[Committee] Inquiry submission : Stern Review and tax policy

[Dr. Adrian Wrigley]

(copy to ZCS committee (who gets this?), Steve and Stephen)

Pablo,

 > I am a student at Churchill College, and a member of the committee of the
 > Cambridge Zero Carbon Society. I wanted to thank you very much for your work.
 > I have some personal contacts in the European Commission in Brussels and
 > could try to pass your work to the Commissioner for Economic and Monetary
 > Affairs, Mr Joaquin Almunia. This would be in an unofficial way, and it
 > might be quite fast, by e-mail. Of course this is entirely up to you and
 > I wanted to ask for your permission.

Thank you for your encouraging email.  I have spent quite a lot of time thinking
about general economic and environmental policy, discussing the issues with
Steve Stretton, Robin Smith (CRAG) and others.

Your link in the EC could be very valuable, but we need to think a bit about
objectives and strategy first.

I believe that Cambridge Zero Carbon Society should not simply be a "talking shop"
within the university, but to try be an advocacy group for greenhouse gas reduction ideas.
I know this may pose technical issues as a University supported society.
The society web site is a good place to start promotion of the ideas, but
actively contacting politicians, media and opinion formers would be
a natural approach for advocacy.

Perhaps a document could be written explaining how and why the European Union should
take action?  The Society could try to draw it to the attention of European Commissioners,
perhaps through your contacts.

I am advocating scrapping EU VAT, which is governed by European treaty (upper
and lower limits, for example).  The UK would be in breach of its obligations
to eliminate VAT unilaterally.  A revenue-neutral swap of VAT for Carbon Tax
would be a profound *but achievable* step.  The Union *must* take such substantive
action and is the correct level to pursue this.  Nobody is seriously considering
fixing the ETS (sell all permits at a fixed (high) price).  The EU needs to
find an politically acceptable way of phasing out the ETS, perhaps viewing it
as a way to move to a simpler, stabler tax system.

The Treasury Committee writes:
 > Submissions should be original work, not previously published or circulated
 > elsewhere. Once submitted, your submission becomes the property of the
 > Committee and no public use should be made of it unless you have first
 > obtained permission from the Clerk of the Committee. Please bear in mind
 > that Committees are not able to investigate individual cases.

The submission itself is not my property now! maybe you should ask
the Clerk of the Committee instead?  I don't mind if you do, but I don't think
it is urgent.  Maybe The Society should discuss strategy further?  If it
has already decided it can't send stuff to the EC, we could discuss how
we, as individuals can proceed?

Basically, my time and motivation to act as a one-person campaign group
is limited!  There is so much that can and should be done, but I'd like
some help!  If we're serious about effecting change, it shouldn't be
in an uncoordinated, ad-hoc manner.

Let me know what you think!
--
Dr. Adrian Wrigley, Cambridge, UK