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Global History of the Carbon Tax

Dear friends:

Dr. Peter Carter is one of the most informed persons alive on the planet today on the subject of global warming, deeply into which he has delved for over two decades. He is also the principal sponsor of the Global Emergency Operation (GEO) of Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE - www.HOPE-CARE.org).

He will be interviewed by Rick Habgood of the "Surviving the 21st Century" program on CFUV (internet live) for one full hour on May 27, Tuesday, 7:30-8:30 pm EST/4:30-5:50 PST. More info to come on this; stay tuned.

Before moving on to his essay, please take a moment and sign the Global Green Fund petition to the U.N. Secretary General, and please add powerful comment.

Thank you.

Anthony Marr, founder and president
Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE)
Global Emergency Operation (GEO)
www.HOPE-CARE.org
www.myspace.com/AnthonyMarr
www.ARConference.org


Global History of the Carbon Tax

by Dr. Peter Carter
April 25, 2008


On January 1, 1991, Sweden enacted a carbon tax, placing a tax of 0.25
SEK/kg ($100 per ton) on the use of oil, coal, natural gas, liquefied
petroleum gas, petrol, and aviation fuel used in domestic travel. Industrial
users paid half the rate (between 1993 and 1997, 25% of the rate), and
certain high-energy industries such as commercial horticulture, mining,
manufacturing and the pulp and paper industry were fully exempted from these
new taxes. In 1997 the rate was raised to 0.365 SEK/kg ($150 per ton) of CO2
released.

Finland, the Netherlands, and Norway also introduced carbon taxes in the
1990s.

In Italy, carbon tax was introduced or modified with the article 8 of the
law 23 December 1998, n. 448,according to the conclusions of the Kyoto
Conference of 1-11 December 1997.

The United Kingdom Treasury imposed the Fuel Price Escalator, an
incrementally-increasing pollution tax, on retail petroleum products from
1993. The increases stopped after politically-damaging fuel protests in
1999, at which time tax and duty represented more than 75% of the total pump
price. Tax now represents about ? of the pump price.

In 2005 New Zealand proposed a carbon tax, setting an emissions price of
NZ$15 per tonne of CO2-equivalent. The planned tax was scheduled to take
effect from April 2007, and applied across most economic sectors though with
an exemption for methane emissions from farming and provisions for special
exemptions from carbon intensive businesses if they adopted
world's-best-practice standards of emissions. After the 2005 election, the
minor parties supporting the Government opposed the proposed tax, and it was
abandoned in December 2005.

In 1993, President of the United States Bill Clinton proposed a BTU tax that
was never adopted. His Vice President, Al Gore, had strongly backed a carbon
tax in his book, Earth in the Balance, but this became a political liability
after the Republicans attacked him as a "dangerous fanatic". In 2000, when
Gore ran for President, one commentator labeled Gore's carbon tax proposal a
"central planning solution" harking back to "the New Deal politics of his
father."In April 2005, Paul Anderson, CEO and Chairman of Duke Energy,
called for the introduction of a carbon tax.

In January 2007, economist Charles Komanoff and attorney Dan Rosenblum
launched a Carbon Tax Center to give voice to Americans who believe that
taxing carbon emissions is imperative to reduce global warming.

On 19 February 2008, the Canadian province of British Columbia announced its intention to implement a $10/tonne carbon tax beginning 1 July 2008, making BC the first North American jurisdiction to implement such a tax. The tax will rise by $5 a year until it reaches $30 in 2012. Unlike previous
proposals, legislation will keep the pending carbon tax revenue neutral by
reducing corporate and income taxes at an equivalent rate.

Anthony Marr, founder and president
Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE)
www.HOPE-CARE.org
www.myspace.com/AnthonyMarr
www.ARConference.org

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