The Implementation Of Carbon Tax In European Countries And The Choice Of China

Climate change has become one of the great issues of the age. Research shows that it is the human activity, which consumed large number of fossil fuels and emitted too much greenhouse gases at the same time, resulted in the global warming. And carbon dioxide emissions accounts for about60%of the total emissions of greenhouse gases. Therefore, to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, curb climate warming trend has become one of the most important problems in the global scope.In1988, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In1992, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) was signed in the United Nations conference on environment and development, this is the first international convention to combating global climate change. In1997, through tough negotiations, the Kyoto Protocol was finally established in the third contracting party conference of UNFCC. The Kyoto Protocol is the first legally binding document which regulated the greenhouse gases emission reduction objectives of developed countries. Since then, the UN conference on climate change held many times in order to strengthen international cooperation on climate change issue. Mankind is doing unremitting efforts in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, curb climate warming.In order to curb climate change, achieve the emissions reduction targets regulated by the Kyoto Protocol, countries all over the world, especially the developed countries began to use various policies and measures, in which the carbon tax is one of the most important measures. Many European countries, as well as the United States, Canada, Australia and other countries have been introduced the carbon tax or other related taxes. Practice has proved that carbon tax has played a significant role in controlling greenhouse gases, curbing climate warming. Therefore, carbon tax has become one of the most effective economic methods in cut carbon dioxide emissions. In addition, many countries implemented an Environmental Tax Reform (ETR) when or after they introduced carbon tax, in order to prevent the possible negative effects on the economy bring by the carbon tax; and provide complex special tax provision when taking account of the international competitiveness of domestic industry. The concept of an ETR is a reform proposal of the national tax system shifting the burden of taxes from conventional taxes, such as the ones levied on labour and capital, to environmentally related activities, such as taxes levied on resource use, in particular energy, or environmental pollution; aimed to achieve "double-dividend".In China, thirty years of high-speed economic development, create huge material wealth, but also brought serious destruction to the environment. With the development of economy, the extensive growth model in our country caused the lack of energy resource and serious pollution. At present, China’s carbon dioxide emissions has already ranked first in the world, energy and the environment has become the bottleneck which restricting its economic development.In view of this, although China is still a developing country, it have enacted and implemented a national program in response to climate change according to the international convention on greenhouse gas emission in June2007. Since then, China has formulated and revised a series of laws and regulations, in order to promote energy-saving, emission reduction and environmental protection. In2009, just before the Copenhagen conference on climate change, China promulgated its carbon dioxide emission reduction target, that compared with2005, China’s per unit of domestic gross product carbon dioxide emissions will decline40%-45%by2020.In this background, introducing the carbon tax to promote energy conservation, control greenhouse gas emissions, curb climate change have important significance. European countries have implemented carbon tax for about20years, the specific design of the carbon tax system, the effect of carbon tax and related environment tax reform on economic, double dividend in practice exist or not, all of these questions have important significance to our country. This thesis is divided into five parts. The first part is the introduction, introducing the research background, significance, the relative theory and research situation of carbon tax at home and abroad. The second part is the emergence and the development of carbon tax and related environment tax reform. The third part introduces the experience of carbon tax in Finland, Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Germany and the UK, and analysis the characteristics and differences of the existing carbon tax. The fourth part through the analysis of our country’s economic development level, the energy structure as well as the present situation of the environmental tax policy, combined with the experience of the European countries, design a suitable carbon tax policy for China. The fifth part is the conclusions.