Climate of Our Future

From: Climate Crisis Coalition

Switzerland to Impose a Carbon Tax on Oil Imports
Neue Zurcher Zeitung, June 29, 2007.

Switzerland will introduce a tax on carbon dioxide emissions from January 1, 2008 to meet its Kyoto objectives, the government said on Thursday. The tax will be applied to all imported fossil fuels, amounting to around three centimes on each litre of heating oil and 2.5 centimes on a cubic metre of gas. According to a deal agreed by the cabinet and parliament earlier this year, the CO2 tax becomes mandatory in 2008 since Switzerland failed to reach its own emissions reduction target for 2006. It had pledged to cut last year’s emissions by at least six per cent compared with 1990 levels, but only managed 4.5 per cent. The Federal Environment Office said emissions did go down between 2005 and 2006 but the mild winter in Switzerland should have led to a greater reduction. The six per cent cut was seen as necessary for Switzerland to meet its commitments under the Kyoto Protocol, which calls for an eight per cent reduction by 2012 in order to combat climate change. The tax will be increased in stages in 2009 and 2010 if emission levels do not come down to satisfactory levels… Annual proceeds of the tax are supposed to be redistributed to families and the economy through a benefit system… At last year’s international climate conference in Nairobi, Swiss Environment Minister Moritz Leuenberger called for the introduction of a global CO2 tax.