Swedes keep the faith

Here’s something that our chancellor of the exchequer would do well to note. Although the sound of backpedalling on environmental objectives has been heard across recession-affected Europe, Sweden at least is staying on course in its shift towards environmental taxation. The government’s latest budget proposals for 2004 should take it one-third of the way towards its target for the decade as a whole (to switch the equivalent of £2.3 billion of taxes from economic goods to environmental ‘bads’). This year’s centrepiece is a big rise in the carbon dioxide emissions tax for individual householders and service industries. On the other side of the financial equation there’ll be an across the board cut in income tax - the kind of thing that usually helps in the popularity stakes. Proposals are also expected imminently for new tax breaks on environment investments. More will be spent on biodiversity and the conservation of wildlife and habitat. And, to promote Sweden’s own environmental industries, a new centre for "environment-driven business development" is to be set up within the business development agency.

30 November 2003