This new French carbon tax was scheduled to go into law on Jan1, 2010. The tax was steep: 17 euros per ton of carbon dioxide (USD $24.40). In a stunning move, and surely a blow to warmists everywhere, the tax has been found unconstitutional and thrown out. Originally found here (Google Translation).
Lord Monckton was kind enough to assist me in deciphering the meaning of the ruling and writes:
In France, if at least 60 Deputies of the House and 60 Senators appeal to the Constitutional Council, it has the power to pronounce on the constitutionality of a proposed law – in the present case, the 2010 national budget of France, which contained enabling provisions (loi deferee) for a carbon levy. The Council found that these enabling provisions were unconstitutional on two grounds: that the exemptions contained within the provisions for a carbon levy vitiated the primary declared purpose of the levy, to combat carbon emissions and hence “global warming”; and that the exemptions would cause the levy to fall disproportionately on gasoline and heating oils and not on other carbon emissions, thereby breaching the principle that taxation should be evenly and fairly borne.
The Press release from the French Constitutional Council is here in English (Google Translated) and in original French
Here’s a Deustch-Welle news article on the reversal.
France’s Constitutional Council says the country’s proposed carbon tax is illegal. This is a severe blow to French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s plans to fight climate change.
France’s Constitutional Council has struck down a carbon tax that was planned to take effect on January 1st. The council, which ensures the constitutionality of French legislation, said too many polluters were exempted in the measure and the tax burden was not fairly distributed.
It was estimated that 93 percent of industrial emissions outside of fuel use, including the emissions of more than 1,000 of France’s top polluting industrial sites, would be exempt from the tax, which would have charged 17 euros per ton of emitted carbon dioxide.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has argued the tax is necessary to combat climate change and reduce the country’s dependence on oil.
However, the council’s ruling is a severe blow to both Sarkozy’s environmental plan as well as France’s budget for 2010. The government now has to find a way to come up with about 4.1 billion euros in revenue that was expected from the tax.
h/t to WUWT reader Dirk H
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I think this is perhaps more important than you might think.
France is very pro nuclear. They (France) have been very pro AGW in the EU because they are not as reliant on coal fired power. Cap and trade/ETS has been seen as giving the French an economic advantage over those more reliant on coal. This indicates a significant weakening of the AGW position.
I view this as a great victory for sanity. Short lived though it may be.
Vive la France.
( I wish we had a Constitution and not an ETS)
At last, I can eat cheese again.
And, right from Ricks:
There is always some idiot completely ignorant of military history who think the French lose a lot. Go read a damned history book before you criticise the Western nation with the greatest military history of them all. Frances military exploits over the past millennia pur Americas trifling little contributions to shame. At least France lost to major military powers, unlike a certain modern power which gets it arse handed to it by third world hell holes.
Excellent news!
Benoît Rittaud (23:23:08) : Wrote
“As someone would have say, “in some sense, this is cheering news”. Only in some sense, indeed, since the decision of the Conseil Constitutionnel does not give its backing to us skeptics at all. It is even the opposite, since the “attendus” of the decision explicitely endorse the “setting up of tools allowing to significantly reduce greenhouse gases emissions in order to fight global warming”, without expressing any doubt. The main reason of the decision has nothing to do with the climate debate, it is all about the equality of the citizens in the eyes of taxes. Cela dit, je suis content quand même.”
See, you got that right away. It’s only concerns the tax question. Sometimes a problem has two solutions.
No matter the nature of the noises politicians (of any country or ideology) make, it has never been about the environment, global warming, or saving the planet. Politicians and environmentalists will always rally round each other, considering the other a conveniently useful fool serving their purpose — for one, getting the industrial infrastructure torn down; for the other, raising taxes. At the moment, it is all about a €4 billion budget shortfall that France needs to fix. And since AGW is the Mother Lode of all potential revenue streams, French citizens still can look forward to getting hit. It’s just going to take a more creative approach, but the politicians will figure out a way to get the money they want.
inversesquare (23:34:35) :
Welcome.
I’m psyops here, been here for about 5 months. This army at WUWT is just about ready.
P.S.
Eloquently said.
Unfortunately anna v has hit the real problem here. This is about money and taxation is the opiate of governments. It’s interesting that the reaction of the French government revolves around where they will make up the 4 billion euros this tax would have brought in!
Mailman
inversesquare, the major stumbling block for what you say should happen is the media. They have participated (willingly or not) in this fraud and prevented the truth from coming out as much as possible. If it wasn’t for the Internet, we would have lost the war against the man-made global warming alarmist crap a long time ago. We may still do so. In any case, next time we might not be so lucky once they have more control over the Internet.
The wealthy elite think they can slip through our fingers. We are everywhere. We are the world wide web. Nothing slips through our web. In the immortal words of George Carlin , not they anymore they but, “We Got Them By The Balls”.
YOU HAVE NO RIGHTS – George Carlin
The decision was based on the egalité pârt of the constitution and is very tenuous. It will be re-written and presented to the parlement by Jan 20. It will pas eventually. Monsieur S is an ally of Mr Brown and is determined to lead the world to its utopia. Its all down to his sizecomme Napoleon.
Bad news for Sarko. €4.1Billion short!!! Try standing THAT one on a box for the cameras!
But, seriously. He should have a word with his mate Gordo.
Mr. “Flat Earth” Brown and little Ed Milipede conjured up £6 Billion (they haven’t got) to throw on the table for the “poor” at Copenhagen. Another €4.1 Billion for our “colleagues” in France – surely, no problem!
And there are plenty of precedents for the UK taxpayer bailing out France, believe me!
Meanwhile, much MUCH more on our favourite Railway Engineer and his little business undertakings on:-
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2009/12/pachauri-teri-europe-enigma-part-1.html
Keep following the money!
eric anderson (22:05:10)
Hope that’s ‘organic’ Margaux. (Jackson drink your beer)
An Englishman I may be but I love France and the attitude of their people to their Government.
Even though we occasionallly get caught up in the politics with the ports being shut et al.
Their healthy disrespect for officialdom is to be admired………unlike the sheep in my own country.
Brainwashed Brits simply can’t get their heads around that fact that AGW is a scam.
They think we must be doing “something” to the climate therefore “something” must be done…..try explaining about even part of what we know.
They have been brainwashed into believeing that the BBC are the arbiters of truth and justice, everything you say has to be balanced aginast the BBC.
It beggars belief.
That doesn’t mean the idea is dead. Not by any means.
This particular version was shot down because 93% of industry got a free pass while most of the burden was to be carried by the poor, already overtaxed commuter.
And don’t expect the French to be more open to a CO2 tax in the weeks ahead as temperatures of -10°C are forecast for Paris next week. Sacré bleu!
Vote Quimby (22:31:34) :
What’s with the little smiley face at the bottom of the page in the bottom left hand corner? I just noticed it! lol
????? lol
Mom2girls
“[snip per P Gosselin’s attention]”
What are you? Some kind of …..?
You’re bluntly implying an offensive ethnic slur that should have been deleted. It’s not at all funny.
There are other similar ethnic slurs used for Mexicans, Jews, Chinese, etc. that also would not be tolerated in this forum. The one above, plainly implled, should have had no place here.
I hope you are not teaching your two girls such things.
MODERATOR – ARE YOU ASLEEP!
Reply: Actually I was at the movies, being brainwashed by another fall from Eden movie, but this shall now be rectified. ~ ctm
Jay Currie (00:00:12)
Excellent, not a dry eye in the house.
Pages 93 and 94 of the scrip are quite apposite, Yvonne’s change of allegiance and Renault’s cynical nerve.
http://www.vincasa.com/casabla.pdf
I swear, not even a year ago things were looking utterly hopeless. But now, things are getting more awesome, and seemingly by the minute!
John in NZ (23:49:02) : “I view this as a great victory for sanity. Short lived though it may be.”
Why do you say that?
Some reuters info on the ruling.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKLDE5BS1FB20091229
Don’t celebrate victory yet: the french government said that it will present a new law on 20th January. Even if this carbon tax is very unpopular in France, Sarkozy is very stubborn and he will do everything he can in order to impose this tax.
I’d hesitate to read too much into this without a much better understanding of the process in France. It may well be that this type of objection is business as normal, and the law was prepared with the option of relaxing some of the more controversial items. If it gets mainstream news coverage as a fund-raising exercise, that may help people to think about it in terms of a tax, rather than a necessity.
Strangely, the Beeb has reported the ruling.
“The tax was aimed at encouraging consumers to use less oil, gas and coal. It would have meant a rise in the price of fuel for cars, domestic heating and factories.
But it did not apply to the heavy industries and power firms included in the EU’s emissions trading scheme.
Most electricity in France – excluded from the carbon tax – is nuclear-generated.
According to France’s Le Monde newspaper, the tax would have generated about 4.3bn euros (£3.8bn) of revenue annually.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8434505.stm
Unfortunately all of you are wrong.
The tax has been cancelled because there was too many people and companies exempted. So a new project could be even more dangerous for the french industry and for the consumers. And the government could hardly definitively cancel the tax because of the previous positions of Mr Sarkozy on the subject.