Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
because of the initial costs involved, and
developing nations—such as China—which see
their future development tied to fossil fuels might
be unwilling to make what they see as a major
sacrifice. Attempts to improve energy efficiency
would be accompanied by widespread economic
impacts. Although efficiency is usually associated
with lower costs, start-up costs would have to
be taken into account. Supply and demand
patterns would change. Greater efficiency would
cause the demand for fuels to fall, which in turn
would bring about a decline in prices. Under these
circumstances, nations or groups of nations such
as OPEC, economically dependent on fossil fuel
production would be reluctant to participate in
such a scheme.
Cooperation can be encouraged, particularly
at the national level, through fiscal measures such
as taxation. A carbon tax, paid on fuel
consumption has been suggested as a means of
reducing fossil fuel use, for example. Although
most often proposed as a scheme to slow global
warming by slowing down CO
2
emissions, it
would have an impact on other issues also. It
would be relatively easy to set up and administer,
and the resulting higher fuel prices would in
theory lead to improved energy efficiency. The
revenue generated by the tax could be used to
offset existing environmental damage created by
fossil fuel use, or invested in research aimed at
finding solutions to environmental problems.
The simplicity of the carbon tax concept
makes it attractive, but it is not without its
drawbacks. All tax increases have political
consequences, and in a world dependent upon
readily available and relatively cheap energy the
imposition of a carbon tax would have major
socio-economic implications. High cost energy
producers would suffer most. Coal and oil
producers in North America and Europe would
experience a greater financial impact than the
oil states of the Middle East, for example. If the
tax was graduated according to the polluting
potential of the fuel, coal—with its emissions of
CO
2
, SO
2
and particulate matter—would be
taxed at a higher rate than oil or natural gas.
The actual tax levy would vary according to CO
2
emission targets and the timeframe proposed.
Estimates range from a tax of $20 per tonne of
carbon to maintain CO
2
emissions at 1990 levels,
to $250-275 per tonne to reduce CO
2
emissions
by 70 per cent from the current estimate for the
mid-twenty-first century (Green 1992). None of
this would be achieved without international
cooperation, and ultimately it would lead to
changes in the composition and geographical
distribution of the energy industry. The overall
higher cost of energy might retard technological
development, particularly in the developing
nations, and it might be necessary to vary the
taxes, not just by commodity but also by source
so that the Third World would bear less of the
burden. Thus attractive as a carbon tax might
appear at first sight, its implementation is not
without some obvious and serious economic and
political constraints.
Neither improved energy efficiency nor the
imposition of an energy tax will halt the impact
of fossil fuel use on the environment. At best they
can reduce emissions of gases and particulate
matter to manageable levels. All of these
pollutants are eventually removed from the
system by natural recycling processes, but
emission levels are now so high that the recycling
processes cannot keep up. If they could be
rejuvenated, perhaps they could contribute to the
solution, or at least the amelioration of certain
environmental problems. Such an approach has
been proposed to counteract global warming by
using the natural ability of plants to remove CO
2
from the atmosphere during photosynthesis. It
would involve the reforestation of large tracts of
land so that carbon could be removed from the
atmosphere, and sequestered or stored in the
growing vegetation. In Canadian studies, it has
been estimated that after taking such factors as
land availability, soil conditions and climate into
consideration, the maximum possible increase in
carbon sequestration would be only 9-10 per
cent, at a cost of $6-23 per tonne of carbon stored
(Van Kooten
et al.
1992). To absorb all of the 5
billion tonnes of carbon emitted into the
atmosphere annually would require the planting
of 1.3-1.7 billion acres of new forest every year,
