Dear Editor
Does our government support the UK’s interests at the UN? Bryan Harris asks a good question after the Government’s agreement to the UN’s proposed global carbon tax on shipping. Thankfully, the Trump administration derailed the proposal (for now). Had it passed, it would have been the second UN-imposed global tax.
A decade ago, the Government agreed to the UN’s Carbon Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA), the first global carbon tax. CORSIA is the UN emissions charge on aviation fuel consumption. It was embedded under the environmental provisions of the UN International Civil Aviation Organisation’s Standards and Recommended Practices (SARPs). Airlines must comply with SARPs. Consequently, an aviation environmental regulation became a global financial instrument. Monies are filtered through ‘carbon’ offset schemes into UN projects and the aviation industry provides an independent funding source for the UN.
Numerous government departments, challenged to determine whether compulsory CORSIA is a ‘tax, fee, duty or charge’, responded that CORSIA was a ‘global market-based mechanism’ (GMBM) – a euphemism invented for international environmental financial mechanisms. Euphemising does not alter CORSIA’s nature. CORSIA only becomes a GMBM after the monies have been compulsorily acquired. So is the compulsory acquisition of GMBM funds initiated by levying a tax, fee, duty or charge?
After the shipping debacle (which will return), the UN is chasing global emissions taxes on the information and communications technology (ICT) industry. Maybe (third time lucky?) the British government will consider domestic needs ahead of further industry taxes.
Deborah Ancell
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