Australia may be out, but France is in. Two weeks after the new Australian government scrapped its carbon tax, France has announced that from next year, fossil fuel use will be taxed and the money used to further reduce emissions.
The tax will target transport fuels and domestic heating, as these are not covered by the continent-wide Emissions Trading Scheme that focuses on European energy and industry. Fuel use is already taxed in France, but from next year part of this tax will be determined by the fuel's greenhouse gas emissions. The move is predicted to raise €4 billion a year by 2016 which can then be spent on tax breaks for home insulation, for instance.
"This is a positive move," says Niklas Höhne, the director of energy policy at Ecofys in Cologne, Germany. France will become the seventh European country to have a carbon tax, after Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland and the Republic of Ireland.
"Australia backing off is not good news," says Höhne. But many other countries are moving forward with carbon pricing schemes, including China.
"More jurisdictions are putting carbon price signals in place. Australia is the outlier."
If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.