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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that pesky judiciary…can sure spoil a good con
Too early to rejoyce. A modified version of the bill will go to Parliament on 20 January.
The French State is in desperate need of funds and it will not give up on this one. To give some background, for any of you who read a bit of French, a forum thread about all the taxes created or increased since N. Sarkozy came to power :
https://www.liberaux.org/index.php?showtopic=35383
We also relay the best of WUWT :
https://www.liberaux.org/index.php?showtopic=29890
P Gosselin (01:28:20) :
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.
P Gosselin (01:31:04) :
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!
Hmmmm. Do you suppose 93% of industry is just going to roll over and play dead? How this all plays out will be interesting. But I bet they’ll wait for the weather to warm, before dropping any bomb shells.
Hi
I am French.
There are a few mistakes in this article:
“the tax was steep: 14 euros per ton of carbon dioxide (USD $20).”
17euros, not 14 (you get it right later in the article).
“France’s Constitutional Council says the country’s proposed carbon tax is illegal. ”
No, they clearly say the tax is legal, only the way it was put into action here was not: too many industries are exempted therefore therefore it is unconstitional for the two following reasons
*The tax’s goal is to reduce emissions but because of the exemptions it will not therefore it goes against our “environment chart”
*So many exemptions go against any kind of fairness (“égalité devant l’impot”).
“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.”
The government wasn’t gonna earn any money with this carbon tax, it was supposed to be compensated by a lowering of the income tax.
Vive La France indeed!
@ur momisugly Peter of Sydney (00:55:01) :
Whilst I agree with your observations regarding the media and internet censorship, I believe these points actually reinforce rather than detract from my argument.
We have the facts, there is no requirement for us to be defeatist. The alarmist argument, being devoid of any logic is slowly retreating up it’s own anal cavity. Lets all help it along, which brings me to:
@ur momisuglyMichael (00:39:09) :
Where do I sign up!
P Gosselin; So you’re saying the French speak German now? That’s what I was pointing out. And if you look at WWII, it looked pretty grim until the US joined the fight. Indeed, it looked pretty grim for a while after the US joined the fray, so kudos to the allies, too, and the French resistance was certainly part of it. I’m just looking at history.
I have not seen a comment on this aspect. The EU has made it clear that they were taking action on taxing carbon in order to be leaders. As Gordon Brown has stated very eloquently, the probelm is so serious that someone needs to lead. Yes, it is short term pain, but it is for long term gain. The EU was prepared to withstand the short term pain, because if they led the rest of the world will follow.
What Copenhagen has made abundantly clear is that the rest of the developing world is definitely NOT going to follow. As to the rest of the developed world, they are, to say the very least, very hesitant. Australia has shown it’s reluctance; as has Obama with his eye on the US Senate. Canada is not pressing for a carbon tax.
I am sure it is too much to hope for, but maybe it is just possible that the French will realize that no nation outside the EU is going to follow an EU lead on a carbon tax, and abandon this stupidity altogether.
In sweden we have had a co2 tax since 1991. On gasoline its about 0,25€ per litre now, up from 0,04€ in1991. It increases by 0,01 per year except for electionyears when it stays the same. The year after elections it goes up by 0,02€ though…
Hooray! We were dreading this from January 1st – we have all topped up our central heating oil and vehicle tanks in advance. Maybe 2010 will be a promising year after all.
Be careful here you are mixing taxes, I think. I’m a conseiller municipal in france and my french colleague above is of course dead right.
As I stated here a few days ago the tax is €17 / tonne of CO² which works out at about €0.10 / ltr depending on which journal you read here.
At the same time the state are refunding money through tax cheques to the populace of between €80 to €122 but and more significantly for local government, Monsieur S wants to eliminate the tax professionel? a sort of business tax. This will remove a great deal of money from the coffre of local government and cause much greater hardship for rural comunities. At the same time the state are imposing ever more expensive pollution targets. Our commune of some 450 people have had to find €500,000 for a communal sewage system while those on fosse sceptiques will be forcesd to pay €1000’s for waste systems and their systematic disposal.
So a) this tax will apply itself b) it may now be more expensive than originally planned and businesses will somehow be refunded in order to promote employment.
In my opinion co² tax is a better option than the brown,benn,milipeed bankers xmases all at once co² trading scheme. But then they will all want new jobs this year won’t they …… britons?
“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.”
Revenue generation, not climate change. Do all politicians think the people they serve are blind?
Incidently, I love France, I love the french and knowing well the history of our occupation and the resistance I would be very insulted, more than you can imagine, by silly US comments on winning the war.
Moderator; Please remove such discussion. dans l’attente, Monsieur, Merci bien
Tamara (06:22:37) :
I believe the president has admitted Revenue generation and the French are politically very sophisticated.
Then French will not disadvantage their main manufacturing industries, the populus will not stand for it, you only have to look how they have clung on to the farming subsidy to see that.
Here’s a bit of info that may be worth paying attention to: http://www.abanet.org/environ/calendar/pdf/Copehagen.Flyer.Environ.CME.pdf .
The ABA is hosting a “de-brief” of Copenhagen next week, so we may get some clues regarding future legal maneuverings. From: http://www.abanet.org/environ/
“Join our panel of recognized climate change thought leaders from private practice, government, policy institutes, and industry for a one hour teleconference as we distill what was accomplished during those chaotic two weeks, what critical issues remain unresolved and their potential outcomes, and the impact of Copenhagen on both industry and the US political process. Each of our panelists will have attended COP15, providing the audience a unique perspective and first hand account. Time will be set aside during to the latter part of the teleconference for audience members to obtain answers to their own questions from the panelists.”
Jim Cripwell,
“Yes, it is short term pain, but it is for long term gain.”
And where does the long term gain come from? It seems more of the case of short term pain for long term agony.
I am sure France had already spent the money.
America faces the same when the EPA starts regulating CO2. How do they decide who is worthy and who is unworthy?
will the tax wild animals if they tax livestock? Your cat will require a tax stamp in its collar.
I agree with Cripwell. The EU is so alarmist and AGW orientated that they will still be banging on about taxing, regulating carbon emissions and being “good europeans” when the advancing glaciers reach Brussels.
Remember that van Rompoy (who? – the President of the EU) said that Copenhagen was the first step in World Government, which he supported. The EU will go on for ever with ways to regulate carbon emissions because they have the mindset of wanting to regulate everything and make our lives miserable. France will get leaned on by Germany and the the EU commision and there will wailing and diplomatic gnashing of teeth all round. Since, according to Baroso (who – the president of the EU commission) the most important thing that EU does is to stop Germany and France going to war with eachother, this might just be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
Unfortunately the EU cannot abandon stupidity, it is built into its constitution.
We in Minnesota are already paying carbon taxes starting this year. Now that Global Warming was discovered to be a fraud we should try to sue Al Gore and his cronies for racketeering, and get those laws overturned using the courts.
No no wait a minute, theres something wrong here.
There couldn’t possibly be that much courage in France. I mean, we have the data from historical records, unless there is some positive forcing that we are not aware of, none of the models predict there could be this much courage in the whole of the French speaking world let alone in France itself.
Peer reviewed literature strongly indicates that this hitherto unknown positive force must be in the order of magnitude of ten at least.
There is nothing to be lamented about a legal ruling saying that a tax is too limited in its application – remember that in any democratic (or semi-democratic) society the easiest way to pass any tax bill is to make sure it only applies to a portion of the population while you exempt as many powerful players and interest groups as you need for support. They of course will almost always support any tax that applies only to “other people” and not to them – such a tax is even better than a direct government subsidy since it’s hidden.
So what happens when their is a ruling that says a tax is not applied widely enough? All the powerful interests who supported the tax because they had managed to wrangle exemptions for themselves all of a sudden see the tax with new eyes, the eyes of people who will be paying for it. Their support vanishes overnight, and with a widely based tax it quickly becomes impossible to muster majority support.
Not to mention that after the failure of Copenhagen, every industrialist in France now realizes that they will be burdening their own ability to export while China and India are able to produce whatever with no restrictions or extra costs at all. And they cannot do unilateral trade restrictions since they are bound by the E.U.
Odds are that this tax is dead. Perhaps something small and ineffective will be passed in it’s place just to allow Sarkozy to save face, but even that is questionable.
“Sarkozy is very stubborn and he will do everything he can in order to impose this tax.”
That’s because France is probably like the US government (and others), upside down in various ways and effectively already had the money spent three times over. On stuff completely unrelated to genuine climate correctness.
“climate correctness” ? Boy that sounds so gross.
“stephen richards (01:01:43) :
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. ”
Good point, Stephen. The AGW Titanic will be hard to steer out of harm’s way.
Somehow in all this chatter denigration of horse-meat has crept in. Did the Mongol Hoard not conquer the world (Japan excepted, thanks to a Divine Wind) while eating horse-meat and besotted on fermented mare’s milk? Horse-meat is powerful stuff!
CH