The Carbon-tax debate

This paper discusses recent topics related indirectly to energy production and marketing and related highly to energy policy and economy. These topics are: (1) background to carbon taxes including environmental issues - global warming and CO2 emissions, fuel substitution and the encouragement of non-hydrocarbon fuel use; (2) climate-change convention and related conferences including those at Rio de Janeiro - objectives and achievements, and Kyoto-objectives; (3) carbon-tax proposals, including implications for oil, coal and gas: (4) The OECD view including evolution of general taxes on hydrocarbons, the carbon tax as a government revenue-raising objective, CO2 emissions in the OECD; (5) the oil-producer's view including discrimination against oil, the impact on the incentives to use oil and gas; (6) the developing countries' view, including the need to increase fuel use for industrialisation, financial constraints on energy use, and CO2 emissions in the developing countries. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.