Viability of the implementation of green taxes in Guatemala

Abstract

Recently, there is a lot of concern regarding the environmental challenges in encouraging to have less environmental pollution and degradation, and at the same time increase the preservation of the environment. It is an issue that concerns population, enterprises and States. As it is a public good, States should guarantee the best conditions for population regarding the environment. But the question is how can countries invest in environmental issues if they do not have the money or the willing to do that?

Guatemala, for example, is a country that has a lot of institutions and laws that control and try to protect the environment, but there is still a lack of commitment regarding the preservation and maintenance of it. From my perspective, Guatemala is losing natural resources due to some companies that take advantage of them, and do not pay or pay few amounts of money to the State, as incentives to protect the environment. But what can be done to create this enterprise environmental responsibility and at the same time increase the revenues of the State?

It is mentioned because Guatemala is a country with financial issues, every year the budget increases but there is still not enough revenues to cover the governments expenditure, creating a fiscal deficit and appealing to external financing to cover it. So my question is: Is there any chance to receive more income if we pay more attention to the environment?

My research intends to analyze the viability of implementing environmental taxes to increase the government revenues and also to preserve the environment in Guatemala, based on comparative analysis with other countries experiences and some case studies, to provide policy implications.

By using the double dividend principle, it could be possible to win in both sides

the first one by increasing the government revenues, and the second one, by preserving the environment. Furthermore, at the end, answer the following research question: Would it be a viable alternative for Guatemala to apply green taxes as a source to preserve the environment and increase the governments revenues in the short term?