Turbulence over green taxes.

Green tax proposals muddled.

A leader in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph was brave enough to report on the Channel 4 programme last week which revealed the lack of unanimity in the scientific ranks over the causes of global warming, casting doubts over the current fashion amongst politicians to blindly follow the gospels according to Gore, the man with a carbon footprint bigger than “bigfoot’s”.

Yet the Conservatives in their rush to appear changed and greener than Gordon, are happy to dash down the road of “pay as you burn” rather than “pay as you earn”, one only hopes for Cameron’s sake that this doesn’t morph into “pays as you learn!” The current proposals to slap green taxes on air travel are already coming under heavy attack, not just from the industry, but from other politicians and party members too. Although a trigger point will be set which will allow most people one return flight per year to enable them to enjoy their holidays, it will never be seen or perceived as being friendly to passengers. Neither will it be seen as a tax which actually helps the environment, it is now accepted that although jet planes produce huge quantities of CO2 emissions, the U.K’s contribution to the world total is minute, and the introduction of these proposed taxes look unlikely to change peoples flying habits, it would take an enormous, and unpopular, tax charge to force people into thinking twice about flying.

Kenneth Clarke, the last Conservative Chancellor said;

“You have to go to an enormous level before you start reversing the growth in air travel, I think some of the growth in air travel is very good. . . I think it is a very important social revolution.”

However, Matthew Taylor, Tony Blair’s recent policy supremo was enthusiastic about the idea saying;

“It’s a fantastic policy. It’s the right policy in relation to tackling climate change and it’s a progressive policy because it says we all have the same rights to fly. It says a highly successful business person has no more right to fly than someone going on their annual holiday.”

This is a misguided statement which ignores the facts about modern business needs and totally ignores the contribution of foreign trade to the economy and our “invisible exports”.

If we, as the electorate could see the effects of green taxes improving our environment then perhaps our perceptions would change, and we would be more receptive, we need taxes to look simpler and give us more encouragement to change the simple things that we can see as helping reduce carbon emissions. Why not set thresholds for the amount of energy that we burn domestically and for industry, perhaps a higher VAT level for passing the thresholds? This, coupled with the idea floated at the Conservative’s Welsh conference to give away £20 worth of energy efficient light bulbs to householders would be far more effective than more gimmick taxes at airports. If man-made CO2 emissions are to be proved as a major contributor to global warming then surely Britain must drive hard the need to reduce our reliance on fossil fueled electricity generating stations, and encourage the rest of the world’s economies to follow suit.

Taxes raised by such “pay as you burn” policies could then be used to help replace our ageing generators with nuclear or renewable cleaner energy sources, and the benefits could be more acceptable and perceived as a helpful way of contributing to a healthier environment.