The author already can see the demise of a Carbon Tax and is setting up to argue that regardless, there is still a problem .. with the message (not the science, that's no longer in the debate)

"While carbon-pricing mechanisms might captivate bureaucrats and policy wonks, I’m not convinced that it has won the hearts and minds of Australian citizens. If the carbon price policy resonated with ‘mainstream’ Australia the policy would have much higher support public polling"

No sugar Sherlock! What a realization that is eh?

With all the money being poured into framing the message, with a traveling climate propaganda circus (independent, but selling the government message .. a new definition of independent arises), with all the "science" available and still there is doubt in the community.

Why is that?

With this government, we have learned that spin and BS are what they do best, second best is wasting money.

This sounds like another round of both, to the average working family, and of course, a new Great Big Tax.

The government doesn't know how much it will be, or what it will do to mitigate "climate change", but it's a good idea and anyone against it is a wrecker. (or citizens leery of another tax, levy, surcharge, call it what you will .. but it's the government with their hand in my wallet and not able to live within the budget they already have)

Sure we can make progress towards reducing GHG emissions without a price on carbon but it requires governments to pick winners rather than letting the market decide how best to go about it.

So far in this area, the governments' record (and I do mean all governments) has not been a stellar one. We have spent billions of dollars on wind farms, solar PV panels, home insulation and energy efficiency through government financial incentive programs, without any notable reduction in GHG emissions.

I cannot see this sorry state of affairs changing without involvement from the market that is much better at deciding which horses to back to reduce emissions. The best way to get the market involved is to hit them where it hurts. If you emit emissions you have to pay. Some in the market don’t like this idea and are squealing like stuck pigs. What better proof that it is likely to work the way you want when the worst offenders are the ones that squeal the loudest.

We need political backbone not public servants making poor policy decisions.

Unless, of course, you are not convinced that Carbon Dioxide is a polutant. Then any moves to increase the cost of energy is dangerous and much be resisted.

Leigh Ewbank’s high falutin rhetoric obscures his real message, which is: “all the technology for decarbonising the economy is available and the government just needs to get on with it. What’s more, there are lots of decarbonising projects that we can easily elevate to the status of ‘nation-building infrastructure’, which makes them politically palatable, even tasty”.

I hope that, stripped like this to its bones, Leigh’s argument automatically loses its statesman-like gloss. But just in case it doesn’t, here is why it can safely be ignored.

All the technology needed is not available, except in bits and at chaos-causing cost. So nothing happens without ‘government loan guarantees’, ‘US military renewable energy targets’, DOE initiatives ‘aiming … for …unsubsidised’ solar electricity (as if that was not the aim 40 years ago when they started), $53 billion of US Federal money for high speed rail, and so on. You get the drift. It’s government all the way. And that’s just about electricity. Has Leigh figured how to make cement without releasing carbon dioxide. Or running a steelmaking blast furnace? Let’s ask President Obama, because no-one else seems to know.

Martin N is right, as far as he goes. Governments won’t solve this problem. To the extent that there are solutions, they will come from the market. But there will be a cost. Government does have a role in preparing the electorate for the cost of fighting climate change. Sadly, telling voters that something will cost more is something governments are even worse at than picking winners

If Juliar was to set the price of carbon similar to the average in Europe of about $6 a ton, and set to match the other major economies in the future, Labor would not be getting such a hiding.

If Juliar wants to set an example, then do it in a fashion that does not flog the already struggling manufacturing sector.

So where is the proof that CO2 is a dangerous pollutant? Where is the evidence that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are causing dangerous climate change? Where is the evidence that natural causes of climate change are less important than anthropogenic CO2? What about the other anthropogenic impacts on local and regional climate - urbanisation, land-use, deforestation, industrial agriculture, interference with natural hydrological cycles?

I am afraid that until a credible case is advanced that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are a serious problem, that CO2 is a pollutant, I remain sceptical of the need for a carbon tax, and sceptical of any moves to decarbonise the economy.

I think that you will find that more and more people, when they look at the evidence (more accurately lack of evidence), will reach a conclusion similar to mine.

Herbert
I have asked countless proponents of AWG and the answer to your questions always boils down to "It is so because the government tells me so."

And that is to ignore the other equally glaring gap in their assumptions: What reason is there to think that government has the knowledge, the selflessness, or the capacity to make the situation better than worse, even in its own terms, when all downsides are considered both ways, and how have you reached that conclusion?

Leigh - go back and look at the President Obama's statement. Now look online at the stuff on "fracking", including the recent discussions on this site. Sure the american president is promising a wholesale switch to gas. Vast reserves of it have become available thanks to the new technique, and its set to become cheaper than coal. As the reserves are also becoming available near big population centres, and its difficult to trade gas across regions, it makes sense to use the stuff to generate electricity.

I checked your link to the DoE project for developing PVs and had another, hearty laugh. In the push to green electricity PVs have proved to date virtually useless. Despite immense subsidies - a german report estimates that generators in that country pay PV projects eight times the wholesale price - it is difficult to find any network where the technology contributes more than a fraction of a percent.

The US DoE will need to put in a great deal of work indeed. Maybe they will also need a magic wand or a genii from a lamp to make real headway.

Where is the proof, demands Herbert. The answer of course is, in the scientific literature. If you refuse to look at it, you are unlikely to see it. P Hume's odd notion that it is so "because the government tells me so", suggests that he too is unwilling to actually look for himself. It has very little to do with "the government" - there is a huge body of scientific research from around the world, which he can freely examine. If he wants to ...

Nicco.

Thanks for the guidance. Actually, I am quite familiar with the literature, and the issues. It is generally acknowledged (though subject still to some debate) that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 would lead to around 1 deg C increase in Global Mean Temperature.

Any increase beyond that is derived from models that incorporate assumptions of positive feedback. There is no proof of positive feedback. Rather, it appears that actually the feedbacks are more likely neutral or negative, meaning that a doubling of CO2 will likely lead to around 1 deg C or less. If you can point me to PROOF about the positive feedback assumptions in the literature, I will take notice.

Nicco - actually there is no proof in the scientific literature, as such. If you look carefully you will see indications. These are along the lines of 'This computer model can be made to match historical results, therefore there is some hope that the model and the physical principles we assert are used as part of it may be of some use in forecasting future climate states.'

Or: 'we've accounted for everything else, so what could possibly be causing the warming known to have occured between 1975 and 2000 but industrial activity'. This has to be followed by, 'the warming that should have occured between 2000 and the present, according to our models, is being disguised by other factors'.

That is the level of "proof" we are talking about. If you have any more direct I'm happy to hear of it.

I'm just so over this climate change hype. Why do Governments permit fuel guzzling entertainment, fuel guzzling generators to aircon schools in places with great natural breeze, encourage more fuel guzzling travel, etc etc. just the other day they were raving on about space tourism. Isn't anyone here old enough to recall the same sort of hype about depleting the ozone layer ? Aren't rockets blasting holes through the ozone layer & leting UV heat up the atmosphere ?
Are people really so stupid these days that they think if you can make a dollar out of it it's ok with the environment but demonstrate about global warming whilst setting electrical appliances on full blast. Is mankind really evolving into a mindless specie ? It certainly looks that way.

Around 80% of the population believe Global Warming is real.
Around 60% of the population believe Human activity is contributing.
Around 1% of the population believe we should all pay more tax to combat the problem.
Go figgur.

"Go figgur."

Maybe they figure, quite reasonably, that the gumment don't have the ability to control the globe's climate by taxing, especially since they intend to compensate those they tax?

The author correctly points to the need for investment in low or no carbon electricity generation, its transmission, and rapid transport. He then makes a fundamental error in asserting that the private sector does not have the capacity to invest in these areas. It does have that capacity and will invest provided risk is minimized and yield is maximized relative to other investment opportunities.

What escapes Mr Ewbank is that the one of the major purposes of pricing carbon is to effectively raise the price of fossil fuels to the point where private sector investment in these areas is made attractive. As long as production and use of fossil fuels, particularly coal, remains subsidized and relatively cheap, investment in development and use of clean technology will remain risky and unattractive without public sector assistance.

Pricing carbon by levying a tax on polluters (not individual taxpayers) not only raises the price of fossil fuels, it produces the revenue government needs to provide assistance which stimulates private sector capital investment in clean energy and transport alternatives.

It is a nonsense to argue, as Mr Ewbank does, that government – which means all taxpayers – should pay for development and use of clean energy and transport. Such investment should come from and be selected by the private sector, not government. The roll of government is to ensure that investment opportunities are made attractive and open to the private sector and that is what it is doing by pricing carbon.

The private sector will not and should not be expected to invest in a clean power station when higher profits can be earned from investing in a polluting coal fired power station. But if, by pricing carbon and removing subsidies, the cost of coal increases to the point that coal powered electricity yields less return than investing in a clean power station, investors will put their money in clean power.

Grim

The carbon tax is to be levied on the 1,000 largest polluters, not on individuals or households and the latter are to be compensated so as to make the effect on them neutral.

Herbert Stencil/Peter Hume

If either were genuinely interested in the scientific basis for anthropogenic global warming they could always refer to and read the wealth of scientific evidence available in the literature and on line at
http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php?f=percentage or
http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/global_warming

Agnostic. I could make many points in response, but will restrict myself to asking a genuine question. You say: "As long as production and use of fossil fuels, particularly coal, remains subsidized".

What is the nature of the subsidies for coal? What subsidies are paid? By whom? To whom?

So far as I know, in NSW at least, there are NO subsidies for coal production sold for power generation.

So basically, the 1000 nasty polluters are going to give some of their profits to the Gov, for being naughty.
Being businesses, which are pretty much obliged to make a profit, when their overheads go up they will respond by putting prices up.
But that's okay, because the Gov. will use the money taken from the polluters to pay the consumers, to offset the higher prices.
Oh-kay.
But what about the 1001st company? Suddenly it's more competitive, because it isn't as naughty as the 1000, and doesn't have to pay the tax.
That means more sales for the small guy, and less for the big guy.
Well that's pretty cool. We all root for the underdog, don't we?
Except... what are the big guys going to do about being undercut by a smaller competitor?
Gee, let me think...

Gee, let me think...
Grim,
Why think, the Government doesn't see any need for it ?

No response to my question, Agnostic? Are you yielding?

Leigh Ewbank, says ", Unfortunately few have called for carbon tax revenue to be used for climate friendly infrastructure in Australia."

I Sent a submission tax inquiry a few infrastructure proposals:-

1. To Make better use of the existing Australian car fleet by the provision more CNG infrastructure to encourage its use as transitional fuel for road vehicles and encourage the use of electric cars: gas /electric, petrol/electric and diesel/electric hybrid cars.

2. Tax incentives for employers to provide electric car, electric scooter and electric bicycle recharging facilities and provide roof top; wind energy or solar energy collectors for heating,cooling lighting powering computers and other tools.

3. Carbon taxes raised to be used to build bikeway networks in all Australian cities, enhance rail infrastructure, extend rail services and express bus services into all outer urban areas: provide secure bicycle parking at all modal interchanges and railway stations: also rural stations used by commuters into the capital cities.

4. Encourage Encourage state planning agencies to constrain developers to reduce urban sprawl and provide public transport services in new residential and industrial areas and make urban areas more permeable with direct routes for walkers and cyclists.

5. Provide short cuts for pedestrians and cyclists, in existing built up areas: more light bridges, routes through both public and private properties, bridges over barriers, safe mid block main road crossings.

6. Policy support for the states to change the constitution of road planning agencies to make it their responsibility to reduce the;demand for road space, unsustainable travel, road congestion and thecreation of a continuous arterial bike network within the overall
hierarchy of urban roads.

7. Provide bike lanes on main roads and reduce their speed limits to 50 kph .
When there is not room for a bikelane or bike path in the road reservea safe alternative route would be provided on residential streets witha 30 km per hour speed limit as in the Netherlands.

Herbert Stencil

Sorry I have not replied sooner. However I do not monitor OLO comments in case pseudo skeptics have a question.

The coal industry receives subsidies in the form of tax concessions and excise rebates, levying of token charges and other assistance totaling over $2 billion a year.

For more information on the nature and magnitude of these subsidies, try http://www.isf.uts.edu.au/publications/CR_2003_paper.pdf

More information on subsidy support for the coal industry, is available by using Google. Lots of data available there and I am sure you will be able to find it if you are genuinely interested - which some people might doubt. The message: You want info? Do your own research.