisational self-loathing than anything else. I think these taxes have been inevitable for some time so I think its somewhat futile to argue against their introduction. I would hope very strongly that the money raised goes towards researching and assisting the introduction of clean technologies which will make these taxes unnecessary eventually.

I agree that reducing Britain's behaviour will be futile unless we see reductions in the US, across the rest of the EU, and limit the growth in China and India.

However I don't agree that global warming is a "subtle" problem. Nicholas Stern's review, suggests some very big numbers if we don't act soon. There has been a broad scientific consensus about climate change for a while, but now economists are beginning to agree as well.

If taxation is a mallet, then what is the more delicate "chisel" that you would prefer?

Perhaps it is better to talk in term of the carrot and the stick rather than the hammer and the chisel. Right now we are seeing in these proposals far too much of the stick and rather too little of the carrot. I.E lots of prohibitive taxation measures but little alternatives offered.

My view on the matter is that we need to accept certain inevitabilities.

1) Consumers are going to follow the same patterns with regard to car ownership and air travel. The way to deal with this is to give people incentives to choose alternative methods of travel or choose cleaner vehicles as well as making these processes energy efficient. Richard Branson has set a good example by devoting his profits to researching alternate fuels and ways of making the process of flying more efficient (I.e towing planes onto the runway rather than leaving them sitting there with the engines running.

2) India and China will inevitably want to develop into modern industrialised societies with the same demands as their western counterparts. This process is impossible to put the brakes on.

It seems to me that the developed world has a responsibility to channel efforts into developing clean technologies and exporting those technologies to third world countries. That is the only way to put brakes on emissions. If this initiative was funded by these green taxes then I would approve.

Stern’s report does give out some big numbers but in so much of this document the ‘worst care scenario’ is given precedence. It would have been better if the economic conclusions had been balanced alongside some indication of the probability that apocalyptic catastrophes are going to occur.


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