Laurent: Excuse me, but I'm not sure I really understood how this tax will "work" and especially how it can encourage me to consume less CO2
In fact, the carbon tax covers all fossil fuels: gas, coal, fuel oil and diesel and super fuels, and is proportional to the volume of these gases, depending on the quantities of CO2 linked to their use. When you use 1 l of oil, you burn it, and it emits CO2. The tax will be fixed in relation to each unit.
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For example for 1 liter of super, it will be 4 cents, for diesel, about 4,8 cents. Each time a user uses a liter, he will pay this tax. The more liters he uses, the more taxes he pays, so he is encouraged to use less than before. And it's the same with all other fossil fuels.
chris: Can a price per tonne of carbon dioxide released as low (17 euros) have an impact on the habits of the French?
The price at 17 euros clearly has less impact than a higher price. But we know that this price will increase, so it is more the anticipation of this increase that will have an incentive effect than the initial level, even if this initial level will have an incentive effect from now on.
If we take an example, the replacement of an oil boiler, we can reduce the time of return on investment can go from 10 years to 9 years. So there is an incentive. If people anticipate an increase, this incentive will increase.
Another example: the price of fuel will not increase much, but compared to an increase in oil, this increase will be permanent. And faced with an increase that starts low, people have an immediate capacity to react to reduce their fuel consumption a little, for example by lifting their foot to decrease their speed, by avoiding too sudden and too frequent acceleration and deceleration, limiting certain trips over short distances by car (half of the trips are over distances that take 5 minutes on foot).
TAZ: Isn't this carbon tax a gas factory? Compensation mechanisms are complex. Would you have proposed a simpler mechanism and therefore more readable and efficient?
I will not comment on the compensation mechanism that should have been put in place. There is often a speech in the media saying that there is no point in setting up a tax if it is offset elsewhere. In fact, the tax is proportional to the volume of fossil fuel that is consumed, while the refund is fixed, fixed.
Someone who consumes more fuel will not see the refund increase. There is therefore an incentive that persists, since the tax will increase, while the refund will not change.
Ben-Guetta: What about people who cannot take measures to limit their CO2 emissions? I am thinking of those who already travel by public transport, which heats up normally, etc. Do you not think that they should simply not be subject to this tax?
Already, people who consume little CO2, the impact in terms of purchasing power on their income will be very low or even positive, because they will have a very low tax impact and will have the refund. They will be winners. So we do have a system that favors people who emit little CO2 and who weigh more on others. The refund will be more than they spend.
Fred: What is being offered to me today as an alternative to petrol in my car, fuel oil or gas to heat me ...? It's all very nice, but ...
If we differentiate between heating and transport, in transport, the alternatives to reduce consumption are changing the way we drive, reducing our speed, driving more flexibly, reducing travel over short distances. This in the short term.
In the medium term, we can also change the way we travel: use public transport when possible, or change our vehicle for a vehicle that emits less CO2. There are currently very incentive scrapping bonuses. There are other options, such as carpooling.
As for heating, we have short-term options: we can reduce the temperature slightly at home, be careful not to leave the heaters on unnecessarily. And in the medium term, we can work on the insulation of his home, or the modification of the heating system by changing the boiler for example. There are also incentives: sustainable development tax credit, zero-rate eco-loan, and to install solar energy devices, there is a feed-in tariff for those who produce electricity.
an heni bras: Wouldn't it also be better to significantly increase aid for energy-saving investments?
It is difficult to answer. The level of aid is a decision of the government. The higher the level, the more people benefit from it, but it is a public expenditure.
pauld: Doesn't the carbon tax mark the end of gas or oil heating to the detriment of 100% electric heating which is an ecological abberration? Is the carbon tax intended to justify future EPRs?
Electricity in Europe and in France in particular is subject to a constraint on CO2 emissions through the European quota system. This system is already limiting CO2 emissions from electricity production today and provides for all emissions from sectors subject to quotas to be reduced by at least 21% by 2020. Therefore the CO2 emissions linked to the electricity are subject to a carbon constraint.
Then, the question is that this carbon constraint is not systematically found in the consumer's bill because the tariffs are regulated in France. So the question is more to know if we want to modify the regulated tariffs than to know if it is necessary to extend the carbon tax to electricity, because we would then have two constraints on electricity: one at the consumer level, one at producer level, which would duplicate.
TAZ: To have a real impact, such a tax should have been decided at European Union level, right? Does it make sense to go it alone? Will other EU countries follow the example of France?
On this issue, France is not the only one already implementing the carbon tax. Five other countries in Europe have done so: Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Great Britain and Slovenia. Germany plans to do so from 2012. Next, all EU countries have made commitments by 2020 to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, including emissions from households and transport.
Laurence Caramel
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