Greening transport taxation Jos Dings GBE conference, Budapest, 8 July 2010 www.transportenvironment.org
A ranking of transport tax anomalies
1 Tax free aviation
2 Private benefits of company cars
3 Europe s prohibition to internalise external costs of trucks
4 Cheap diesel
Flying: the cheapest and fastest way to heat the planet
VAT exemption: ticket taxes as a first step UK is only country with serious ticket tax Germany to follow EC should take lead in addressing VVAT loophole Governments should not brand ticket taxes as environmental taxes but clarify VAT exemption WORK TOGETHER in establishing ticket taxes!!
ETS is not a serious incentive 4/tonne CO2 = 0.01/litre kerosene. ETS cuts aviation emissions by max 3% Minimum petrol / diesel taxes 0.36 / 0.33 per litre
Fuel / emissions taxation necessary and possible tankering (fuel tourism) can be avoided by charging route-based fuel / emissions UK to transform its ticket tax into emissionbased charge Again Commission should provide lead And EU national governments should work together in establishing joint approaches
Road freight charging
Chargingschemes2009 Distance-based Charging (Green): AT, DE, CZ Time-based Eurovignette (Orange): SE, DK; Benelux National Vignettes (Yellow): RO, BG, PO, LT Toll collection with physical barriers (pink): GR, SI, IT, FR, SP, PT No charges (purple): UK, IE, FI, EE, LV nb. Switzerland non-eu, own rules: distance-based charges with external cost internalisation on all national road network.
Update 2010: quick changes! SK 1-1-2010 FR, PT, DE announced new introductions serious plans UK, HU, DK
Significance research for T&E on road freight price elasticities Road freight very elastic km-to-km -0.9 tkm-to-tkm -1.0
And most of the change comes from more efficient road transport (instead of from modal shift)
LKW Maut stopped growth in transport distances in Germany Before Maut: avg distance +4% / yr After: slight decline
Policy conclusions Road freight more price sensitive than often assumed - even if there is no rail or water alternative - it fills trucks and shortens distances - Still, revenue losses quite limited, 15% under 0.15/km charge - BE and HU presidencies should push Eurovignette revision ahead more and more countries feel its restrictions Megatrucks do not cut emissions - Lower emissions per tkm fully mitigated by rebound effect
Fuel taxation
Importance of fuel taxation requires only little illustration
Petrol prices March 2010 Strong east west divide Spain, Switzerland, Austria, Luxembourg outliers in the West UK not very expensive anymore
Diesel prices June 2010 Broadly similar picture
Changes in fuel taxes since Nov 2009 27 24 21 18 15 12 Austria Belgium Bulgaria Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Estonia Finland France Germany Greece Hungary Ireland Italy Latvia Lithuania Luxembourg Malta Netherlands Poland Portugal Romania Slovakia Slovenia Spain Sweden United Kingdom EU27 average 9 6 3 0-3 changes in EURcts per litre -6-9 petrol diesel -12 French taxe carbone echec more exception than rule
EC likely to propose to level petrol and diesel minimum rates, PER GJ We think that s a good idea diesels in Europe may provide significant fuel savings to individual drivers, but probably do not provide significant national energy or CO2 savings on average across the 8 countries studied. Almost certainly, taxing diesel fuel lightly relative to gasoline is counterproductive from an energy savings and CO2 point of view since it contributes to a higher rebound effect (by lowering the cost per km of driving diesels). (IEA/Berkeley)
Cheap diesel FUEL is not needed to give diesel CARS a chance diesel share in new cars sales 2009 (%) 80% 70% 60% 50% UK 40% 30% 20% 10% ES IRL AT SW GR IT LUX FR DK DE PT BE FI NL 0% 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 petrol tax minus diesel tax Oct 09 (cents / litre)
Avoiding commercial diesel fuel tourism: three strategies Put pressure on laggards to raise tax levels and to accept higher EU minimum rates Introduce km charging for trucks EU border checks to limit cheap diesel imports into EU
Summing up Aviation: action urgently required both ticket and CO2 based taxes member state coordination and EC involvement required to make progress Truck charging: Very effective in making road transport more efficient progress at national level should be followed up with progress at EU level Fuel taxation: Still very much the first best strategy to cut transport CO2 Silent if slow progress Cheap diesel fuel (+ tourism) is urgent problem, again member states and EC need to take joint action to enable rises