Thirty two years ago, on this day, March 16th, 1993,
March budget announces VAT on domestic energy, disguises it as a climate measure (see Pearson and Watson 2012, p14)
Here’s the speech from John Major
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 357ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the British state was having one of its periodic fiscal crises (though the crisis is now perhaps more permanent!), Anyway they put Value Added Tax (VAT) on domestic heating and called it a climate initiative. And this is brilliant, because it raises revenue and it smears the green cause as it were. It’s like the salting the earth. It’s very, very clever politics (terrible policy and governance, but clever politics).
What I think we can learn from this is that just because you’re evil doesn’t mean you’re stupid.
What happened next
There was resistance to this, but it also made life harder for talking about actual green taxes.
See 1995 post
January 22, 1995 – UK Prime Minister John Major told to implement green taxes on #climate
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Also on this day:
March 16, 1973 – North Sea Oil for the people?! (Nope)
March 16, 1994 – “We could bail from Rio” says former Environment Minister
March 16, 1995 – Victorian government plans brown coal exports