Earth Equity News

Paris Scraps Carbon Tax Plan. By Ben Hall, FT, March 23, 2010. "The French government on Wednesday said it would abandon its plan to introduce a carbon tax on domestic energy and road fuels unless there was agreement for a European Union-wide levy. The U-turn on the controversial environmental tax come two days after the governing UMP party of President Nicolas Sarkozy suffered a heavy defeat in regional elections. Senior UMP politicians have blamed the defeat in part on the proposed tax, which was due to come into effect on July... Since an EU-wide carbon tax is unlikely to gain approval in months ahead, if at all - the Swedish government pushed the idea with little success during its EU presidency last year -- the French levy has, in effect, been shelved. France would have been the largest economy to impose a levy on energy use linked to a notional price of carbon."