Parking fees linked to emissions
BBC News reports today that Richmond (a London council) is planning to link the cost of parking permits to the emissions produced by the vehicle (full article). Now I can understand taxing people more for using “gaz-guzzling” vehicles via road tax and fuel tax from an environmental point of view, but I can’t really see the logic of linking parking charges to emissions as it has no relation to use. Someone who uses their 4×4 very occasionally could be generating less emissions than someone with a more environmentally vehicle who uses it everyday. This does sound like a bit of a money making scheme to me.
Tags: Environment
October 27th, 2006 at 4:32 pm
Whats the point of having a 4×4, or any car for that matter, if you only use it it but rarely…. might as well hire one for the odd ocassions.
October 27th, 2006 at 5:48 pm
Good point Richard. If I lived in somewhere like central London, or even one of the suburbs don’t think I’d have much need for a car either. If only I could convince IBM to either move Hursley nearer to where I live, or pay for me to live in Hursley village
October 29th, 2006 at 8:10 pm
I live in Central London (almost) and have sold my car. I didn’t sell it for environmental reasons, however; I sold it because the finances didn’t add up (using it less than once or twice a month, the effective cost of each journey when you take into account servicing, insurance and tax was massive). So, in my case, it could be argued that the environmentally correct thing to do coincided with the rational thing to do.
As you observe, the Richmond case is different…. the disconnect between the behaviour they’re trying to disincentivise and the means they’re using strikes me as being non-existent or, at best, tenuous.
Like you say, if we believe that emitting carbon imposes a negative externality on others, we should be seeking to force the “polluters” to internalise that externality by taxing them (at a rate, I should say, that covers the costs they are imposing on others… not at a punitive rate).
So, for cars, we already do that in spades (I read one analysis that taxation on petrol is double what a “pay for the cost of your carbon” tax would require.).
The only thing we possibly don’t accurately capture is the total lifetime carbon emissions (i.e. the carbon emitted during manufacture). The irony, of course, is that cars like the Prius have silly life-time carbon emissions so I’m not sure where that road leads!
October 30th, 2006 at 10:10 pm
You make some good points Richard. There are often cases when being environmentally friendly is better for the individual financially, e.g.:
- Turning appliances off rather than leaving them on standby > lower electricity bill
- Only boiling the water you need in your kettle > lower water bill and electrcity bill
- Not driving your car > lower running costs
But unfortunately there are also cases where the 2 do not coincide:
- Buying environmentally friendly goods is often more expensive (sometimes this is only a short term cost which will be recouped, e.g. energy efficient lightbulbs, clockwork radios, etc.)
- Recycling goods > often involves a trip to the recycling centre (may require transport costs)
- Using public transport > often not the cheapest way to travel
As you say we really need to charge for goods based on their total environmental impact. Someone better get working on the long calculations involved!
November 6th, 2006 at 12:13 am
“As you say we really need to charge for goods based on their total environmental impact. Someone better get working on the long calculations involved!”
As far as I know, they already have!
For example, the environmental “cost” of a tonne of CO2 is something between $5 and $80 depending on the assumptions (need to check… but the point is that it is far lower than many people imagine)
Most mainstream calculations suggest that a charge of (I think) about $20 or so per short haul flight would force passengers to suffer the cost of their emissions.
Sadly, tax on flights is already higher than this…. so the correct response would be to *lower* tax on aviation! (By a similar argument, fuel duty is also twice what it should be).
Of course, the discussion assumes the government spends the money so collected on amelioration activities, which they currently don’t.
Therefore, we should be pressuring government to stop wasting our money on frivolous activities and start using the tax they already collect on fixing the problems our emissions cause.
I guess a risk we run is that if environmental charges don’t correctly match the actual costs, people will make bad decisions (e.g. imagine if flights were taxed at $10,000 a pop….. people may be encouraged to drive on journeys where flying is more efficient, etc, etc)