Welcome to European Tribune. It's gone a bit quiet around here these days, but it's still going.
Display:
High oil prices? Tax cars & jet fuel! | 67 comments (67 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)
Re: High oil prices? Tax cars jet fuel! (4.00 / 2)
maybe the kerosene tax, but EU wide harmonisation of gas taxes?

I presume you meant car, not gas taxes. I think the opposite: as Tiefensee himself suggests, the idiots won't move on kerosene tax if there is no global move; an EU-wide car tax harmonisation is then more likely.

A gas guzzler driven 25 km a week emits much much less CO2 than a more reasonable car driven 500 km a week.

So what? If you only want to drive 25 km a week, driving a Smart still means less CO2 emissions than driving a H2. These are separate issues. Both fuel taxes targeting absolute emissions and car taxes targeting specific emissions will work towards reduced consumption, and thus I support both.

Just recently I read, that a representative of the German real estate business said, oil prices are not yet high enough that it would be a good investment to reinsulate older houses.

Nice anecdote. However, I recall Germany is a leading country in building insulation, and there were a number of programmes. (I'm now off to watch something on telly, but will look up some sources later tonight.)

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Thu May 29th, 2008 at 03:14:30 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: High oil prices? Tax cars jet fuel! (4.00 / 4)
I didn't have to look for long.

German construction code involves prescriptions on heat insulation since 1978, strengthened successively. In addition, there have been and are subsidies for building renovation, aimed at the 73% of the 17.3 million homes in Germany that were built before. Between 1990 and 2005, despite continuing single family homes expansion especially in the East, these measures led to an overall 13% reduction of CO2 emissions from [heating] homes.

The current program for building insulation is the CO2-Gebäudesanierungsprogramm of the KfW ( = CO2 building renovation program of the Credit Institute for Reconstruction [<-post-WWII origins]). It was started by the Schröder government in 2001, but enhanced in 2006 and 2007. In fact, the responsible ministry is Tiefensee's.

The program isd primarily aimed at homeowners. Budget is presently over a billion annually.  In 2006, €1.5 billion of credit subventions went into credits of €9.6 billion in credits and €11 billion in investments to renovate 265,000 homes. (If you do the calculation, at this rate, it would take half a century to finish with pre-1978 homes. Faster would be better, but already this is respetable; I wonder what other country has something better.)

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Thu May 29th, 2008 at 04:39:29 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: High oil prices? Tax cars jet fuel! (none / 0)
€1.5 billion of credit subventions went into credits of €9.6 billion in credits and €11 billion in investments

...credit subventions went into expenditures of...

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Fri May 30th, 2008 at 01:36:29 AM EST
[ Parent ]

High oil prices? Tax cars & jet fuel! | 67 comments (67 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
Display: