Earth Notes: General Bibliography (rosenow2023clean)

• [rosenow2023clean] Jan Rosenow and Sam Thomas and Duncan Gibb and Ruben Baetens and Andries De Brouwer et al. Clean heating: Reforming taxes and levies on heating fuels in Europe, 2023, Energy Policy, volume 173, ISSN 0301-4215, doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2022.113367, article/pages 113367 (article) (BibTeX).
  keywords

  Heating, Taxation, Levies, Total cost of ownership, Heat pumps, Fossil fuels
  abstract

  How much tax should governments add to the prices of the energy that we consume? This question has come sharply into focus, as the reality of the need to decarbonise the buildings sector has become more urgent. Adding taxes and levies to energy prices encourages energy efficiency and raises revenues for governments, which can be dedicated to energy transition projects. But adding them disproportionately to electricity discourages us from investing in electrically powered heat pumps, a key technology in the buildings sector decarbonisation jigsaw. This paper shines a light on the imbalance in energy taxation across almost all European markets and makes the case for reform. We find that environmental costs are rarely well reflected in energy prices; and that the costs of energy transition programmes — and occasionally broader social policies — are overwhelmingly borne by electricity consumers. In this paper we explain the current structure of energy taxes and levies in five key European countries where reform would be beneficial, and set out four ways to rebalance energy taxes and levies, drawing on examples from around the continent.
  note

  [Quote: "In all our five focus countries [UK, DE, ES, BE, IT], taxes on fossil gas, heating oil and biomass are significantly lower than the cost of the environmental damage they cause. Polluters are not paying. Meanwhile, electricity consumers are burdened with national tax rates that are double or more than triple their environmental damage costs, while also paying a carbon price through the EU (and UK) ETSs," and "Heating with electricity is often used in poorer households, as evidence from the UK [] and Austria [] shows. Reducing levies and taxes on electricity would help with energy poverty in that segment. However, the majority of low-income households heat with fossil fuels and more often live in poorly insulated homes, unable to keep warm."]