The rise and fall of French Ecological Tax Reform: social acceptability versus political feasibility in the energy tax implementation process

The French government has a 10-year history of negotiations with industry, resulting in voluntary agreements on energy consumption. When implemented, these voluntary agreements produced very few results in terms of global reduction of greenhouse emissions (Politiques et Management Public 11(4) (1993) 47), hence the idea of an energy tax became increasingly attractive for many French decision-makers. Ecological/Environmental Tax Reform (ETR) should have been one of the major political decisions and successes of the past leftwing coalition government. Instead it became one of its major failures as the Constitutional Court decided to terminate the energy tax project in December 2000. Through insights gleaned from focus groups and interviews with business-people and decision-makers, an attempt is made to understand the failure of the energy tax project. Firstly, decision-makers lacked crucial information about public and business opinions and secondly, there were conflicts between the relevant administrations. The fuel revolts of 2000 ended any hope of resolving the conflicts and implementing ETR, which was ultimately found unconstitutional. This paper examines the political controversies raised by the ETR project and the reasons for its eventual collapse, in the hope of contributing new understanding to the body of knowledge on the political difficulties of introducing environmental policy instruments.     

Environmental tax reform: an assessment of social responses in Ireland

Environmental tax reform (ETR) is widely accepted to be a policy with desirable environmental, and other economic effects. The question arises then as to why its implementation has been so patchy. There is a broad literature on the economic impact of ETR, however, there have been very few research efforts devoted to understanding the roles and imperatives of the public, policy makers, businesses and other stakeholders who are addressed by ETR. This paper examines the impediments to ETR in Ireland. Focus groups were formed comprising of members of the general public and these provided a forum for detailed reactions to the ETR concept. Interviews were conducted with policy makers and key business people in an attempt to identify both the patterns of thinking behind ETR and the main obstacles to its introduction. Having presented the results, a theory of the main impediments to ETR is developed. The opinions of the members of the public, the business community and the policy makers highlight a number of issues that need to be addressed in the future design of ETR in Ireland. The principal potential impediments to ETR include: mistrust of the government, implausibility of the policy, means of hypothecation, information asymmetries, the political system, the structure of government, the macroeconomic environment, the impact on competitiveness, inequity between sectors, regressivity, elasticities and the level of the tax, terminology, and the marketing of ETR.     

Ecological tax reform in Germany: handling two hot potatoes at the same time

Combining environmental with employment objectives, ecological tax reform (ETR) envisages a double dividend. While research has mainly focused on the socio-economic and environmental impacts of ETR, there is less literature on the social responses. This paper gives an overview and history of German ETR as well as investigating the understanding of perceptions and attitudes towards ETR of those being “subject to tax”. The research is based on qualitative social research methods. As with the other PETRAS papers, interviews were conducted with policy-makers and business leaders and focus groups were formed with lay persons. The results show that responses of policy-makers and business leaders are modest. Although some criticisms about the specific design of the German ETR remain, complaints towards ETR are settled. Attitudes appear influenced by more fundamental convictions such as economic interest or altruistic views. In contrast, ETR appears to politicise common people. Attitudes are influenced by the overall comprehension of the ETR concept, the expected impacts, perceived information deficits, as well as a general distrust in politics. Our data show that the linking of environmental and employment objectives is not understood and not welcomed. In order to increase social acceptance, the paper discusses refocusing ETR on environmental objectives, modestly increasing the share of ETR revenue spent for environmental purposes, removing inconsistencies in the ETR design, and improving information policy.     

History and social responses to environmental tax reform in the United Kingdom

This paper gives a short history of fuel taxation and the Climate Change Levy in the UK. The research described was based around the use of interviews and focus groups to inform the assessment of social responses to ETR policies and the development of improved designs for them. Interviews were conducted with selected policy makers and companies. Focus groups were conducted with quota samples of the general public. The research shows that the problem that ETR faces in terms of public acceptance is not so much outright hostility to environmental taxation as conceptual problems with the design. Similar conceptual problems were also found in the interviews with business people. These can be summarised as lack of trust about use of the revenues, difficulty in understanding the purpose of a tax shift and a desire for incentives for good behaviour as well as perceived ‘penalties’ for bad behaviour.     

Carbon leakage from unilateral Environmental Tax Reforms in Europe, 1995–2005

Studies of the effects of the Kyoto Protocol have shown carbon leakage (typically from tax and permit schemes with lump-sum revenues recycling) to be in the range of 5–20% using static Computable General Equilibrium models. However, in practice, researchers have found that carbon leakage from the implementation of the EU ETS is unlikely to be substantial because transport costs, local market conditions, product variety and incomplete information all tend to favour local production. This study investigates potential carbon leakage from six EU Member States (MSs) that implemented Environmental Tax Reform (ETRs) unilaterally over the period 1995–2005. The study uses the large-scale multisectoral integrated energy–environment–economy (E3) model of 27 European countries, energy–environment–economy model of Europe (E3ME), to undertake a dynamic comparative analysis to assess any carbon leakage effects over the longer term 1995–2012. A counterfactual Reference case is constructed, assuming that the six countries did not introduce ETRs; then alternative scenarios are developed to assess the effects of the ETRs, including effects on CO₂ emissions for the EU25 economies. Most MSs recorded a reduction in CO₂ emissions when comparing the Baseline case to the Reference case. The results show that carbon leakage is very small and in some cases negative, due to technological spillover effects.     

Environmental and wider implications of political impediments to environmental tax reform

The most common notion of environmental tax reform (ETR) is the use of the revenue from environmental taxes to reduce distortionary labour taxes. The PETRAS project¹ has shown that there are a number of social and political impediments to implementing such reform. This paper firstly outlines some of the environmental and economic implications of environmental taxes generally. It goes on to explore three broad approaches to ETR, based on the allocation of the tax revenues, and explores the environmental and economic implications of each approach and the likelihood of political and social acceptance. Particular attention is paid to reducing regressive impacts and impacts on competitiveness. It is concluded that some combination of earmarking a proportion of revenues to environmental projects and diverting rest to reduce labour taxes is probably the best approach in light of the results of the project. The balance should depend upon local labour market and macroeconomic conditions, the extent to which environmental projects are already funded and the extent of government failure, i.e., the problems of resource allocation that occur as a result of government intervention in markets. Funding should only be provided to environmental projects if it can be shown that, in themselves, they are economically efficient. In addition, it is most important that a proportion of the funds be used to ameliorate any regressive impacts. It is also important to bear in mind that hypothecation or recycling of revenue is not the same as a tax shift, which is a reform of the entire system, so some of these approaches may take away from the integrity of ETR. The paper concludes with some of the initiatives that are likely to be necessary to facilitate social and political acceptance of this approach to ETR.     

中外能源环境税比较与启示

能源活动引发的环境问题已日益威胁到人类的生存。基于这一现实,发达国家已经开始采取各种政策手段去调节能源活动主体的生产和消费行为。在众多政策手段中,能源环境税收以其对市场的扭曲程度小、对提高能源使用效率的刺激作用强、对污染行为的调控力度大等优势成为环境管理的热点。本文首先阐述了能源环境税收的基本结构,在此基础上通过对比发达国家和中国的能源环境税收体系和政策,探讨了其成功经验对我国的启示。     

Assessing the determinants of local acceptability of wind-farm investment: A choice experiment in the Greek Aegean Islands

This paper aims at analysing the factors, which motivate communities to resist the installation of wind farms in their vicinity. To this end, the choice experiment methodology was employed in communities in two Greek Aegean Islands to assess the determinants of preferences towards different wind-farm projects. Unlike other studies, the willingness to accept welfare measure was adopted. The results of our analysis show that the conservation status of the area where the wind farms are to be installed, along with the governance characteristics of the planning procedure are the most important determinants of local community welfare in relation to wind farms. In contrast to other studies, we find that the physical attributes of wind farms appear to be of less relative importance from a local community welfare point of view. Implications for the EU's future energy policy are drawn.     

The promotional impacts of green power products on renewable energy sources: direct and indirect eco-effects

Green power products may be seen as a means of fostering renewable energy sources because they create and channel consumer demand for environmentally sound power generation. They can therefore be evaluated on a par with other support instruments regarding their effectiveness to connect new capacity to the grid. Apart from this direct effect however, green power products confer a much more active role for customers and utilities. Thus, learning processes, which foster eco-oriented decisions beyond the construction of new renewable generation capacity, may be induced.     

Social and political responses to ecological tax reform in Europe: an introduction to the special issue

This paper introduces the special issue on the Policies for Ecological Tax Reform: Assessment of Social Responses (PETRAS) project about responses to ecological tax reform (ETR) in Europe. Although ETR is widely accepted to be a policy with desirable effects, its implementation has been limited by problems of political acceptability. The project aimed to address the question of how to make such a policy more acceptable. It is the first study to examine in depth the thinking of members of the general public about the ETR policies and is also the first international comparative study of the thinking of ordinary business people about ETR policies. The PETRAS project methodology was based around the use of interviews and focus groups to inform the assessment of social responses to ETR policies and the development of improved designs for them. A number of issues emerged relating to awareness, trust, understanding of the purpose, visibility, incentives, regressivity, levels of taxation, terminology, communication about ETR and the use of alternative instruments. Together with these similarities, a pattern of differences between the countries can also be seen. The final section of this paper introduces the national studies described in the following papers.     

Energy efficiency in social housing: Opportunities and barriers from a case study in Brazil

This paper investigates the energy efficiency in a segment of the building sector in emerging countries by analyzing and evaluating the energy efficiency of a social housing project in Brazil. Energy efficiency measures and bioclimatic design strategies are developed in order to improve thermal comfort in this social housing project and to reduce the energy consumption and expenses of their residents. The institutional barriers and constraints toward higher efficiency are described. The results of this study show that there is a high potential to increase energy efficiency in social housing in emerging countries like Brazil. The implementation and consideration of the energy efficiency measures and policy recommendations would contribute substantially to the goal to dampen the fast growth of energy demand in these countries. Moreover the improvement of energy efficiency in the social housing sector could be a driver for market transformation towards more sustainability in the whole building sector.     

Ecological footprint accounting for energy and resource in China

Resource consumption of the Chinese society from 1981 to 2001 is represented by ecological footprint (EF) as an aggregate indicator. The debate, advances and implications of EF are investigated in detail. EF intensity is also provided to depict the resource consumption level corresponding to unit economic output. The results show that the EF per capita always exceeded the biocapacity and the EF intensity increased steadily over the study period. In addition, sectoral analysis for each EF component is also conducted. The appropriation in the global ecological sense of Chinese society with the second largest energy consumption in the world is therefore quantified and evaluated.     

南钢转炉连铸机高效化改造实践

本文介绍了南钢转炉厂2^#连铸机高效化改造后,在生产实践过程中所遇到的问题及改造方案,并总结了改进后所取得的成效。     

中国风电发展经济政策回顾与分析

本文阐述了中国风电发展过程的电价政策、补贴政策、财政税收政策等经济政策的激励作用,同时分析了现有政策体制中存在的阻碍中国风电进一步发展的障碍,包括电价政策缺乏灵活性;电价补贴机制不健全,缺乏投资补贴措施;交易体制不完善对风电大范围消纳造成阻碍;以及辅助服务经济补偿框架不够完善,电源企业参与调峰的积极性不强等。提出了促进中国风电进一步稳定发展的政策建议。     

The dimensions of the policy debate over transportation energy: The case of hydrogen in the United States

Environmental and politico-strategic concerns have driven the increase in policy activity related to energy that the United States witnessed in the last few years. The nature of the issues at stake and the level of stakeholder involvement result in a highly complex policy debate. The broad concern of this paper is the study of this energy-policy process and the identification of the main policy issues. Specifically, multivariate analysis is applied to data on a wide variety of stakeholders’ policy beliefs and policy preferences to identify the policy dimensions that characterize the debate over energy policy in the United States. The focus is on the policy debate over hydrogen as a transportation fuel, although many results are applicable to the debate over transportation energy at large. The analysis uses a dataset of 502 individuals from 323 different stakeholder organizations obtained via a web-based survey specifically designed for this study.     

Implementation of renewable energy in Scottish rural area: A social study

Nowadays, renewable energy is considered one of the valuable sources of energy in the energy sector. It is contributing major role in fulfilling the increasing level of global energy crisis. Although most of study of renewable energy is done through its technological development and a few are done in its acceptance level socially. In such consequences, this research considers the social acceptability of renewable energy in terms of economical, environmental and cultural perspectives. As a test bed, Scottish rural areas were considered for this social study, where the areas are regarded as lacking of continuous energy supply due to weak grid and socio-economic growth. This research investigates the intimate and sensitive nature of the social issues in rural Scotland that are important in the communities when decisions are made on renewable energy supply and demand. The social interactions are investigated by means of both interviewing the local residents and distributed questionnaires among them. The responses from the interviews and the questions are analyzed according to the predefined criterion of renewable energy such as willingness to accept, changes of life style, income and pay, and education and employment.     

The rise of community wind power in Japan: Enhanced acceptance through social innovation

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the socio-economic dynamics that are brought about by renewable energy technologies. We call this dynamic “Social Innovation” as it changes the rules of risk–benefit distribution and the roles of social actors. For this purpose, we take up a typical case in Japan, community wind power in which the initial cost is funded by the investment of citizens. Through this case study, we examine how the citizens’ initiative can affect the social acceptance of renewable energy as well as social change. Based on interviews with those involved in these projects, we analyze the interests of the various actors involved in community wind power projects in a framework of “actor network theory”, which enables us to understand the detail of each actor's position. This study also involved a quantitative survey of investors. The case study clarified that there was a remarkable difference in the interests of the main actors in the community wind power projects, the networks are complex and actors share various interests such as economic interests and a sense of social commitment, participation and contribution. These incentives are also clarified in quantitative data. However, the variety of incentives differs in each project.     

东京都及周边区域煤炭消费沿革镜鉴

控煤是实现碳排放达峰的重要举措之一。以现价人均GDP达到2万美元为起点,分析了东京都及其周边区域上世纪80年代末至今制造业用煤与发电用煤的历史沿革,总结相关经验,为上海市后续的煤炭高效利用及控煤工作提供借鉴。     

中国煤电体制机制改革现状与方向

本文对煤电联动政策出台背景、实施过程和实施效果进行了回顾,使用电煤的需求价格弹性、供给价格弹性等对该政策失灵原因进行了分析,指出市场失灵后政府的宏观调控所起的作用不足,提出了向煤炭企业征收煤炭增值收益来解决煤电矛盾的方式,并指出关键问题在于国家对自然资源配置权和收益权的重新调整,建立国家和地方分成制度。     

Placing barriers to industrial energy efficiency in a social context: a discussion of lifestyle categorisation

This paper compares how analyses of energy use and efficiency have developed in households and industrial small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). I focus on earlier studies that use lifestyle categories in examining household energy use, comparing them with studies of mainly Swedish industrial SMEs using the barrier concept in understanding energy efficiency. The main question is how the use of lifestyle categories in household research can be adapted to industrial SMEs. The rationale for using doing this is to find a new way to approach industrial energy use that can give new insight or raise new questions. Lifestyle categories capture the energy culture of a company, including how energy is perceived and what habits and routines are like. Lifestyle categorisation complements barrier analysis, deepening our understanding of how and why companies improve energy efficiency. Using lifestyle categories in an analysis can help policy makers, who can then direct specific policies to particular segments of companies.