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Carbon Dioxide Tax and Trading Scheme

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Bruwheresmycar

Nicholas Shehadie (39)
Your right Karl. It wont have a big impact on the global climate. And neither will raising our co2 emission levels to 200 tons per capita. I think we should get rid of the carbon tax and instead pay people to pollute. After all, it will have no mensurable impact...

Seriously though, it's not a very good argument. China could reduce their emissions by 50% and it would have a mensurable impact on the atmospheric levels in the medium/long term. But China could also split into 100 different countries of 10 million each and then all cry "look, we only have 10 million people in my country, we wont have a measurable effect, don't look to us!"

I know people on here think climate change is some huge scam or what not. But the fact is, assuming it is an actual threat being escalated by rising levels of human emitted greenhouse gasses. Australia should be one of the first countries to act. But we are already way behind countries bigger and smaller than us - who are already trying cutting down their emission levels, or more importantly, stopping the rise in emission levels.
 

cyclopath

George Smith (75)
Staff member
Bru, I agree that we must address emissions, and obviously work to lower them. I remain completely unconvinced that this tax model provides any real incentive to MOST people to do anything, and that is my issue. It's fine to tax the highest polluting companies, but we need the populace to embrace changes at grassroots level, not have the notion that "It's someone else's problem, not gonna affect me in the hip pocket". I have no problem paying the tax personally, but I think making it a de facto wealth tax is the wrong approach.
 

Karl

Bill McLean (32)
Sorry Bru - I think I added this bit after your reply:

In my view, there is no life or death, do something NOW!!!! or we all will suffer horribly, hurry - not the way alarmist computer models tell us there is; carbon tax will only force us to spend all our money rolling out patently inefficient current alternative technology, when smaller investment in research would give more innovative and much better and cheaper solutions in a few years. More money on climate research should also let us know better what we're really dealing with as well.

Most foreign governments have realised this – the big CO2 emitting countries having changed their minds at the Copenhagen meeting on the need and wisdom of putting the kind of price on CO2, needed to substantially reduce its emissions. The Kyoto protocol will not be renewed, EU countries have, in fact, started to frankly abandon even their cosmetic carbon prices, France dumped their Carbon Tax last year reportedly to avoid damage to their economy, Spain, Germany and Italy have all drastically cut their hugely expensive solar rebates; the Dutch just abandoned EU targets for renewable energy in March 2011.

The government is going to push on with a SCHEME that is obselete, isolated and worthless.

The fact is it won't have ANY impact on global climate. And leaping in isolation will have NO POSITIVE IMPACT on what other countries will do and it won't drag them along or guilt them into action or whatever the ridiculous assumptions people have in relation to the influence our little cap and trade scheme is going to have on geo-political decision making. They are more likely to sit back and watch how it impacts us.

And requiring a global, unified response to a problem is a perfectly reasonable condition to sticking your neck out in an otherwise utterly pointless and futile fashion. We could put our whole Scheme forward for global scientific and political scrutiny etc and give iron clad undertakings to implement it - WHEN and ONLY WHEN there is unified action. We could campaign and lobby and cajole as leaders in facilitating a unified response and in the interim we could invest in R&D to innovate better green energy and remediation solutions and conduct more research into the problem. What we have done is a big fat SYMBOL. It makes small people feel important on an international scale. It's about ego and looking good, and on a more direct scale - about maintaining control in a hung parliment by trading support for a broken promise. We don't have a Carbon "Tax" for any of the reasons touted on here. We have one because Gillard and Labor needed the support of a minority party with one agenda and one agenda only. It's purpose and effect has always been entirely secondary.
 

Bruwheresmycar

Nicholas Shehadie (39)
Bru, I agree that we must address emissions, and obviously work to lower them. I remain completely unconvinced that this tax model provides any real incentive to MOST people to do anything, and that is my issue. It's fine to tax the highest polluting companies, but we need the populace to embrace changes at grassroots level, not have the notion that "It's someone else's problem, not gonna affect me in the hip pocket". I have no problem paying the tax personally, but I think making it a de facto wealth tax is the wrong approach.

We sure do. But a reform addressing those issues will not get through parliament anytime soon. The carbon tax and ETS are right-wing reforms. "We set the limit and let the market decide where emissions are cut". The government could set the limit to 0 if they really wanted, problem solved... (obviously that would be a stupid move).

The funny thing is though, the right-leaning political organisations in this country are tooth and nail against these reforms. So any reform that actually tried to address this issue using more "government controlled" measures is undoubtedly going to get shot down.

I don't mind the current plan though. We are starting off with a carbon price -> then moving to an ETS -> and then eventually progressing to a more localized effort and trying to get this country onto more renewable energy sources. It seems like a logical progression. There is more incentive to invest in renewable energy technology with these reforms in place, rather than without them.

I completely agree with your post. But the current political situation wont offer us much more than this IMO.
 

Ruggo

Mark Ella (57)
Bru, I agree that we must address emissions, and obviously work to lower them. I remain completely unconvinced that this tax model provides any real incentive to MOST people to do anything, and that is my issue. It's fine to tax the highest polluting companies, but we need the populace to embrace changes at grassroots level, not have the notion that "It's someone else's problem, not gonna affect me in the hip pocket". I have no problem paying the tax personally, but I think making it a de facto wealth tax is the wrong approach.

Serious action on climate change requires sacrifice which is the cold hard reality and our politicians need the fortitude to face up to the fact that it will not be popular amonst the electorate. That is the bit I get annoyed with. It would be a breath of fresh air if a politician just cut the crap and said the truth in simple terms for example "electricity is going to be more expensive though if you don't use as much of it, you won't pay for it. Personal responsibility for our actions is an important factor regarding the issue of climate change".
 

Bruwheresmycar

Nicholas Shehadie (39)
The fact is it won't have ANY impact on global climate. And leaping in isolation will have NO POSITIVE IMPACT on what other countries will do and it won't drag them along or guilt them into action or whatever the ridiculous assumptions people have in relation to the influence our little cap and trade scheme is going to have on geo-political decision making. They are more likely to sit back and watch how it impacts us.

And requiring a global, unified response to a problem is a perfectly reasonable condition to sticking your neck out in an otherwise utterly pointless and futile fashion. We could put our whole Scheme forward for global scientific and political scrutiny etc and give iron clad undertakings to implement it - WHEN and ONLY WHEN there is unified action. We could campaign and lobby and cajole as leaders in facilitating a unified response and in the interim we could invest in R&D to innovate better green energy and remediation solutions and conduct more research into the problem. What we have done is a big fat SYMBOL. It makes small people feel important on an international scale. It's about ego and looking good, and on a more direct scale - about maintaining control in a hung parliment by trading support for a broken promise. We don't have a Carbon "Tax" for any of the reasons touted on here. We have one because Gillard and Labor needed the support of a minority party with one agenda and one agenda only. It's purpose and effect has always been entirely secondary.

The fact is, the globe needs to cut it's rise in co2 emissions RIGHT NOW. We don't have time to invest in some guaranteed to 100% work NASA engineered free world energy system. Scientists are working on these super-answers as we speak, but are decades away from a real answer

Australia, a nation of 20 million people will have little effect on the global climate in the short term if they cut their emissions. But if greenhouse emissions are driving climate change, Australia is one of the first countries that needs to act. Any logic I've seen people use to say we shouldn't act could be used by bigger countries to not act as well. The fact is, we emit too much co2 per capita. We need to cut down. Simple.

You forget that political leaders in this country have been trying to implement these schemes for almost 5 years now. I don't care for all the "Gillard is doing this for an agenda" stuff. An ETS was always coming, in fact it was delayed.
 

Scotty

David Codey (61)
You have learned well that, unhindered by the restrictions of logic, deduction or rationale, it is virtually impossible to lose an argument.

Can you explain your somewhat personal comment and tell me how my logic failed?

The scientist you quoted has the following logic - 'I don't walk with a limp anymore, therefore my faith in science has increased'.

I noted (and I thought it was pretty obvious I was being sarcastic) - 'My knees are sore after everytime I run, so should my faith in science be decreased'?
 

Scotty

David Codey (61)
The fact is, the globe needs to cut it's rise in co2 emissions RIGHT NOW. We don't have time to invest in some guaranteed to 100% work NASA engineered free world energy system. Scientists are working on these super-answers as we speak, but are decades away from a real answer

Australia, a nation of 20 million people will have little effect on the global climate in the short term if they cut their emissions. But if greenhouse emissions are driving climate change, Australia is one of the first countries that needs to act. Any logic I've seen people use to say we shouldn't act could be used by bigger countries to not act as well. The fact is, we emit too much co2 per capita. We need to cut down. Simple.

You forget that political leaders in this country have been trying to implement these schemes for almost 5 years now. I don't care for all the "Gillard is doing this for an agenda" stuff. An ETS was always coming, in fact it was delayed.

I bet those scientist working on all those super-answers could do with more funding though. Funding that could come from reducing the compensation measures. The fact that there are compensation measures will ensure there is a very limited drive for people to 'turn off' high CO2 emitting energy sources and switch to lower emitting ones, and the lower ones will therefore not become competitive against the higher ones without significant advances in technology.

These big leaps in technology have occurred in the past - mostly during dire need (ie world wars), and they were achieved by throwing money at them. Hardly capitalist market mechanisms, but successful ones none the less. What I would like to see is much more funding for R&D in the 'clean' energy sector. No matter if you believe in AGW or not, renewable energies is the clear way forward for humans on this planet. What I would hate to see is billions of dollars go overseas for some dodgy operator in China to pretend to plant a multitude of trees to give green credits. There is already plenty of rorting in the European system - imagine how much worse it will get!
 

Karl

Bill McLean (32)
Question - instead of a carbon Cap and Trade Scheme (which seems to be considered by those I would consider to be the smarter kids in the room (although there is far from any type of consensus on the issue) as an inferior solution to a Carbon Tax http://www.treehugger.com/corporate...lobal-warming-economist-william-nordhaus.html ; http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2148 , http://sites.google.com/site/yarrav...not-cap-and-trade-emission-trading-scheme-ets ) what if we removed all or most of the fossil fuel subsidies that exist?

That would also have the effect of reducing Government spending, but I wonder at the impact on prices of "stuff".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_transport_in_Australia

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/billions-spent-on-fossil-fuel-incentives-20110228-1bbsn.html

Greenpeace like the idea :) http://www.greenpeace.org.au/blog/?p=2946

It seems silly for the Government to be Capping and Taxing and stuff when its also subsidising use at the same time. Schizophrenic really, with borderline narcisistic personality disorder (but that last bit is a given).
 

Ruggo

Mark Ella (57)
It would be unjust in the case of the NT. Given the distance from the major populations, we are heavily reliant on Deisel though this is somewhat offset by our clean methods of power generation. We have no coal power generation and have had gas turbines for the last 30 years. Alice Springs is a small city that has become an authority on clean energy initiatives. The LNG industry is booming though we have low levels of heavy industry. Carbon abatement has become a source of prosperity for remote indigenous communities as the vast majority of our landscape has been unultered from its natural state.

I not talking about not removing subsidies that make it cheaper at the bowser to fill the family car up. Please remove them but be careful when dealing with subsidies that affect our supply chain.
 

Karl

Bill McLean (32)
Logistically it would be a nightmare too I am sure and I have no idea what it would do economically in terms of fuel costs and power costs and price rises on a range of goods and services - but on a purely idealogical basis, it just seems strange to be "taxing" co2 while subsidising fossil fuels and very wealthy companies that also pay perhaps not as much tax as they should be.

And it also seems somehow odd that everyone pays more for things like electricity than we should while the big companies pay little tax so shareholders can participate in profits that are inflated by subsidies. Its a mad world.
 
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