Morality is something on which no-one has a monopoly but if one thing is certain it is that politics and morality always mix less well than oil and water.

Thus in Britain there has recently been a political row about whether a donation to Labour party political funds influenced a government decision to seek exemption, for Formula 1 racing, from a proposed EC ban on advertising sponsorship from tobacco companies. The row exemplifies the sort of difficulties which can arise, at any level, when seeking to arrive at policies agreeable by parties with conflicting interests and certainly when accepting sponsorship from parties with vested interests. So in the same way that OPEC nations, the motor industry and the fossil fuel lobby frustrated international agreement on transport at Earth Summit II - despite the increasingly recognised need for sustainable transport policies, the tobacco industry appears able to frustrate policies designed to limit the promotion of smoking by advertising - despite the well recognised dangers to health.

You do not have to be a cynic to recognise that any country needs to protect its exports and jobs. This was the argument advanced by the British government in seeking protection for Formula 1 and the US government will no doubt also seek to utilise similar economic arguments in defence of its position at the Kyoto climate talks. We need to recognise that no government will ever be able to introduce policies which are 100 per cent geared to `goods' such as sustainable transport and health promotion. Besides the fact that most voters enjoy some of the things known to be `bad' for us, our health and the environment (eg: alcohol, tobacco and cars) government revenues depend too much on the taxes from such consumption of `bads' and all governments need the jobs created by the producing industries too much for radical changes in policy to be expedient in almost any political climate. Most governments need people to drive, drink alcohol and smoke if they are not to risk significant diminution of their tax revenues! Increasing taxes on these `bads' to encourage consumers to modify their behaviour, but not so rapidly so as to seriously erode the overall tax base, is the only sensible answer governments can use to address this dilemma. Even this sort of policy, however, doesn't really solve the long term problems presented by overall growth in consumption of the `bads' on a world scale attributable to population growth. and economic development.

Yet another reminder of the trade-off between standards and employment that sometimes occurs was given recently by the UK's Environmental Industries Commission (EIC). The EIC called for `zero tolerance of environmental crime' to support UK sales of air pollution control equipment in export markets. The EIC said that local government was often persuaded to relax legal requirements by businesses suggesting that they might have to make employees redundant or run-down operations if forced to comply. Failure to develop a strong domestic market, the EIC said, hindered the ability of UK companies to export and urged the government to ensure that local authorities enforced existing legislation and promoted best practice.

More positively, in a conference organised by the UK Labour party's environmental group (SERA), to discuss the government's proposed white paper on transport , due out early in 1998, the motor industry supported a shift in the burden of taxation to one more closely based on the `user pays' principle. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders said that road tolling or congestion charging might play an important role. The Transport 2000 public transport group said that drivers should bear their true environmental and health costs and that fuel duty should increase by 8% per year. The government has already scaled down the road construction programme and more recently has indicated that the taxation of company cars will be changed to discourage private use.

Environmental concerns were notably absent from the last UK general election campaign but have risen to prominence more recently. The prospect of steeply increased green taxes such as on fuel duty, company cars and landfill disposal of waste was trailed before the spring budget. That these failed to materialise both then and in the Chancellor's more recent speech - to the dismay of environmentalists - does not disguise the emergence of clear signals that future UK's budgets are likely to include a raft of either increased or wholly new environmental taxes. There is no shortage of arguments for directing these towards improving air quality and reducing road congestion - meaning road transport in general. Indeed, green pressure have played a greater role in influencing UK budgets since 1997 but only marginally so.

On a quite different tack, Clare Spottiswoode, director general of Ofgas, the gas industry regulator , is opposing the inclusion of environmental and social issues into Ofgas's field of responsibility. However, John Battle, then Energy Minister, said that it was unsatisfactory that gas regulation did not take account of environmental issues when electricity regulation did do so. Ofgas's position is actually unsustainable when global warming is as much the concern of the gas industry as it is for the electricity industry.

In the UK at least, we seem to have not only moved rapidly from the `polluter pays principle' to the `user pays principle' but seem poised to move further still to the `people pays principle'. The reality is that green taxes are now only another economic instrument in the armoury of government, the revenue from which, may or may not, be used to reduce other taxes. Sweden has already abandoned any pretence that green taxes are being used for any purpose other than to increase tax revenues. Interestingly, the latest British Social Attitude Survey indicated that road pricing commanded the support of only 25% of respondents, only 17% supported higher city centre parking charges and support for increased government spending on environmental protection fell to 41% from a high of 60% in 1991. If there is a moral here, it is that people still don't want to pay for the environment even if 68% think that better public transport is desirable. If the UK sample of attitudes is typical, governments may need to move cautiously in transferring taxes from `goods' to `bads' - the emphasis being on transfer.

There will be much moralising by environmentalists, economists and governments following the Kyoto climate talks. While we all need to take scientific fact and uncertainty into account we should also beware too much moral rhetoric, remember that it is people in this and future generations that will have to pay the price for any agreement and ask ourselves what we will give up first to set an example. And that, unless you are a real cynic, means you!

Peter Doyle