Distributional Effects of Climate Change Taxation: The Case of the UK

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• 作者：Kuishuang Feng ; Klaus Hubacek ; Dabo Guan ; Monica Contestabile ; Jan Minx ; John Barrett
• 刊名：Environmental Science & Technology
• 出版年：2010
• 出版时间：May 15, 2010
• 年：2010
• 卷：44
• 期：10
• 页码：3670-3676
• 全文大小：227K
• 年卷期：v.44,no.10(May 15, 2010)
• ISSN：1520-5851

文摘

Current economic instruments aimed at climate change mitigation focus mainly on CO₂ emissions, but efficient climate mitigation needs to focus on other greenhouse gases as well as CO₂. This study investigates the distributional effects of climate change taxes on households belonging to different income and lifestyle groups; and it compares the effects of a CO₂ tax with a multiple GHG tax in the UK in terms of cost efficiency and distributional effects.

Results show that a multi GHG tax is more efficient than a CO₂ tax due to lower marginal abatement costs, and that both taxes are regressive, with lower income households paying a relatively larger share of their income for the taxes than higher income households. A shift from a CO₂ tax to a GHG tax will reduce and shift the tax burden between consumption categories such as from energy-intensive products to food products. Consumers have different abilities to respond to the tax and change their behavior due to their own socio-economic attributes as well as the physical environment such as the age of the housing stock, location, and the availability of infrastructure. The housing-related carbon emissions are the largest component of the CO₂ tax payments for low income groups and arguments could be made for compensation of income losses and reduction of fuel poverty through further government intervention.