Imposition or standard ?
A complex dilemma
1. The consequences of the taxation in terms
of profit
1.1 the problem of the regressive effects
1.2 the international coordination of the
environmental policy
2. The regulation
2.1 The practical advantages
2.2 The preserve effects
2.3 The Precautionary principle
3. The future Perspectives
3.1 Local or systemic point of view ?
3.2 The guidelines
3.3 Toward an important approach
It is true that the users have to bear , even it is
the only part ,
The consequences of an environmental Pigouvian
tax
We could affirm that in last
analysis the enterprises
manufacture the property
that the users require
Therefore ,
the users are somehow “responsible“
of the pollution that is taken place
In this way, the system shows to the
producers that to the users that the
property “costs“ in environmental terms
And therefore, it discourages partly the diffusion
Decreasing
Increasing
the profit of the first one
the price paid by the second
The problem is in the fact
that this discourages the
consumption from the poorest,
which has the price reference
to the possibility of acquisition
The environmental tax has
therefore a deteriorated effect !
And yet they would compensate the
individuals more affected from the tax using
activity that go in favor of the poorest
For example compensating it with a reduction of the
taxes on property of first necessity
An analogous discourse can be worth for the
enterprises more affected by
The environmental taxation
But the true and deep problem is
The international coordination
of the environmental imputes
A country that apply it suffer
unilaterally from her notable
losses of competitiveness
But the coordination will be very difficult
because every country will
try to leave the agreement
Temptation will be very
strong as more countries have intention of
agreement
But o the other hand
the level of the tax must differ
from country to another ,
according to the potential pollutant
of adopted technologies
And this opens ulterior space for interested
manipulations !
In the practice ,
despite their limits,
the based environmental standards
on the command and control
approach end up to be more
used by the environmental taxes
The motivations for the practical preference
of the command and control approach
Are:
small need of information
for a “ reasonable “ application
Possibility to fix some
standard in application of a
predetermined political objective
Great pleasure on political
and administrative level
For the enterprises the introduction of the
standards is more attractive because they
maintain great borders of negotiation with
The public authority
The standards can become a profit barrier to the
entry of ulterior enterprises in an industrial
sector !
However attractive
, the system of the standards ends
to ”grow lazy“
the enterprises and
to encourage it to
defend its recent situation
Rather than to take brave decisions of
investment, technological restructuring
and therefore in last analysis
of safeguarding some environmental
resources
It is always needed to accompany the
standards with incenti9ve measures in
which the entity of the profit is
proportional to the observance degree of
the environmental policy of the
enterprises
The greatest reasoning in favor of the
standards has least safety
If in fact it arrives near
to critical matters of pollution ,
discouraging the productive
activity through the taxation
could require levels of prohibitive
imposition
In the long period, the fixation of standard
can make easier the definition and the
verification of
objectives of sustainable development
The precautionary principle has sense
when it is in absence of knowledge
And / or certain proofs around the environmental
effects of determined polluting emissions

The precautional principle has sense
When it is opportune that the burden of the
proof around the environmental sustain of
determined emissions is asked the pollutant
rather than the pollutes
We pass potentially from the
logic of the damage
compensation to those
of the harmful action verification
The future perspective of the polluting
emissions regulation focalize on the following
themes:



More precise standards of environmental
quality
Reduction of the physical risks related to the
pollution
Containment of the control pollution costs
In very case we need to understand that a
“sector “ approach focused on an only
source of pollution and / or an only natural
environment is not able to give
disappointing results
The environmental effects
of the polluting emission
are typically systematic
On the other hand,
a comprehensive approach that pretends
to hold potentially all
the remarkable information
results to be non reliable
As usual it is necessary to reach a perfect
compromise!
From the international
coordination point of view,
the force is to reach
the standard environmental least uniforms
Or varying
according to defined criterions
that keep track of differences
between the situations
of the varied countries
The principles that are emerging from the theories are
the followings:
Beside the already known principle of
“Who pollutes pay“ (PIP)
And to the precautionary principle, we
have:

The principle of the efficiency /
economic effectiveness of the standards
The principle of subsidiaries , that
decentralizes the management of the
environmental problem up to the
administrative level (more local)
possible
The principle of the legal efficiency, that
underlines the criterion of the legislative
provisions applicability
The definition of the standards must center
on an evaluation of the
Consequences
in terms of the environmental quality and
comfort of the polluting emissions more
than the definition of the admissible
technological options
Even if naturally it is more easy
to prescribe to the enterprises
to do something rather than to
obtain a determined result