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
Sponsored IT training links:
Pass 642-436 exam in first try using 642-642 practice questions & 640-553 answers.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Either you ignore it (like France did with the Kytoto treaty)…
At one point the ipcc had decided that France was doing just fine and didn’t need to change a thing – no doubt largely due to its admirable use of Nuclear Energy?
If so, what is ironic is that it took quite a while after the 4AR for the ipcc to even admit that Nuclear Energy should even be in the mix, even using some ambiguous language as to “should”, ~”Nuclear Energy should remain at about the same per cent use”, as though it might be a prediction or it might be a recommendation.
There’s something really wrong with science that states a disaster based upon fossil fuel CO2, then won’t strongly recommend one obvious solution which has a country such as France in complete compliance with Kyoto. Obviously, given what the ipcc was considering it should have recommended a strong push to increase the use of Nuclear Energy. But from the way the ipcc talks about Nuclear Energy we could assume any number of things other than that it is a solution to the ipcc’s own stated problem.
Which might lead one to conclude once again that the ipcc does not even believe its own “science”. So why should anyone else?
Charles,
That is still a win. The people who had the stupid idea may now realize how stupid it was but need to save face. That is why you still need to make a lot of noise. It helps the “unseen hand” that makes things happen. There may not be a big fanfare and victory march, but it is still a victory. The MSM news papers may still have stupid head lines, but no one believes them anymore. Ever hear of the Boy Who Cried Wolf?
Today i thank god for god & gods mother….he he
I am an American & love French fries…
Long live France
LB (05:58:59),
Very good summary. Yes, the U.S. entered WWI late. We should never have taken sides at all, recalling George Washington’s clear warning to avoid foreign entanglements, which should have applied to most other U.S. wars as well [except for WWII, when Japan and Germany each declared war against the U.S. on December 7th & 11th, 1941].
One quibble: President Woodrow Wilson was the Jimmy Carter of his day, in a job that exposed his lack of competence. By unnecessarily pushing the U.S. into WWI, he set the stage for Germany’s declaration of war against the U.S. 23 years later. The animosity came from the moral support that the American entry in the war gave to the victors, and which resulted in the vindictive armistice negotiations.
The U.S. entry into WWI was decisive. At the cessation of hostilities, Germany had lost no land, and its forces controlled much territory outside its borders. But Wilson’s support at Versailles allowed the Allies, led by the French delegation, to succeed in drastically exacting retribution from Germany. The war was no more the fault of Germany than of France; before actual hostilities commenced, all sides had railroad cars full of soldiers and equipment racing toward the front. There was no turning back, lest the other side gained the advantage.
Germany was out maneuvered politically at the armistice with the feckless concurrence of President Wilson. The result was that war reparations, insisted upon by France, were assessed against Germany in the amount of six billion gold marks — an amount far beyond the capacity of Germany to pay, and which led directly to Zimbabwe-style inflation under the Weimar Republic six years later. Under the circumstances it was a simple matter for Hitler to focus on the grossly unfair treatment of Germany and rally domestic support.
[The U.S. learned from Wilson’s blunder, and undertook the Marshall Plan following WWII, which more than anything else helped to contain communism.]
France has nothing to be ashamed of militarily, as you point out. No country wins every war. But France has been perceived as not being a team player due largely to Charles de Gaulle’s separatist influence. When unity is demanded in a crisis like 9/11, it is simply human nature to resent and make fun of anyone who doesn’t provide a common front against a common enemy. But attitudes are fickle, and can change 180° in the next crisis.
“The war is ultimatley won thanks to the British and Montgomery’s judicious use of US cannon fodder.”
That is both entirely false and unnecessarily insulting- not least to the Russians, who provided by far the greater part of the cannon fodder. Even if one restricts the discussion to the Western Allies, it remains the case that Monty was sending his Anglo-Canadian cannonfodder into the Caen meatgrinder over and over again while the Americans broke out through Avranches and St-Lo.
You may even have gone fascist as well, the tendency has always been there.
LB, I can’t resist Tom Wolfe’s observation that while intellectuals constantly see fascism hovering on the American horizon, somehow it always seems to land in Europe. Not that there aren’t leftists in our country (and in our present adminstration) who would be entirely comfortable with one-party rule and “hate speech” legislation to shut up those who don’t tow the PC line. No lack of totalitarian-minded types in the UK either – I read the Guardian.
Actually, I was all set to break out the champagne and brie when I read about this too, but ironically, it’s the sober-minded French commenting here that made me realize this is not quite the great victory for common sense we want it to be. We live in interesting times, folks. Politicans are slippy characters, but I really can’t recall when the leaders of the Western democracies were quite as determined to shove extremely unpopular and ruinously expensive taxes and programs down the throats of their unwilling citizens. Demesure’s comment about the possibility of truckers and fishermen fighting back if Sarko tries to ram this thing though is intriguing. I shall be following this story with great interest. I wish you all the best.
The US was reluctant to enter WW2 because the isolationists here argued, “What’s the use of a replay? We saved the bacon for the UK and France last time, but they over-rode Wilson’s 14 points and insisted on a victor’s peace. Let them lie in the bed they made.” This was a strong argument. I daresay it would have cut plenty of ice in the UK, had the shoe been on the other foot.
The US entered the war against Hitler because he, invoking the Axis pact with Japan, declared war on us a week after Pearl Harbor. If he’d done so after having defeated or knocked out the UK, the US would still have fought him until The End, and insisted on unconditional surrender too. There could be no peace in the world as long as a powerful nation doctrinally and fanatically committed to expansionism and “mastership” was still at large.
(FWIW, I’ve read that the long-range high-altitude B-29 bomber, eventually used against Japan, was in development before the war and was intended initially to strike Germany from Iceland, if the UK was no longer available. The US was getting prepared for a desperate conflict.)
PS: I should have inserted the boldfaced phrase in my comment above:
“There could be no peace in the world as long as a powerful nation doctrinally and fanatically committed to expansionism and “mastership,” and capable of developing an A-bomb, was still at large.”
Go France, will they start striking too, (have they already and the pet media have their noses whacked if they speak of it) Hope it sends chills up the unelected bunch of MPs who have hijacked our british parliament and are on a trolley dash round the expenses scam and every other money grubbing scheme they can image. When the elite are done with us, they will come for them.
Worth reading:
WALL STREET AND THE RISE OF HITLER, by Antony C. Sutton
http://sandiego.indymedia.org/media/2007/02/125049.pdf
A.C. Sutton in an interview:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6987303668075230852#docid=6244851259954264539
I’m a red-neck and I have a question? If one gallon of gasoline weights 6 pounds, or at least I know that 100LL weights 6 pounds for aircraft weight and balance calculational purposes; then, how does that EPA figure that this one 6 pound gallon of petroleum distillated solution produces 19.4 pounds of carbon dioxide whentz its all burnt up? That don’t make any sense at all?!? Is that cause all them chemicals in that thar gasoline is combining with all them air molecules and stuff and it gets all heavy after it gets burnt? Golly, why can’t we revere this process and extract carbon dioxide from the air and produce fresh gasoline and just put it all right back down thar in the ground where it all come from in the first place? Humm, you know, maybe we could build a Gi-normous air conditioner and pull the extra heat out of the air at the equator, and pipe it back up to the soon to evaporate arctic ice cap. (I got this idea from Obama) It’s like monetary redistribution of wealth, cept its global redistribution of heat. Ok Back to the egg-nogg now, happy new year yee-all.
[REPLY – The gasoline is just C and H. The mass of the H is very little, but the C is picking up two Os from the atmosphere. The O has a LOT more mass than the H. ~ Evan]
I apologise unreservedly for any offense caused, I was unnecessarily innacurate and insulting regarding the US in WWI and WWII. I did so to parallel the albinoblacksheep websites insultingly innaccurate portrayal of French military history, but I realise this may not have been evident.
I do disagree with the statement the US saved British bacon in WWI, the Royal Navy reigned supreme, Germany could never have challenged it on the seas or invaded the British isles. Britain could have withdrawn from the contest and left Europe to its fate. Germany actually wanted to keep Britain out of the war, so they would have accepted peace with Britain. Instead Britain bankrupted itself ans sacrificed countless lives to keep Western Europe free.
[REPLY – Heh. I basically agree. As for WWII, I regard that as a titanic 4-year struggle between Germany and Soviet Russia (with some relatively minor stuff going on around the edges). ~ Evan]
Sorry for the double post but I want to point this out:
French fries are Belgian. I think the French embassy staffers response to a question about Freedom Fries at the time sums it up well “We are busy considering vitally important matters, we do not concern ourselves with what name you call a potato product.”
As to French toast, there is some debate but originally it seemed to be known as German toast in GB and USA until WWI when anti-German sentiment caused it to be renamed French toast. Rather ironic, what?
OK, so the Constitutional Council didn’t chuck Sarko’s tax out on the grounds that it was bogus science and in fact endorses the bogus science. That’s unfortunate, but I still count this as a victory for the simple reason that a carbon tax was stopped. The reasons given were apparently “fair” in their own way, though that should be completely irrelevant if the basic science is bogus-I say SHOULD be. Virtually no-one in any position of power anywhere in the world is interested in the actual science, but that’s just the way it goes.
As for other carbon taxes, the French decision draws attention to the possibility that other carbon taxes like the ETS may also be vulnerable on constitutional grounds. In Australia we have, I think, a very interesting dimension to all of this that has has not been picked up on at all in the debate. The ETS is the GST’s (Goods and Services Tax) Big Brother. The GST was only able to be passed in1996 because of the extremely limited awareness of its unconstitutionality among the Australian people (I was unaware of this myself). I am NOT talking about sovereignty issues, though they probably destroy the ETS in their own right. I’m talking about other good stuff. Sn. 256,p.78 of the Constitution explicitly states that no tax should have more than one object of taxation, whereas the GST was a goods AND services tax. The ETS would be a Tax on Everything because what doesn’t involve CO2 or other so-called greenhouse gases? Further, it would discriminate between parts of the country where people have to use more of theses gases, and ignores issues of fairness and popular will. The Constitution also forbids politicians to knowingly lie to the people. Oh, and we have a man called Peter Spencer who’s on hunger strike because he has had the use of his land confiscated under the cover of Kyoto, so you can add the unconstitutionality of no just compensation to the mix. Mr. Spencer’s farm is near Parliament House in Canberra and if Tony Abbott wanted to, he could make a real photo opportunity out of it. Why doesn’t he?
[REPLY – Heh. I basically agree. As for WWII, I regard that as a titanic 4-year struggle between Germany and Soviet Russia (with some relatively minor stuff going on around the edges). ~ Evan]
From June 1940 to June 1941 England stood alone, and Stalin sent Hitler the very supplies that later were used against him. If England had fallen, there would have been no arctic convoys to supply the Russian troops, and the war would have gone differently, (though, in the end, Truth would have triumphed, because it always does, or so I believe.)
Anyway, I’d be cautious of calling the year the English stood alone “minor stuff.”
[REPLY – I was being facetious. It would have been a catastrophe if Britain had fallen. But Lend Lease to Russia was a tiny trickle until mid-1943, when the Iranian route was opened. By that time, the issue was decided. If Russia had fallen it would have required a WWIII to defeat Germany. Note that I also left out the entire Pacific campaign! ~ Evan]
Good for you.
It’s a good idea, when in error (or overstatement), to say “Oops” (or at least, “Let me rephrase that”) and “stop digging.” It hurts at the time to back down, but it hurts less in the long run.
For a book that vividly illustrates this thesis, see the fairly recent book Armageddon by Max Hastings.
[REPLY – I always liked Hastings. I was being a bit tongue–in-cheek. Most Americans don’t “get” the importance of the Russian campaign. Germany had two big chances: beat England early or beat Russia. It missed both chances at those “tipping points”, and not by a heck of a lot. ~ Evan]
LB: I agree that the “freedom fries” business was stupid. It was about as successful as the WWI drive to rename sauerkraut “liberty cabbage.” Nobody in America uses the term “liberty cabbage” and I’ve never heard anyone, not even diehard hawks, order “freedom fries” with their burger.
As for French toast, well, isn’t it, unlike French fries, an actual French dish? Pain perdu? Whatever you call it, it’s tasty.
I read a book about five years ago about the other chance that Germany missed: To divert 5% or 10% of its Russian invasion force to its forces in N. Africa, which would have been enough to enable seizure of the Suez Canal. Alternatively, delay the Russian invasion a year and go for Suez first, then use that as a bargaining chip to get the UK to drop out.
That must have been what Britain feared, because that was the sensible thing to do. How dark things looked then.
inversesquare (23:34:35) :
Thanks for your note and welcome to the fight. Your comments were eloquently put forth and I think we are reaching a “pushback” moment. I’m very much with you on the kids comments – enough is enough with this BS…
To divert 5% or 10% of its Russian invasion force to its forces in N. Africa, which would have been enough to enable seizure of the Suez Canal. Alternatively, delay the Russian invasion a year and go for Suez first, then use that as a bargaining chip to get the UK to drop out.
Mmm. Lots of intangibles. 5% or 10% reduction of troops in Russia would have been very telling in Russia where the German line was stretched to its limits. 2% might well have been enough, but there was the issue of supply-by-sea, which seriously impeded German efforts in North Africa. And the severely bottlenecked frontage on the approach to Alexandria might have stopped the Germans no matter what (or not).
As for delaying the invasion of Russia, the Red Army was still in recovery from the pre-war purges, but was on schedule for reform by 1942. It might have been far more difficult for Germany to invade at that point. bear in mind, Germany would likely not have had an “extra year” of production. Germany wanted to pig out on the stolen fruits of victory without the sacrifice involved in full war production. As it was, Germany (though it is hard to believe) was the last of all major participants to go to full war footing (1943), and it only did that because the Russian campaign had gone — badly — sour.
I think we are reaching a “pushback” moment.
We have weathered the Battle of Moscow. But there is still Stalingrad, Kursk, and Bagration to win. (And expect bitter resistance on the Seelowe Heights.)
Anyone know why the Frence have been partial to burning cars on New Years and also just any old time? Fuel prices part of the story?
2006:
“An average of 112 cars a day have been torched across France so far this year”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article607860.ece
2009:
“According to figures from the French Interior Ministry, 1,147 cars went up in smoke on New Year’s Eve — a 30% rise on the 879 autos torched the same night in 2007.”
http://www.time.com/time/world/articl/0,8599,1869392,00.html#ixzz0bVM3pvLg
2010:
“Paris – Vandals burned 1 137 cars in France on New Year’s Eve”
http://www.news24.com/Content/World/News/1073/7d0dbdd4d0ec4976ab8f220c460a07c4/01-01-2010-10-14/1_137_cars_burned_in_France
evanmjones: The book I was referring to was How Hitler could have won WW2: The fatal errors that led to Nazi defeat, which is on Amazon here:
http://www.amazon.com/How-Hitler-Could-Have-World/dp/0609808443/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262555601&sr=1-1
One of the editorial reviews was unduly dismissive, I think. The reader reviews are interesting.
Now that I think harder about this, I believe the author claimed that only an extra division (12,000 or so men) would have sufficed. Anyway, Operation Barbarossa wasn’t severely stretched. That came later. (If a shortage had led to a curtailment of Barbarossa’s objectives, like attacking Leningrad, that would have been a feature, not a bug.)
I’m not sure, but I think that allied intervention of supply shipping didn’t become effective until many months later, after Ultra had been improved and the UK had got its act together, etc. Once Suez had fallen, the Germans could have supplied their forces from Greece, rather than from southern Italy, avoiding air attacks from nearby airfields. Then they could have marched back west and attacked Gibraltar, eliminating allied air bases and naval forces entirely.
I read somewhere that the British considered Suez indefensible if its supporting points to the west fell, and that there were even preparations made to abandon it in that event. But perhaps I’m wrong.
Sure, but if Stalin still adhered to his disastrous “forward defense” strategy, it wouldn’t have made much difference.
And the Germans would have been able to attack in May in 1942, rather than getting delayed six fatal weeks suppressing British-inspired insurrections and direct British interventions in the Balkans and Greece in 1941, so their initial advance wouldn’t have been stalled by winter.
My takeaway is that it was a near-run thing, and that providence saved the West and freedom, not democracy and its politicians, although that is the takeaway message that the MSM promoted in the aftermath of the war.