Exerpts -

"According to the most recent report of the Intergovernmental Report on Climate Change (IPCC), the European experience with carbon taxes shows that it sometimes has a beneficial impact initially, but that this effect does not last. That is, people get used to paying the higher prices and go right back to doing what they normally do. What is more, it takes a really big tax initially to bring forward any change in consumer behaviour. But even this may bring about very marginal effects on spending habits.

Norway is usually cited as the best example of a country that has benefited hugely from a carbon tax. But a report by Annegrete Bruvoll of Statistics Norway contradicts this assertion: 'Despite considerable taxes and price increases for some fuel-types, the carbon tax effect has been modest.'

It appears that the relatively high carbon tax that has been in effect since 1991 (about the highest carbon tax in the world) has contributed to only 2 percent of the total reductions in CO2 emissions. It has not been more effective because of 'extensive tax exemptions and relatively inelastic demand in the sector in which the tax is actually implemented.' What this means is that Norwegians did not change their consumption habits very much when the price increased."

Moreover, under an approach to carbon taxes that 70 British Columbian economists have advocated, "those least able to afford a tax increase will be disproportionately affected by the tax. Any tax on consumers, particularly for an essential resource such as energy, will be a 'flat tax,' meaning that all will pay the same amount. Because this will take a larger portion of the income of poor people, it will be a regressive tax. The well off will be able to buy their way out of any responsibility and continue to buy Hummers and 5000 sq. ft. homes."