A tax will never be welcome, but it can be timely. The carbon tax that Singapore will levy on large polluters from 2019 is one such example. The tax comes against a backdrop of rising temperatures and increasingly erratic weather.
As Singapore marks its Year of Climate Action this year, its move to get ready for the roll-out of the carbon tax in 2019 shows how serious it is in tackling the global threat of climate change. Singapore’s introduction of a carbon tax is also in line with carbon pricing strategies adopted by other countries to reduce greenhouse gases.
About 67 countries and jurisdictions, including China, the European Union and Japan, have implemented or announced plans to implement carbon pricing schemes, which incentivise emitters to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and improve energy efficiency.
In Singapore, the carbon tax will initially be set at $5 per tonne of greenhouse gas emissions until 2023, although the plan is to increase this to between $10 and $15 per tonne of emissions by 2030.
This will be levied on the 30 to 40 companies responsible for the lion’s share of emissions here, but households will experience a knock-on effect – a 1% increase in total electricity and gas expenses on average, Finance Minister Mr Heng Swee Keat said.
The impact of the carbon tax will also be cushioned by the additional utilities rebates that eligible HDB households will get from 2019 to 2021. This gives consumers some time to form energy-saving habits or using more energy-efficient appliances.
The introduction of the carbon tax is a timely move which reminds both companies and individuals that it is time to get serious about saving energy.
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Source: The Straits Times, 20 February 2018