It should be the backdrop to the discussions

The Copenhagen Summit is bearer of hope but uncertainties. At the opening of the Summit, the statements are multiplying. It focus on the reduction of some commitments, reluctance on the part of others, and the interventions proposed by each: renewable energy, electric car, construction, bio-agriculture standards, etc.

In our merchant and globalized world, the question for discussion should be above all of the price to charge on carbon emissions and how to standardize it between countries and transmitters. Without inducement by the price, it is indeed unlikely that commitments can be held and that announced fight against carbon emissions devices are actually developed and implemented in work. Without standardization, it will not prevent that the show deleted here reappear here. The principle of the fight against "negative externalities" of economic activity through taxation is simple and well known. It should be the backdrop to the discussions.

The increase in oil prices in the 1970s illustrates the power of price incentives. Shortly before this increase, the Club of Rome had alerted international opinion to the danger that economic growth will lead to the depletion of natural resources of the planet. His reasoning was based on the assumption of a roughly constant relationship between economic activity and consumption of these resources. Indeed, the response to the oil shock which occurred shortly after the publication of the report was to deny this hypothesis and prove that the world economy was, in the medium term, much more flexible that it stipulated. With the explosion of prices, major adjustments took place which are estimated today that they probably divided the oil consumption by two, to constant domestic product!

It is urgent that the same price incentive mechanisms are implemented to reduce carbon emissions. A tax or a similar mechanism should be introduced which sets a price on the show, between countries and at a level such as the global emission targets are achieved. The management of such a tax does not require the problematic creation of a tax authority international. A tax, the same for all and everywhere, is levied on each ton of carbon emitted and the proceeds of the tax is used nationally to offset the modest social groups affected by the tax, encourage innovation in carbon-saving technologies, or even to reduce other levies. It would be therefore simply an internal tax, including the Sweden and the France began to give the example. Its rates and its terms, however, should be harmonized between countries.

The cost of such a tax, once taken into account the income it generates should vary with the size of the savings as a proportion of their propensities to emit CO2. As a first approximation, it would therefore be in agreement with the principle of "polluter pays". However, considering that today developed countries have a historical responsibility in the concentration of carbon in the atmosphere and to offset the cost of the reduction of emissions and the effects of global warming in the rest of the world, then international income transfers are to consider at the same time to the carbon tax. Logically, however, the two questions are independent. By focusing on the question of the redistribution, should not that the international debate is losing view the essential is to give a price on carbon.

Of course, a single instrument may not be sufficient to address all aspects of carbon emissions. Emission permits market led him also to a valuation of carbon and can be an alternative to a tax. However, the question of the initial distribution of permits is difficult, as well as that of compensation between developed economies and developing. It should be avoided that these questions occupy all the space of the discussion.