Moderates want higher diesel prices

The government has so far been sceptical about increasing diesel tax, but now one of the governing parties – the Moderates – is opening the way for this to happen. “We cannot avoid looking at the transport sector, including diesel tax, if the climate goals are to be achieved,” says Moderate Party chairman Lars Løkke Rasmussen. “We need to achieve the goals we have set. We want to be the guarantor of reaching the 2025 target, where there is no professional doubt that the goals will be achieved.” The announcement is the first time that one of the parties in the SVM government has opened up for a higher diesel tax. The government’s climate minister, Lars Aagaard, is from the Moderates.
     The Danish Council on Climate Change has recommended a diesel tax as a more effective and cheaper tool for achieving the 2025 climate goals than the incorporation requirement announced by the government. Løkke was asked whether he has clarified the move with the other parties in the coalition government. “That’s the signal we’re sending as a political party, and it’s not the government that’s sending that signal,” he said. In the spring, the government presented the incorporation requirement, which will ensure that more biofuel is added to the country’s petrol and diesel cars. /ritzau/