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The Forum > Article Comments > Putting a price on carbon: what’s the best option? > Comments

Putting a price on carbon: what’s the best option? : Comments

By Geoff Carmody, published 22/2/2011

A consumption-based carbon tax is the most efficient option available to the government to limit carbon emissions., but apparently the government doesn't want to know.

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What's the best option? Er, find some real evidence of AGW first? No, too hard, obviously.
Posted by Jon J, Tuesday, 22 February 2011 6:17:42 AM
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The best option is not to put a price on Carbon but to put a price on developers, on speculators, on investors & high end public Servants because that's where you find the beginnings of many a polluting scheme for the benefit of only a few. Frivolity or motosport & other entertainment tax would be another to curb emission.
That's if we're serious about cutting back on emission which has already gone so far that no remedy will be noticeable for the next three generations anyhow.
The social implication will prove to become many more times harder to control than any environmental issues.
Posted by individual, Tuesday, 22 February 2011 6:28:31 AM
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Is it possible the Government is influenced by that source of notable scientific literature which proclaims global warming is all crap?
Posted by Wakatak, Tuesday, 22 February 2011 6:38:27 AM
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IF CO2 is a problem,why not tax carbon as it comes i=out of the ground.No, the mining companies still want to sell their volumes of coal sales and don't want to pay any tax.They want us to pay a tax to feed their derivative markets in carbon trading.It has nothing to do with limiting carbon but making even better profits.

More lies and deception.
Posted by Arjay, Tuesday, 22 February 2011 6:54:33 AM
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Arjay .. there's carbon in trees as well, and in animals, and in you - how are all those mining companies going to deal with that?

Stop looking for someone trying to do something sneaky on that side when the big money is in climate research and carbon trading, which the mining companies do not control .. it will be whomever the government favors .. that's where to look, the mining companies are just a source of money, not a sink.

Here's the problem with galloping alarmist extremism, it becomes the vehicle for conspiracy theorists, eco and environmental hystericists and every other form of anti-people anti-progress activists.

If CO2 is a problem, why is it so difficult to prove it is a problem? Why do climate scientists continually have to tweak and "adjust" temperature measurements, unless they have something in mind. The adjustments always seem to make things worse, not better .. go figure.

Surely if you are going to change the nature of Australian society and reduce our progress and wealth, you better have a good reason, better than .. we think, based on current knowledge, this is what might be causing something. If it turns out to be natural .. who do we blame for ruining our economy?

The majority of Australians remain suspicious of anyone who tells us a new tax is good, cannot tell us how it will help, what will happen to the money or why. The tax is to impede progress and lifestyle .. jeez, sound like a good deal doesn't it?

As Maggie Thatcher said, "socialism is great, until you run out of other people's money."
Posted by Amicus, Tuesday, 22 February 2011 8:08:25 AM
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Carbon trading appears to provide a vehicle for funding activities to capture carbon as well as provide the opportunity for those handling trades to get rich. The link between problem and solution seems weak resulting in a lack of trust in the whole. Recent headlines pointing out carbon schemes have cost fortunes and achieved little do not help.

Putting a price on carbon is a Pigovian tax (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigovian_tax). It reduces demand and therefore supply consequentially reducing carbon output.

Will companies improve technology in order to reduce carbon output whilst maintaining supply? Why should they? There are power generators who’ve realised cut output, increase price and improve profits via that route!

Will this mean the wealthy get to maintain their lifestyle while the rest suffer? Probably, given the mania for markets.

What is a taken as given is lifestyle must be maintained; perhaps the real debate should be what standard of living is wise or conducive to happiness. We have gone from the SKI age (spending the kid’s inheritance) to the STABO generation (subject to a better offer) both of which views life as “up you Jack, I’m alright”. Each added excess to the preceding generations’ dreams.

Whilst this view of life prevails anything attempted with carbon runs counter to self interest. It has been said put your money on a horse named self interest; at least you know the jockey is trying.
Posted by Cronus, Tuesday, 22 February 2011 9:04:43 AM
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"Third, is the method chosen to ‘price carbon’ the most cost-effective option, maximising global emissions abatement for the cost involved?"

There is no cost effective option. Reductions in Australia's greenhouse gas emissions are irrelevant to global emissions and irrelevent to the progress of global warming.

Carbon tax advocates will lie and obfuscate endlessly to try and avoid this inescapable fact.
Posted by grn, Tuesday, 22 February 2011 10:50:36 AM
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on the abc [4 corners ]..last night
we saw how much methan is in coal seams..[via fraking]

i contend that mining coal releases methane
[and methane is over 100 times worse a grenhouse gas than carbon]

so naturally all that methane
released in coal seam gas..and mining coal
and refioning petrol products metals etc..needs to be taxed

so tax it as it leaves the cuntry...its time
that greenhouse gas.. was curbed at the source

you mine it..and the methane destroys the protective blanket
its time the real blame was accorded..stop the spin

tax all grenhouse destructive gasses
start with thoat cleaner used to make solarcells
that substance is worse than methane..

its time that poluters paid for all their polution...especially those currently getting a free lunch subsidy..or feed-in tarrif..[a huge scam]

no more special deals
THE MORE YOU USE..the more you pay

get rid of basic charges
scale it ..so the big user pay more
the more you get..the more you pay

now go away
lies are lies

no more new taxes ..on the poor
tax the rich..before the poor ..decide its time ..to eat the rich
and those paid to lie for them
Posted by one under god, Tuesday, 22 February 2011 1:32:35 PM
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"Policies targeting national PRODUCTION of emissions... are likely to be less cost-effective, not least because they induce `carbon leakage' due to industries shifting offshore," wrote Carmody (my emphasis).

What about general `production leakage' and `national income leakage' due to industries shifting offshore to avoid our production-based INCOME TAX?

If you want to maximize the competitive advantage of shifting a tax from the production/origin side to the consumption/destination side, you need to do it with the biggest tax in the system, namely income tax. That is the true "principled, comprehensive approach to the trade-exposed sector".

In my last article I explained how income tax could be turned into an indirect consumption tax without regressive redistributive effects: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=10792 .

More recently I supported my claims with diagrams: http://blog.lvrg.org.au/2010/12/prudent-prosperity-productive-austerity.html .
Posted by grputland, Tuesday, 22 February 2011 3:05:13 PM
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Why price Carbon? What is to be achieved by doing so? In his long time advocacy for a carbon tax, Mr Carmody overlooks one salient point. First and foremost, pricing carbon must ensure that our greenhouse gas emissions are not just reduced but are reduced in a manner which meets specific annual and longer term targets.

A carbon tax per-se does not do this. What it aims to do is discourage, not limit emissions. A carbon tax leaves it up to each of the 1,000 companies directly responsible for emissions to decide whether or not to reduce their emissions and if so, by how much and whether or not to pass-on to their customers some or all of the carbon tax they pay. A carbon tax therefore fails to achieve its prime purpose.

The only sure way of reducing emissions to levels which achieve government approved targets is by a cap and trade or ETS system which, as its name implies, results in annual emissions being capped at a specified level.

Another salient difference between a Carbon Tax and an ETS is that with the former, government determines the level of tax to be imposed, while with an ETS the price put on carbon is determined by the market place and will vary with the level of reduction. Very few would argue that government is better placed than the market place to determine the price of carbon.
Carbon reduction is not the option afforded by a tax. It is a necessity made compulsory because of the harm which on-going emissions will cause and to meet our international obligations to reduce carbon emissions to a level ensuring that average global temperature is limited to 2°C above pre-industrial by 2100.

For these reasons, and a lot of others, it is widely accepted that an ETS is the most cost efficient and effective way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, provided it is properly administered - which is a lot more than can be said of the CRPS concoction rejected by Parliament in 2009.
Posted by Agnostic of Mittagong, Tuesday, 22 February 2011 3:54:05 PM
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Lets see who will feel no pain from a carbon tax which is nothing short of a deceit tax
-Public servants who pay no office costs (paid by the taxpayer)
- Politicians (pay none of their costs for flying the globe on dubious excursions) again paid by the taxpayer
- The rich who pay next to no tax anyway

Who will pay?

-Pensioners trying to heat houses (if they can still avoid to)
- Small business trying to pay utilities for office/shop space
- General population trying to keep homes cool in 40 degree plus temperatures.

Where will the tax money go?

Corrupt 3rd world Governments?
Re election funds for the major parties?
Funding hopelessly failed Green projects such as wind farms?
Into the pockets of the alarmist to find answers to a non problem?

What difference will this tax have on climate and weather? Absolutely none.
Posted by runner, Tuesday, 22 February 2011 4:09:42 PM
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The best option here is to do nothing and let everyone know that we are doing nothing so that we can all have the certainty that is needed. Carbon Dioxide is a very good gas and is less than one twenty fifth of one percent of the atmosphere.
Posted by Sniggid, Tuesday, 22 February 2011 4:48:10 PM
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Very good Sniggid. As it happens, that very minuscule amount of CO2 keeps the planet from being a snowball.

Increase it beyond a thresh-hold and the the opposite happens. Ergo, it's not so much the concentration, it's the ramifications of that concentration on Earth's temperature.

But hey, how are joe-six-packs supposed to understand the nuances of atmospheric physics/chemistry?
Posted by bonmot, Tuesday, 22 February 2011 5:54:47 PM
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BIG OMISSION IN EMISSION MISSION:WHERE ARE THE KPOs?

Greg

You write: "Putting a price on carbon’ is shorthand for discouraging greenhouse gas emissions by making them expensive. Substantial resources are being diverted to this task."

Why is it that so few in this debate ever ask the question: "Where - and what - are the (measurable) Key Performance Indicators here?"

What will be the quantitative consequences on future weather and climate of "discouraging greenhouse gas emissions by making them (more and more) expensive"?

Will we really get patterns that are, like Goldilocks's porridge, 'just right', not only for ALL Australians, but also presumably for ALL people on the planet?

Will we get less "extreme weather events" (measured against what baseline, over what timeframe, etc)?

Perhaps our government, together with all the advisors, promoters, opportunists - and mammalogist Tim Flannery's Climate Commission - have NO IDEA of the projected (not "predicted") weather/climate impacts of the most "ambitious" piece of public policy in over a generation? Surely not.

If they do, my apologies, for I have misjudged them.

"All hail, the power of prophecy cometh!"

Alice (in Warmerland)
Posted by Alice Thermopolis, Tuesday, 22 February 2011 5:59:31 PM
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