The United Nations Counteracting Climate Change: Shifting from Wider to Narrow Angle -
The Role of UN Tax (Sub) Committee on Environmental Taxation
Keywords:
Environmental taxes, Carbon taxation, UN Tax Subcommittee, Ecotax, CBAMS, carbon credit offsetsAbstract
The article aspires to capture the United Nations (UN) descend from the highlands of international cooperation frameworks on climate change to ploughlands of actual handholding and enabling developing countries to formulate policies to price carbon and other negative externalities through the mechanism of environmental taxation. It starts off with a broader overview of the UN’s pandering towards stitching together and adoption of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the subsequent commitments by the comity of nations that flowed therefrom – Kyoto Protocol 1997, Paris Agreement 2015, and Glasgow Pact 2021. The article then narrows down its focus to the UN’s preference for carbon pricing and environmental taxes towards fighting climate change in developing countries by optimizing the pre-existing structure of the UN Tax Committee. The extensive appraisal of the UN Tax (Sub) Committee on Environmental Taxes 2017-21, and 2021-25 and their work are undertaken as the main thrust of the article. The scarlet thread of the article is that it is an extremely important initiative in that it heralds a definite shift in UN’s approach to environmental degradation, and if leveraged adequately, it can have significant impact on the international community’s efforts towards fighting carbonization and abating climate change.
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Thus far 28 Conferences of Parties (COPs) have been held, namely; COP1, Berlin, Germany, 1995; COP2, Geneva, Switzerland, 1996; COP3, Kyoto, Japan, 1997; COP4, Buenos Aires, 1998; COP5, Bonn, Germany, 1999; COP6, Hague, Nether lands, 2000; COP6, Bonn, Germany, 2001; COP7, Marrakech, Morocco, 2001; COP8, New Delhi, India, 2002; COP9, Milan, Italy, 2003; COP10, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2004; COP11, Montreal, Canada, 2005; COP12, Nairobi, Kenya, 2006; COP13, Bali, Indonesia, 2007; COP14, Poznan, Poland, 2008; COP13, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2009; COP16, Cancun, 2010; COP16, Durban, South Africa, 2011; COP17, Doha, Qatar, 2012; COP17, Durban, South Africa, 2011; COP13, Warsaw, Poland, 2013; COP20, Lima, Peru, 2014; COP21, Paris, France, 2015; COP22, Marrakech, Morroco, 2016; COP23 Bonn, Germany, 2017; COP24 Katowice, Poland, 2018; SB50 Bonn, Germany, 2019; COP25 Madrid, Spain, 2019; COP26 Glasgow, UK, 2021; & COP27 Sharm-ul-Sheikh, Egypt, 2022. iii. The SC consisted of (i) Susanne Akerfeldt; (ii) Stefan Agne; (iii) Robin Damberger; (iv) Jorge Antonio Deher Rachid; (v) Alvaro de Juan Ledesma; (vi) Tatiana Falcao; (vii) Dang Ngoc Minh; (vii) Maria Amparo Grau Ruiz; (viii) Sverker C. Jagers; (ix) Gregory Leshchuk; (x) Eike Meyer; (xi) Christopher Morgan; (xii) Gabriela Mundaca; (xiii) Marlene Patricia Nembhard -Parker; (xiv) Rodrigo Pizarro; (xv) Carlos E. Proto; (xvi) Aart Roelofsen; (xvii) Karl -Andres Stigzelius; (xviii) Anna Theeuwes; (xix) Kurt Van Dender; & (xx) Ingela Willfors. iv. The experts who contributed to the deliberations, drafting, or review of the SET's work included (a) Niklas Harring; (b) Simon Matti; (c) Christian De Perthius; (d) Dhruv Sanghvi; & (e) Attiya Waris. v. The SC held six meetings: (a) in March 2018 at Brussels-hosted by the European Commission; (b) in January 2019 at Paris-hosted by the International Chamber of Commerce; (c) in August 2019 at Brussels-hosted by the European Economic & Social Committee; (iv) in February 2020 at Paris - hosted by UNESCO; (d) in September 2020-virtually; & (e) in January-February 2021-virtually. vi. The Handbook chapters are: Chapter 1: Introduction to the Handbook on Carbon Taxation for Developing Countries; Chapter 2: An Introduction for Policymakers; Chapter 3: How to Ge nerate Public Acceptability for Carbon Taxes; Chapter 4: General Issues in Designing a Carbon Tax; Chapter 5: Setting the Tax Rate; Chapter 6: Carbon Tax Design Approaches in Practice; Chapter 7: Addressing Undesired Effects on Households and Firms; Chapte r 8: From Design to Administration: Practical Application of a Carbon Tax; Chapter 9: Revenue Use; & Chapter 10: Interactions Between the Carbon Tax and Other Instruments. vii. The current Subcommittees are: (i) UN Model Tax Convention between Developed & Developing Countries; (ii) Transfer Pricing; (iii) Update of the UN Manual for the Negotiation of Bilateral Tax Treaties Between Developed & Developing Countries; (iv) Environmental Taxation Issues; (v) Relationship Between Tax, Trade, and Investment Treaties; (vi) Taxation of the Digitalized and Globalized Economy; (vii) Increasing Tax Transparency; (viii) Wealth and Solidarity Taxes; (ix) Health Taxes; (x) indirect Taxation; (xi) Extractive Industries. viii. The Working Group formed are (a) Dispu te Avoidance and Resolution; (b) Taxation and Coronavirus Disease (Covid-19); (c) Digitalization and Improvement of Tax Administration; & (d) Procedural Issues for the Committee. ix. The SET's Participation was expanded to include (i) Kurt Van Dender; (ii) Tatiana Falcao; (iii) Sharlin Hemraj; (iv) Angela Naneu Churie Kallhauge; (v) Lena Hiort af Omas Leijon; (vi) Eike Meyer; (vii) Christopher Morgan; (viii) Hira Nazir; (ix) Egwuatu Ifeanyi Obiora; (x) Emmanuel Podaire; (xi) Jim Robertson; (xii) Maria Amparo Grau Ruiz; (xiii) Abid Qaiyum Suleri; (xiv) Anna Theeuwes; & (xv) Stefan Weishaar. x. The members of the Workstream are (i) Christopher Morgan; (ii) Stefan Weishaar: (iii) Ezera Madzivanyika; (iv) Lena Hiort af Omas Leijon; (v) Tatiana Falcao; (vi ) Ifeanyi Egwuatu; (vii) Sharlin Hemraj; (viii) Anna Theeuwes; (ix) Abid Suleri. xi. The members of the Workstream are (i) Jim Robertson; (ii) Christopher Morgan; (iii) Sameera Khan; (iv) Anna Theeuwes; & (v) Stefan Weishaar. xii. The members of the Workstream are (i) Amparo Grau; (ii) Ezera Madziyanyika; (iii) Tatiana Falcao; (iv) Anna Theeuwes; & (v) Angela Churie Kallhauge. xiii. The members of the Workstream are (i) Janet Milne; (ii) Christorpher Morgan; (iii) Stefan Weishaar; (iv) Kurt Van Dender; (v) Tatiana Falcao; (vi) Elke Meyer; (vii) Anna Theeuwes; (viii) Emmanuel Christopher Podaire; (ix) Hira Nazir. xiv. What is carbon leakage? A country can control its CO2 emissions through (a) regulations; and (b) car
