Progressive Environmental Taxation: A Defence
| Author | Paula Casal |
| Date | 01 June 2012 |
| Published date | 01 June 2012 |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2011.00924.x |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Progressive Environmental Taxation: A Defencepost_924419..433
Paula Casal
Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona
The need to use green taxes to protect the environment is urgent,particularly because of climate change, and can be
justified via sound deontological and consequence-based arguments. One very influential criticism of such taxes,
however, claims that they disproportionately burden relatively poor individuals who tend to contribute to environ-
mental problems far less than wealthier persons. Critics can also object that because of the link between economic
inequality and environmental destruction it is preferable to adopt environmental measures that impede rather than
accelerate the growth of inequality. Defusing these criticisms,the article argues that various types of g reen fiscal reform
can both avoid disproportionally burdeningthose who pollute least and reduce the economic inequalities that income
taxes leave behind,and slow down the collectively self-defeating consumption arms race that currently besets so many
affluent societies. Global progressive environmental taxation is also a possibility, and even easier to justify.
Keywords: climate change; domestic and global inequality; geoism; Rawls
We must address the issue of green taxation but we must avoid making life more difficult for
poorer individuals by causing prices to rise even more, and we must avoid following the
countries outside Europe that employ subsidies and price regulations, which have provena bad
idea ( José Luís Rodríguez Zapatero).1
It has been estimated that climate change kills 300,000 people per year and causes annual
losses worth $125 billion (Global Humanitarian Forum, 2009, p. 11). Humanity’s con-
tribution to this disaster is very unequally distributed. For example,‘each UK birth will
be responsible for 160 times more greenhouse gas emissions ... than a new birth in
Ethiopia’ (Guillebaud and Haynes, 2008). Inequality and environmental destruction are
connected. One reason is that both affluence and poverty can be environmentally del-
eterious. Affluence often leads to waste. For example, North Americans consume and
pollute twice as much as the average European but do not enjoy superior or safer lives
( Wilkinson and Pickett, 2009).2On the other hand, sometimes destitution and indebt-
edness make the poor over-exploit the little land left for their subsistence, destroy rain-
forests and use resources in other short-sighted ways. Sitting back to study the best
collective, long-ter m use of natural resources is often a luxury the poor cannot afford.
The need to secure the survival of at least one child, for example, tends to lead to high
birth rates, exacerbating existing problems. Even in the United Kingdom, the poor have
a substantial environmental impact because of badly insulated rented properties that they
have insufficient incentive to insulate more effectively. Nevertheless, the impact of the
rich is far greater than that of the poor. The richest fifth of humanity accounts for 86
per cent of global consumption, including 87 per cent of cars, 84 per cent of paper, 74
per cent of telephones, 65 per cent of electricity, 58 per cent of energy and 46 per cent
of meat (United Nations, 1998, p. 4). In contrast, the poorest fifth consume less than 10
per cent of all these items. Environmental destruction in poor countries, moreover, tends
to be caused by consumer demand in the developed world.
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doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2011.00924.x
POLITICAL STUDIES: 2012 VOL 60, 419–433
© 2012The Author.Political Studies © 2012 Political Studies Association
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