Bid to bring in €180 business class tax to pay for climate change

Air travellers may face a new tax to counteract climate change if two leading French economists get their way.

Air travel should be levied to pay for adaptations to climate change according to two French economists Image by fsse8info / CC BY-SA 2.0

They want levies imposed on business class tickets to the tune of €180, and €20 on economy class travel, to build up €150 billion towards adaptations required to battle the droughts, flooding and sea-level rises that will result from climate change.

Air tickets would be charged €180 for business class and €20 for economy class Image by Iwan Gabovitch / CC BY 2.0

Economists Thomas Piketty and Lucas Chancel have put forward such a proposal as a way of addressing the inequalities between the high-polluting areas and the victims, reports the Guardian.

Mr. Chancel told Climate Home that taxing flights was one way of focusing on high-emitting lifestyles, especially if the business class levy paid most of it.

He said that air ticket taxes were used to develop programmes in a number of countries and what they were suggesting was to increase and generalise it.