Abstract
After months of heated political debate, the German government adopted a new Energy Concept in September 2010, setting out a broad framework for federal energy policy until 2050. Elaborated by the ruling center-right coalition, this document aims at turning Germany into one of the ‘most energy-efficient and greenest economies in the world while enjoying competitive energy prices and a high level of prosperity’.1 In line with a campaign pledge set out in the government’s coalition agreement, the Energy Concept defines ambitious objectives for the medium and longer term.2 Energy pricing through taxes and charges has traditionally held a prominent position in the German energy policy mix, and will also be central to achieving the targets adopted with the new Energy Concept.
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Notes
Among economists, of course, the notion of controlling externalities by imposing a system of unit taxes or subsidies has been discussed ever since it was proposed by Arthur C. Pigou (1920) The Economics of Welfare (London: Macmillan).
See inter alia Kalle Määttä and Michael Mehling (2010) ‘Energy, the environment, and price-based instruments: environmental taxes as a tool for energy sustainability and climate policy’, in Michael Rodi (ed.) Realising the Paradigm Shift towards Energy Sustainability: Climate Change, Technological Innovation, and the Challenge of an Optimal Instrument Mix (Berlin: Lexxion), pp. 49–64.
Michael Kohlhaas (2005) Gesamtwirtschaftliche Effekte der ökologischen Steuerreform (Berlin: DIW), p. 14.
Markus Knigge and Benjamin Görlach (2005) Die Ökologische Steuerreform — Auswirkungen auf Umwelt, Beschäftigung und Innovation (Berlin: Ecologic), p. 5.
Torsten Henzelmann (2010) ‘Weltmarktführer beim Umweltschutz’, Harvard Business Manager 30(12), pp. 44–49.
Terry Barker (1997), ‘Taxing pollution instead of jobs’, in Timothy O’Riordan (ed.) Ecotaxation (London: Earthscan), p. 163
Anselm Görres, Henner Ehringhaus and Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker (1994) Der Weg zur ökologischen Steuerreform (Munich: Olzog-Verlag), p. 27 ff.
So-called double dividend of environmental taxes, see Daniel McCoy (1997), ‘Reflections on the double dividend debate’, in Timothy O’Riordan (ed.) Ecotaxation (London: Earthscan), p. 201
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© 2013 Michael Mehling
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Mehling, M. (2013). Germany’s Ecological Tax Reform: A Retrospective. In: Achilles, M., Elzey, D. (eds) Environmental Sustainability in Transatlantic Perspective. Energy, Climate and the Environment Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137334480_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137334480_6
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