This paper is focused on using the concept of carbon tax in the European countries with detailed overview of CO2 tax proposals the Czech Republic. The introductory section presents fundamental scientific studies, and current scientific articles dealing with the issue of environmental and carbon taxation. The methodology of the paper is focused on the comparative analysis using the Eurostat data, the national statistical data and the conceptual documents. Results of the comparison show that the use of carbon tax is currently not uniform and both subjects of taxation and tax amounts in the individual countries differ. The comparison with the development of emission allowance prices within the EU ETS indicates that nearest to this market price are carbon taxes in Norway and Island, where they are also systematically linked with the EU ETS system. In the Czech Republic, the carbon tax has not been introduced so far, only various tax rates have been discussed in respect to interconnection with the EU Emission Trading System.