Ever since the National Treasury published its discussion paper on environmental reform in 2006, a carbon tax has been on the cards in South Africa. In this year’s National Budget, it was mentioned that a carbon tax would be formally announced in the 2013 National Budget and implemented before the end of the 2013-14 fiscal year. Given the public outcry that preceded the planned implementation of the e-toll system in Gauteng in April this year (despite the e-tolls first being announced by Sanral in March 2008, and the first indicative tariffs being published in February 2011), it is prudent to consider whether the South African public is prepared for, or even aware of, the impeding carbon tax. One readily available metric for measuring public awareness is the number of web searches devoted to a topic.

The graph below shows the relative frequency of Google searches in South Africa for the terms ‘e-toll’, ‘e toll’ or ‘etoll’ for the period January 2011 to October 2012 (results before January 2011 were insignificant). The value at any point on the chart shows the number of searches relative to the period when the most searches were undertaken (which received a normalised value of 100).

Source: Google Trends

E-tolling was initially scheduled to commence in April 2011, but was postponed to allow greater public consultation. Cabinet approved revised tariffs for the e-tolls in June 2011. Interest in the issue, however, only started consistently increasing from the fourth week of February 2012 when the (second) official implementation date and tariffs were released as part of the National Budget. Unsurprisingly, search interest peaked in the week just before the e-tolls were supposed to be implemented (on the 30^thof April) and the court action to halt the implantation reached a climax (culminating in the North Gauteng High Court ordering the implementation to be put on hold on the 28^th of April).

With this experience in mind, a graph showing the prevalence of the search terms ‘carbon tax’ or ‘CO₂ tax’ in South Africa for the period December 2009 to October 2012 is presented below (results before December 2009 are insignificant).

Source: Google Trends

Interest in a carbon tax only really became apparent in February 2010. A CO₂ vehicle emissions tax was formally announce in the 2010 National Budget during this period, and the Budget Review mentioned that a discussion document considering the feasibility of implementing a more comprehensive carbon tax would be released for public comment later in the year. Interest peaked in September 2010 when the CO₂ vehicle emissions tax was implemented. Despite only addressing a small proportion of South Africa’s greenhouse gas emissions, and being levied as a once-off payment determined by the CO₂ efficiency of vehicles rather than on actual emissions, this tax was widely referred to as a ‘carbon tax’.

Since August-September 2010 interest has been relatively constant, although it has decreased since April 2012. In this period, however: the National Treasury discussion document presenting the merits of a local broad-based carbon tax was published in December 2010; the 2011 Budget Review (released in February 2011) commented on the schedule for a broad-based South African carbon tax; and in February 2012, the carbon tax design and implementation timeframe were included in the 2012 Budget Review, despite the revised carbon tax discussion paper not having been released. There have since been a number of delays in the release of the revised discussion paper, leading some commentators[i] to question whether the time lines in the 2012 Budget Review are still achievable. But as it currently stands officially, a broad-based carbon tax is set to be announced as part of the 2013 Budget and implemented before the end of the 2013-14 fiscal year.

Given the exponentially larger expected impact of a broad-based carbon tax, which will cover most domestic sectors, relative to the narrow vehicle emission tax, it is surprising that the announcements after September 2010 have not generated more interest. This could indicate that government and the media is not doing a good enough job of sensitising people to forthcoming policy changes. Or it could signal that the general public typically only pays interest to looming taxes and levies when they are about to be implemented, which would be consistent with the e-tolls experience described above. Either way this trend is disturbing, since despite government and other stakeholders’ best efforts to gauge public opinion on this subject, the public’s true feelings may only become apparent once their wallets are about to be hit.

There is also a third and equally concerning explanation. The lack of interest in a carbon tax during the third quarter of 2012 could simply mean that the general public is viewing the imposition of a broad-based carbon tax as less likely now than it did in 2010. Could this be a case of crying wolf?