U.N. Official Floats Idea: Tax Oil "It would be...Unnoticed by Consumers"

From Reuters:

Investments of $750 billion could create a "Green New Deal" to revive the world economy and protect the environment, perhaps aided by a tax on oil, the head of the U.N. environment agency said on Thursday....

...Steiner also said that the world urgently needed funds to jump start a U.N. deal to fight global warming, due to be agreed in Copenhagen in December to succeed the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012.

He floated the possibility of taxing oil in rich nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to help a new pact become the cornerstone of a greener economy.

"If, for argument's sake, you were to put a five-year levy in OECD countries of $5 a barrel, you would generate $100 billion per annum. It translates into roughly 3 cents per liter," he said.

UNNOTICED

"It would be almost, if not totally, unnoticed by the consumer," he said, especially since oil prices have fallen from more than $140 a barrel at mid-2008 peaks to about $40....MORE