Green Issues & Debates - Green from Channel4.com

Green Taxes

Tax breaks

Most people support the idea that polluters should pay for the damage they cause to the environment. Yet, how significant is taxation in changing people's behaviour?

Green taxes are designed to protect the environment by persuading people to cut their consumption of gas, electricity, petrol and other natural resources, and to be aware of the environmental cost of their actions. Such measures might include:

Imposing a tax on dumping waste in landfill sites to encourage businesses to recycle more of their waste and taxing households according to the amount of non-recyclable rubbish they produce

Increasing the tax on petrol and diesel to persuade people to buy more efficient vehicles and to use them less

Taxing air travel so as to discourage short-haul flights and dissuade airlines from flying with half empty planes.

This does work. For example, four billion drinks cartons are used in the UK each year but fewer than 10% are recycled. In Germany, in contrast, where 1.5p is charged on cartons to pay for collection and recycling, and in Belgium where there is a 0.5p charge, more than 65% of cartons are recycled.

According to a 2006 Guardian/ICM poll, 63% of people in Britain said they approved of a green tax to discourage behaviour that harms the environment, while 34% said they would not accept such price rises. This is sometimes referred to as 'taxing bads instead of goods'.

Green campaigners say that taxation can only be a small part of the story. They argue that unless green taxes are part of a much broader environmental economic policy, they will have too little impact to reduce the accelerating rate of global warming and environmental degradation.

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