Mr Pranab Mukherjee, the Indian Finance Minister, announced a new tax. It is a quite low amount, but it aims to change the energy economy of India, a country with a very big and constantly growing energy demand. The tax will in fact request to pay 50 rupee (more or less 1 US dollar) for each used or imported ton of carbon.

This is only one of the several measures listed in the ‘‘Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission’’, whose goal is to reach 20 GW of photolytic energy by 2020, and 100 GW by 2010. The starting point is quite low - currently just 3 MW are produced - but the Government planned several economic measures as well as some tax relieves that should incentive the use of renewable resources: no taxes for aeolian turbines and photolytic plants and discounts for solar plants.
The primary goal is to respect the voluntary objective of reducing the energy demand of 25% by 2020.

This tax is an important first measure to change the behaviour and to foster green energy. The New Delhi government financed this mission with 900 millions dollars, while the money collected through the carbon tax (they foresee 500 millions per year) will be devoted to research and development of renewable resources.