Carbon tax, the come back, at what conditions? Sciences Po OFCE Working Paper no. 06/2019

The prospect of a resumption of the rise in French carbon taxation, suspended by the government in December 2018, has re-appeared during the 'great national debate' with several proposals aiming at improving the existing system being put forward in the public debate to target the social shortcomings of the existing system. We propose in this article a new carbon tax for France, that we label 'anti-energy poverty climate contribution', which we develop within its ecological, social, legal and political framework. In the light of the three successive failures of 2001, 2010 and 2018, we begin by formulating four criteria for the success of a carbon tax: its ecological efficiency, its social justice, its legal conformity and finally its political acceptability. We then detail for each criterion the modalities we are considering to ensure the success of our proposal. Responding in particular to the demands of social justice and fiscal equity of the movement of the 'yellow vests', the carbon tax that we propose would allow 50% of French households to receive more than they pay, the additional revenues raised being used to considerably mitigate the fuel poverty affecting millions of people in France. (authors)