France Scraps Plans for Carbon Tax

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has scrapped that country’s plans for a tax on carbon emissions, three days after his ruling party was defeated in local elections, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.

Prime Minister Francois Fillon said that any carbon tax should be imposed throughout the European Union in order to be effective, Bloomberg reported.

The measure, originally set to take effect in July, would have raised 1.5 billion euros, or about $2 billion, per year, the French Budget Ministry estimated in December.

A business lobby had campaigned against the plan, and Labor Minister Eric Woerth said voters rejected it in part because it “involves jobs,” Bloomberg reported.

A first version of the carbon tax was rejected in December by France’s constitutional court, which ruled that the tax penalized households too heavily and excluded many industrial polluters.

The EU already imposes carbon-dioxide emission quotas on the region’s largest utilities and factories, and requires those exceeding their limits to buy credits, Bloomberg reported.