Society News: Ecological tax reform

Electricity as a service and local control: Responding to a post-Covid world

“…Since the 1980s there have been voices calling for “ecological tax reform”(e.g. Bernow et al, 1998 ), the essence of which would be to tax “bads” – pollution and other forms of environmental damage – instead of “goods”. These calls have been largely unheeded.…”

A Taxing Environment: Evaluating the Multiple Objectives of Environmental Taxes

“…Denmark's waste tax reduced waste going to landfills and incinerators by 26% and increased recycling rates (9). The 1989 tax on chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) led to a rapid decrease in ozone-depleting substances in the United States (1). In Sweden, a fee on nitrogen oxides resulted in a 35% reduction in the year after it was announced (2).…”

“…Scientists and policymakers have long recognized the environmental externalities created by industrial processes. As knowledge of the cost inefficiencies accompanying traditional command and control approaches began to evolve, emphasis shifted to more market-oriented approaches ( − ), such as environmental taxes. The Kyoto Protocol, a product of the third round of negotiations stemming from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, encourages the use of “measures, which limit or reduce emissions of greenhouse gases ... (Art.…”

Optimal Volume of Environmentally Damaging Trade

“…To the contrary, Daly (1993), Rùpke (1994), Goldsmith (1997) and others pessimistically focus on the pollution that the transport of goods entails and the environmental costs of the economic growth that trade fosters, especially when that growth necessitates the conversion of rain forests and other natural wilderness areas to commercial use. Taking a different tack, Anderson and Blackhurst (1992, p. 19), Ekins et al (1994), Runge (1998) and others acknowledge the adverse effects of trade on the environment but attribute them to market failure of one kind or another, and like Costanza et al (1995) and Bernow et al (1998), are therefore less pessimistic and more receptive to trade when economies choose to internalize environmental damage, as by Pigouvian taxes, tariffs and subsidies. Copeland and Taylor (1997), Barbier and Schulz (1997) and Bennarroch and Thille (1999) specifically model the case in which environmental damages are internalized and find that trade can either intensify or mitigate global environmental damage, depending on the value of the specific parameter of their models.…”