Environmental Taxation in Portugal: A Contribution to Sustainability

Abstract

Environmental taxation represents a key tool in a country’s sustainable development strategy, being an important factor of conciliation between environmental protection and economic growth. As a result of high population growth, intense industrialization and fossil fuels’ overuse, the world deals with serious environmental problems, namely unacceptable values of greenhouse gas emissions and severe climate changes. Its mitigation and resolution depend on the adoption of a set of concrete measures and policies to combat pollution and promote deep changes in polluters’ behavior and, in this context, we highlight the key role of the environmental taxation policy. Some years after one of the most important reforms, this research proposes to analyze and interpret some of the main statistics on the environmental taxation in Portugal. The final aim is to provide policy makers with more information, allowing them to consolidate an efficient strategy regarding the promotion of a more sustainable development, through the application of an efficient environmental taxation.