Sustainable development and the need to reform the carbon tax

• Published date: 01 December 2022
• Author: Maurizio Bragagni,Lorenc Xhaferraj,Irene Mazza,Giuseppe Concetti
• Date: 01 December 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2787

PRACTITIONER PAPER

Sustainable development and the need to reform the

carbon tax

Maurizio Bragagni

1,2,3

| Lorenc Xhaferraj

3

| Irene Mazza

3

| Giuseppe Concetti

3

1

Bayes Business School, City University of

London, London, UK

2

Tratos UK Ltd, London, UK

3

Esharelife Think Tank, Esharelife Foundation,

London, UK

Correspondence

Lorenc Xhaferraj, Esharelife Think Tank,

Esharelife Foundation, Baird House,15-17

Saint Cross St, Farringdon, London EC1N

8UW, UK.

Email: lorenc.xhaferraj@esharelife.org

The COVID-19 pandemic has raised awareness of the urgency of reforming our

economy to achieve a global recovery. This endeavour will require the implementa-

tion of various strategies aiming for a system reset, at the core of which is the sus-

tainable recovery model. In 2009, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed

22 April as International Mother Earth Day. It was a brave act of acknowledgement

that the Earth and its ecosystems are our typical home. At the same time, it is a tangi-

ble expression of the global conviction that humankind must be in Harmony with

Nature to achieve a just balance among the economic, social and environmental

needs of present and future generations. While the global community is actively

searching for new ways to achieve sustainable development, resolved to perform an

economic system reset, determined to a green recovery, why don't we try to reform

the taxing system? A right taxation system could help recover quickly and achieve a

green recovery of the global economy. While everyone has to pay tax, the truth is

that some more prominent companies go to extreme measures to minimise their con-

tribution where they are based and where they sell. The new thinking that this article

puts forward is that instead of taxing the companies for what they produce and sell,

we should tally the amount of CO

2

a company emits while making the goods and

recycling them to tax them accordingly.

KEYWORDS

climate change, CO

2

tax, COVID-19, green recovery, sustainable development, UN Global

Goals

Our biggest challenge in this new century is to take an

idea that seems abstract –sustainable development –

and turn it into a reality for all the world's people.

Kofi Annan

1|SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

In 2009, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 22 April as

International Mother Earth Day. It was a brave act of acknowledge-

ment that the Earth and its ecosystems are our typical home. At the

same time, it is a tangible expression of the global conviction that

humankind must be in Harmony with Nature to achieve a just balance

among the economic, social and environmental needs of present and

future generations. There are many definitions of sustainable develop-

ment, which is relatively a new trend. The most frequently quoted

purpose is from the Brundtland Report: Sustainable development is a

development that meets the needs of the present without

compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own

needs (Brundtland, 1987). Sustainable development has become a

shared journey that the international community and each of human

beings need to consider when decoupling the economic growth from

the rest of two pillars; environmental and social –also known infor-

mally as profits, planet, and people (Investopedia, 2021). Arguably,Irene Mazza and Giuseppe Concetti contributed to some part of this work.

Received: 8 April 2021 Accepted: 9 October 2021

DOI: 10.1002/pa.2787

J Public Affairs. 2022;22(Suppl. 1):e2787. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa © 2022 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 1of9

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2787