Environmental Leader

Switzerland will introduce a tax – which it likes to refer to as an incentive – on carbon dioxide emissions from January 1, 2008, China Daily reports.

The tax will be applied to all imported fossil fuels, amounting to around $0.25 on each liter of heating oil and about $0.2 on a cubic meter of gas.

According to a deal agreed by the cabinet and parliament earlier this year, the CO2 tax becomes mandatory in 2008 since Switzerland failed to reach its own emissions reduction target for 2006.

The Swiss Petroleum Association doubts the government’s claim that the tax will reduce CO2 emissions by 700,000 tons a year, saying that sales of heating oil would actually increase over the coming months as buyers rush to fill their tanks before the tax comes into effect, Swissinfo reports.

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