Chile follows Mexico and wants to tax carbon emissions

By Marcelo Teixeira

Chile's government wants to impose a tax on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from thermal power plants, the second major economy in Latin America to resort to environmental taxation to discourage the use of carbon-intensive fuels.

On Jan. 1, Mexico imposed a tax on several types of fossil fuels, including gasoline, averaging 3 dollars per tonne of CO2.

According to the proposal presented this week by Chile's President Michelle Bachelet, a center-left politician who returned to the helm of the country on March 11, Chile will charge thermal power generators $5 per tonne of . . .