Red, Green, and Blue

Cap-and-trade calamity? Au contraire. While the US flounders on regulating carbon, France’s Nicolas Sarkozy is pushing forward with new carbon tax legislation that will only add to France’s edge in the emerging green economy.

With heavy subsidies in place for nuclear power, France already generates 80% of its electricity from non-fossil-fueled sources. The French are also participants in the European cap-and-trade regime. That combination of support for clean technologies and downward pressure on carbon is the same that the Obama White House sees as the critical path to green energy adoption in the US. Progress has been elusive in that regard and things do not look rosy in the Senate this fall.

Meanwhile, French President Nicholas Sarkozy today proposed the addition of a $7 per ton carbon tax, to begin in 2010. The tax would be levied on oil, gas and coal emissions for both individuals and businesses. The revenues will be used for tax credits and green programming, and the proposal differentiates between urban consumers and those rural consumers with less access to public transit.

France’s progressive energy policy is helping to make the country a global leader in the new energy economy, for example, French nuclear capacity already comprised more than 70% of the global market in 2008 and that share recently saw expansion as French investors shared in $18 billion in reactor guarantee awards made by the US government. Still, Mr. Sarkozy’s proposal has not been immune to familiar objections based on competitiveness, cost and climate change skepticism. The UK Guardian reports that two-thirds of French citizens objected to the new tax in a poll before today’s speech, and opponents have dubbed Sarkozy Monsieur Taxe.

If the French carbon tax does pass, the country would become the largest European economy to impose such a tax, which have been touted as successful in smaller Scandinavian economies.

Official state photo of President Nicolas Sarkozy

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