Es gibt seit langem einen Rahmen, um Autos mit höherem CO2-Ausstoß durch Kfz-Steuern zu bestrafen.
Dies war kürzlich in Genf der Fall (https://www.bluewin.ch/en/news/motor-vehicle-tax-in-geneva-causes-frowns-and-anger-2452758.html) und es ist auch der Ansatz, den Waadt verfolgt. Das Prinzip besteht darin, dass Ihre Kfz-Steuer erhöht wird, wenn der nominelle CO2-Ausstoß Ihres Autos einen bestimmten Grenzwert überschreitet.
Ich glaube, dass dies im besten Fall nur ein Zeichen der Tugend ist und im schlimmsten Fall eine Stimmenausbeutung. Es berücksichtigt überhaupt nicht die _tatsächlichen_ Emissionen des Autos.
Mein früherer Chef – zum Beispiel – hatte einen BMW Teslas zahlten auch nur sehr wenig Kfz-Steuer, obwohl sie bei der Produktion viel CO2 erzeugten (ich habe eine).
Meiner Meinung nach besteht eine bessere Möglichkeit zur Besteuerung darin, wirklich an der Emissionsquelle anzusetzen: der Kraftstoffpumpe. Besteuern Sie es so, dass ein höherer Verbrauch, der mehr CO2 erzeugt, dann zu höheren Kosten für die Person führt. Normalerweise höre ich Widersprüche darüber, dass Unternehmen als Konsequenz ihre Preise erhöhen müssen, aber das ist der Preis, den man für eine wirksame CO2-Politik zahlen muss. Wenn Ihr Unternehmen mehr CO2 erzeugt, zahlen Sie mehr – so einfach ist das. Es liegt dann an Ihnen, die Kosten auf den Verbraucher abzuwälzen, der dann – endlich – eine fundierte Entscheidung treffen muss.
Ebenso sollte Beton auf die gleiche Weise besteuert werden, da dies ein Land ist, in dem Menschen einwandfreie Häuser aus den 80er-Jahren abreißen, um neue zu bauen, ohne sich um die Umweltkosten zu kümmern (1 Tonne Beton = 1 Tonne CO2, und für diejenigen, die es nicht wissen Holcim hat seit 1950 0,42 % des gesamten globalen CO2 erzeugt).
Die zusätzlichen Steuereinnahmen können dann zur Finanzierung von Zuschüssen für kostenlose ÖPNV-Fahrräder, Fahrräder, CO2-Abscheidung oder andere Möglichkeiten zur tatsächlichen Reduzierung der CO2-Emissionen verwendet werden.
Haftungsausschluss: Ich bin kein Unterstützer einer Umweltpartei, aber es irritiert mich, so viel Greenwashing und ineffektive Richtlinien zu sehen.
The current CO2 malus approach to road tax is hypocritical
byu/love_weird_questions inSwitzerland
Von love_weird_questions
14 Kommentare
Porque no los dos?
Perfectly good house from the 80’s is a really funny thing to say when you see how inefficient most of our buildings are.
But still, if you look at statistics:
https://www.bafu.admin.ch/bafu/en/home/topics/climate/state/data/greenhouse-gas-inventory.html
You can see that ⅓ of our greenhouse gas emissions are from the transport industry and that part has been growing over the years especially as we’ve renovated our buildings from a period where resistance heaters and burning more oil was the way to go through a harsher winter than what we have now.
Additionally cars are a major source of additional pollutions like:
– noise
– microplastics (the main source of them is car tyre dust, something electric car contribute more)
– landscape
– additional pollutant like ozone, NOx and micro particles.
Holcin is present across the globe the fact it’s based in Switzerland doesn’t means we are the one to blame for their emissions.
Also carbon capture is a pipe dream of the oil industry as it allows them to ignore their damage claiming it can just be caught and buried. The most efficient way to not have CO2 in the atmosphere is to not put it in the first place.
>In my opinion a better way to tax is to really go at the emission source: the fuel pump. Tax it in a way that higher usage, which generates higher CO2, will then result in a higher cost for the person.
In an ideal way of rational, well-informed people, that would work. When choosing a car, people might factor the few cents difference in tax at the fuel pump (in addition to the increased cost for fuel itself) as less than the road tax difference.
If we assume a free market as in „economics 101“ (hard to translate university modules to English), then you’re absolutely right. But people are… well, a little stupid. I cannot tell you that the current solution is the ideal one. Fuel and energy saving incentives are much older than the CO2 debate. There’s probably historical data on what makes people use less energy and what doesn’t even if it rationally *should*.
It is absolutely perfect for a radical chic place like Geneva: you pay less if you have a 200k Porsche Cayman Plug In Hybrid than if you have a 2012 VW Polo.
The law has been proposed by the same people who have decided to install gravel all around the new CEVA train stations in Geneva – making it very uncomfortable for anyone with a trolley to roam around the station. Its a small think but it never does NOT make me laugh because I imagine politicians who legiferate for the masses from the interior of their Bentleys. Quintessential Swiss and quintessential Genevan.
I tried to argue about this in r/geneva in the past and there were people genuinely defending the system and thinking it’s fair.
The way I see it people are on average simply too dumb to understand what’s science-based regarding climate change. After all, the average person thinks GMOs and Nuclear power should be banned when they are two of the most powerful technologies we have to actually flight climate change. People simply like to believe that buying a hybrid car and chewing on paper straws saves the environment. Let them.
Road tax connected to co2 is so bad. Why the 10y old micra with small petrol engine has to pay way more tax than the tesla Y? In GR it would be 90 vs 390.-
Tesla is nearly 2x heavier and will cause more use of road than light micra. On top of that we can discuss emission during driving and for whole life of product.. But road tax should be to cover maintenance of roads, where we „don’t care“ about emision of CO2, just how much you use road. Fine to put the another ecological tax to the price of new car, based on how it will load the environment to produce it. And keep some in fuel, to cover the CO2 emission from that fuel.
The whole road tax concept in Switzerland is utterly bizarre, since it’s different in every canton. In Basel I paid almost nothing for a Tesla, whereas now, in Aargau, I pay for it more than for a 2.5 tonne Diesel camper van. Bonkers.
IMHO it should be aligned across the country and based on both emissions and the weight of the car (my Tesla may not emit anything, but it’s still a heavy car putting a strain on the roads and using up tires faster).
Charging more at the fuel pumps could potentially work in central Switzerland, but around the borders most people would just start filling up their cars in neighboring countries.
Yes and the fuel tax should also account for space needed (parking, roads) and all other negative externalities. But that would require an alternate political universe…
There are many conceptual ways to structure an externality-internalization tax (thats what a CO2 tax is). All are reasonable and can be defended based on principles, so they aren’t inherently right or wrong, it all depends on your underlying principles:
**1) Equal, but unfair**: everyone pays the same on a per-usage basis, regardless of how much they use or how rich they are;
**2) Fair, but unequal**: this is the principle of „equal pain for all“ – $1/ton(CO2) (arbitrary number for example) hurts a poor person far more than a rich person, so the rich person should suffer the „same pain“ as the poor person (this is the reason why we have progressive taxes);
**3) Essential quota plus charge**: everyone gets a certain „free“ allocation of the resource, and extra usage is taxed (and the taxation can be (1) or (2);
Keep in mind that the objective of an externality-internalization tax (thats what a CO2 tax is) is to reduce overall usage by making those performing the economic activity to pay for the actual full costs of it. So a flat fee tax, for example, won’t work.
The issue is that you can’t apply any of the three options to fuel consumption directly, because you can’t track it as it is. So engine size is used as a proxy instead of actual emissions, as cars with bigger engines tend to emit far more CO2. Naturally, it isn’t a perfect measure in any way, because it doesn’t take into account how much is actually driven and so on.
But, to be honest, cry me a fucking river while I play the world’s tiniest violin. Cars don’t get taxed nearly enough to account for their damage to society and the environment.
And yes, we should also tax Holcim, but not exactly directly. IMHO carbon taxes should be applied similarly to a VAT tax, carried along the value chain all the way to the final utilization.
Yet another person who thinks taxing the middle class for basics like housing and transportation is the way to go, while the rich just use their private jets fueled by tax-free kerosene, and even if the cost went up they don’t care because for them it literally doesn’t matter, its such a small portion of their income/wealth.
I guess we should all just walk everywhere and live in 1 bedroom apartments from the 50s.
Just sick of the Green solution to everything being to funnel more money to the State.
Why not tax new cars more like many other countries do. Many people forget that the most environmentally friendly car is the one that already exists. We should takle that overconsumerism in cars with high taxes on leasing and high taxes on new (luxury) vehicles. And lower taxes the older cars gets to incentivize the people to keep their car longer.
Firstly: every canton does it’s road tax calculation differently and on a different basis.
Some may include emission, others vehicle weight (which makes sense because the road tax is mainly meant for the upkeep of the roads), and some other the generated power…. And some any mix of those criteria.
For example in Schaffhausen road tax is solely determined by engine size, vehicle weight and generated power aswell as emissions are ignored.
So a tesla pays very little while an older car would pay more.
We already pay for CO2 at the gas pump, importers for example pay chf 120 per tonne of fuel, which is the highest in all of europe.
For work I’m working with one of the biggest owners of real estate in Switzerland on the decarbonization of their portfolio.
No one on their right mind would tear down a building from the 80s to build new one as long as the old one is still structurally sound building new more expensive. The regulations for new buildings along with benefits for switching to more sustainable fuel sources especially with current prices make investing into new insulation, heat pumps, PV etc. A worthwhile thing to do.
Of course there were some that got torn down, but we’re talking about buildings from the 40s to 50s
Ok let’s go through this and I will do this anecdotally.
I bought in 2019 a Mercedes Class X, which is a pickup. As this car was in France in 2019 the malus was not as bad. Fast forward to 2023 and the malus in France was quite bad. We were thinking of moving to Portugal, or even back to Switzerland. To import an EU car into Portugal would have cost 35,000. To import it into Switzerland would be a „bargain“ at 15,000. We decided to sell it and buy the PHEV GLC which has 10 grams. Yes I could drive the car without recharging it, but that would be stupid. So I recharged it and actually liked it. Then 2 months later bought a Tesla, and just one month ago traded it all in and bought an EQE.
If you look at oil prices with all of the craziness going on oil is not going higher. They are struggling to keep it that high. China has hit peak oil consumption. You should look at the clear day calendar of Beijing.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2Hc7ODyDVM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2Hc7ODyDVM)
China went very aggressive in fixing their air quality problem, and it included electric vehicles and PHEV’s.
It worked! No ands, ifs, or buts. It worked. While the EU is not as draconian as China, it does show you need to use stick to get change.
I btw completely agree with the malus and would never want an ICE again.
WRT to paying at the fuel pump, that is already happen with CO2 certificates.
Actual emissions for each individual is practically impossible, for example you cannot prevent people from charging their electric car with a diesel generator either. There’s always a generalization, there are also people who drive their hybrid on electricity 90% of the time, they will complain they’re paying too much tax vs BEVs. There are people who drive a lot, there are people who drive little, road tax is the same for both. There’s always some form or generalization involved in this stuff, in the end the goal of these taxes is to decrease emissions for Switzerland as a whole.
Taxing petrol is already done, but can’t go too high since it’s easily avoided by filling up over the border.
Taxes are not intended for shepherding the collective behavior of a society, it is a mean to generate revenue stream for the government. In the worst case it should account a tiny portion of the measures shaping the attitude of a society.