A gas leak it is obviously very embarrassing

A gas leak, it is obviously very embarrassing. It is likely to blow up the House. And as the gas has no smell, it adds to the mercaptan which smells very bad. Carbon leakage, it is also very annoying. It is likely to blow up the company. And yet, it did nothing to make it easy to detect. His only Harbinger is the cry of despair of industrialists. But, as they are on anything, they are more very audible.

When it supports on a balloon of helium on the one hand, the air inflates the other side. Carbon leakage, it is worse. When a country takes steps to reduce its CO2 emissions, suspected of contributing to climate change, it may increase emissions elsewhere. Even increase more elsewhere that it does to reduce home, because measures grow its industrial to close their factories in the country to produce under other skies, with often more polluting machines. Or to entrust production to suppliers who have what rich scruples. Even in a heavy industry such as cement, considering to relocate production! In an article published last month on the VoxEU site, two economists from the University of Stuttgart, Rahel Aichele and Gabriel Felbermayr, show that the mechanism also plays at the macroeconomic level. The countries that have ratified the Kyoto Protocol and its anticarbone devices have reduced their emissions, but they import more products that caused emissions of carbon elsewhere.

To avoid this risk, the carbon tax passed by the French Parliament last October exempted large swathes of the industry, already subject to emission allowances. But the Constitutional Council it was retoquée in December, precisely for this reason. And the Government has abandoned him last week. Many policies which had harshly criticized the project have reviled his abandonment. Industrialists have shown more consistency in welcoming. Yet, the carbon tax is a good tool for two reasons. First, it habituerait to the idea that the energy will become more expensive. Then, it would put a price on pollution to discourage. According to economists, it is a way "to internalize externalities.

Wanting to move forward without fuiter, Nicolas Sarkozy proposed a runway last week: "I makes the creation of a domestic carbon tax a tax at the borders." In a perfect world, this tax would be perfectly useless. The world would be to tax carbon at the same rate. But, since the Copenhagen Summit, it is no longer possible to believe them. The solution is therefore "non-cooperative". On paper, it is simple. Carbon tax France and tax equivalent to import products manufactured abroad, based on the carbon they incorporate. The World Trade Organization issued last June a report not rejecting the idea. The US Congress voted in principle. But the application is like an obstacle course. One: the France must convince 26 countries - because such a measure should be European. The economy Minister Christine Lagarde's believe that it is possible, but it remains to prove. Two: need to make a strong instrument to assess the carbon emitted by the manufacturing of an imported product. Hello the gas plant! Three: the tax may be "captured" by the European industry which would be a protectionist tool to protect them from foreign competition. Four: the able send emerging countries, which already screamed on the issue. According to some calculations, it could for example add Chinese and 20 Indian products.

There is another solution, that recalls Aichele and Flelbelmayr. It is to tax carbon not to production but to consumption. Half a century ago, the France had created the tax to the added value (VAT) it was then exported in dozens of countries. It could renew this glow coup by creating a tax to the added carbon (TCA). Remains just to set the carbon cost of each car, each box of pins of each pair of socks. The future belongs to the certifiers!