Matthew Elliott, Tax Payers' Alliance

All three major parties are publicly committed to shifting taxation towards green taxes. They bill this as a move from taxing ‘goods’ to taxing ‘bads’; a move from taxing ‘families and businesses’ to taxing pollution. The truth, of course, is that carbon dioxide doesn’t pay taxes.

These taxes are not a benign alternative to other taxes. They have particular costs of their own, which any politician considering a big increase in them should be aware of.

Green taxes are often unfair in two ways. They are unfair in that they single out particular groups like those outside urban areas who cannot rely on public transport or manufacturing firms that are already struggling and cannot easily avoid using substantial quantities of energy. They are also regressive as the poor spend more on motor fuel and electricity than the rich.

Many green taxes hurt our economic competitiveness. Lots of other countries do not levy green taxes at all and few have set them as high as Britain. This means that our businesses will suffer if they need to compete with businesses in other countries and they depend on affordable energy or transport.

Green taxes are also massively inefficient. Even the government’s own regulatory impact assessment, a measure known to yield unrealistically low numbers, puts the cost of implementing the EU’s emissions trading scheme at more than £60m.

According to climate economist Richard Tol, air passenger duty may actually increase emissions as it reduces the difference in price between shorter and longer journeys within its short and long-haul bands.

All these serious costs have to be balanced against a compelling environmental rationale for higher green taxes to make sense. But our research suggests that green taxes in the UK are £10bn ­ equivalent to £400 per household ­ above the level that the scientific analysis of groups and academics like William Nordhaus ­ described by The Economist as the ‘father of climat e-change economics’­ suggests is needed to account for the UK’s carbon footprint. This means that the externality that these taxes were supposed to correct has already been corrected. There is no serious economic rationale for big net increases in green taxes.

We are already straining under an excessive burden of green taxation. Further increases will have serious economic and social costs. If government wants to curb greenhouse gas emissions, it should find another way.

Matthew Elliott is chief executive of The Taxpayers’ Alliance