Green Deal deserves a better Energy Taxation Directive in 2020, not years from now

(EurActiv, 19 Mar 2020) Europe has a choice between getting a good taxation directive this year or waiting years for something not yet defined that may never win agreement. For the sake of climate progress, it should take its chances with what it has now, writes Jim Power.

im Power was the chief economist at Bank of Ireland and treasury economist at Allied Irish Banks. He teaches economics at The Smurfit Graduate Business School, University College Dublin, and advises on economic policy.

Much has changed in the diesel and petrol sectors since 2003.

Petrol got much better after poisonous leaded petrol finally vanished from Europe that year. The USA even went so far as to scrub leaded petrol regulation from its statute books given there was no need to regulate something that no longer existed.

Diesel got worse, with ‘dieselgate’ and the dual realisations that many diesel cars couldn’t meet emissions standards without the aid of illegal defeat devices and nor were they reducing greenhouse gas emissions as policymakers had forecast they might.

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EurActiv, 19 Mar 2020: Green Deal deserves a better Energy Taxation Directive in 2020, not years from now