On this day, 25th September 1991 a carbon tax in Europe was proposed
“The other factor concerned the difficulties the [European] Commission has had in putting into practice the fourth arm of the strategy, the carbon/energy tax. The details of this tax were announced on 25 September 1991. It would be levied on the basis of 50 per cent on the carbon content of energy, and 50 per cent simply on the energy ,and would be set at US $3 per barrel of oil equivalent, rising to US $10 per barrel by 2000. However, by the time the details were announced, it had already become hampered, not least by highly intensive lobbying by European industry (according to the Economist, [19 May 1992: 91] the heaviest lobbying of the EC it has ever engaged in.”
Paterson 1996, p.88
On this day the PPM was
Now it is 420ish – but see here for the latest.
Why this matters.
The basic things that needed to happen (or some of them) have been known for a very long time. We couldn’t even get the basics right (thanks in large part to fierce and successful resistance by fossil-ised interests)
What happened next?
The tax got squashed by the diligent and determined efforts of vested interests