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In an economy such as ours it is by having consumers change their buying habits due to better value for money decisions that will force us to move away from products that are CO2 intensive.Quote:
Originally Posted by Basil135
But this has all been said before.
Not sure how this will work in Australia. Here in the UK the idea was that it would be easier to introduce if the City was able to make some money from this. Hence they set up a trading scheme where you could buy and sell carbon tax credits. These were in limited supply so in theory pricing the stuff. From there it was hoped the UK would become a world centre for the trade of these credits. The profits on the trades being subject to UK tax.
Big problem was that the VAT (GST) fraudsters were on to this one quicker than the powers that police it. 95% of trades on market were fraudlent with VAT being skimmed off. It took only 45 minutes to run the scam and then you did it again and again. Government lost millons of tax pounds in days.
I have refrained from posting on this topic but stating we will cause our kids to "live in hell" is pure scaremongering for being opposed to a stupid tax.
What is being put forward by gillard is a DEATH sentance for aussie manufacturing. Let me explain.
We are going to have a carbon CAP scheme with a limit on our countries total carbon output, which means you want to grow and expend your business or build a new item you must get carb credits to do so, now with population growth even if you reduce emissions most manufacturers will need to buy more carb. credits to cover their growth .(europe has about 12 months EXTRA carbon credit up their sleeve from overallocation and the gfc which they can use as a buffer, also their carbon output increased under the first phase of their scheme!)
OR they can follow other manufacturers to china/india who are going to have a carbon limit PER UNIT which in practice means you can manufacture as much crappola as you like as long as its below the 2005 unit emissions.Or buil items that have never been built there so no problem for emissions...New igloop thingo anyone? Their scheme means that india and chinas carbon emissions will each increase by around 250% EACH by 2020! They are producing items using 30-40% more energy/carbon output than we are but their 15 year scheme was to reduce emissions per unit by 40% for china and 25% for india, problem is china's growth is 10-13% a year and indias 8-9%. This is called carbon shedding and has happened in europe with high emission industries moving to poor neighbours making more pollution through same production techniques and increased transport pollution.
Further as we are going to be exporting and importing more goods we will greatly increase shipping emissions ,(with far more empty vessels floating around)already projected at 8% a year which no-one taxes or controls and they are responsible for around 4-5% of all global emissions. They produce sulpur and cause acid rain in busy ports by burning bunker fuel.
The steel industry has been royally dumped upon as no import is going to be hit with the carbon tax which leaves us wide open for dumping, also we are going up against foreign competitors who have no or a joke of a carbon tax(india currently has a WHOLE $1.07 tax on coal per ton!).
STEEL: The chinese and indian steel makers use around 30% more coal per ton to make slabs(230mm thick by varying widths and lengths). When we make iron with the blast furnace scrap is mixed in down the line to make a signifigaint proportion of the total steel output so that is your recycling in action.
What i personally believe should have happened was the mineral tax rebadged as an enviro-tax and every bloody cent spent on renewable energy from wind and solar to wave and geo-thermal with all the equipment built here.
I dont want wankchoices abbot back but this tax will give him the next election on a platter with brown being shifted back to a couple of senators on the fringe.
Well, if you think that it is not going to be live in hell for the poor kids in the Pacific Islands, and all other countries that have a very low productive land near the coast then your definicion about paradise it is diferent to mine.Quote:
Originally Posted by frantic
Not only that, have a look the healt of the population that live near polluted emissions and if that it is not hell then again we have diferent definitions.
I am in favor of a smart productivity and those that cannot produce without damage the environment then for me they do not have a place in the planet.
It has been mention in this thread that we are the biggest polluter per capita and I do not believe that we have the right to have this privilege.
just imagine if China and India alone start polluting the environment at the same rate per capita than us,. It will be hell!! and they have the same right to do it than us.
Did you read the full post or just the first line?
We will pollute MORE with this tax
More carbon.
More emissions.
More toxic waste.
More transport emissions.
You obviously did not read it.
Back in the real world for a minute, British Colombia (BC) in Canada have had a carbon tax since 2008.
Greenery in Canada: We have a winner | The Economist
AFAIK BC has a reasonably similar economy to us - i.e. - heavily resources and agriculture biased. BC also has a reasonably similar population density to Australia. 4.7 people/km^2 as opposed to 2.8 /km^2.Quote:
Greenery in Canada
We have a winner
British Columbia’s carbon tax woos sceptics
Jul 21st 2011 | VANCOUVER | from the print edition
DURING Canada’s 2008 federal election campaign Stephen Harper, the Conservative prime minister, warned that an opposition promise to introduce a carbon tax would “screw everybody”. Partly for that reason, Mr Harper is still the prime minister. But in the same year, the provincial government in British Columbia introduced a carbon tax of its own. Despite the levy, its economy is doing well. What is more, the tax is popular: it is backed by 54%, says a survey in the province by Environics, a pollster. Gordon Campbell, the Liberal premier who introduced the tax, won a provincial election the next year.
When arguing for the carbon tax, Mr Campbell faced the same political obstacles that have stymied such plans elsewhere. Only environmentalists were enthusiastic. Businesses feared it would add to costs and slow the economy. The leftish New Democratic Party (NDP) worried it would hurt the poor. But these fears have proved groundless. “The carbon tax has been good for the environment, good for taxpayers and it hasn’t hurt the economy,” says Stewart Elgie, a professor of law and economics at the University of Ottawa.
It helped that the law introducing the levy required its proceeds to be recycled back to individuals and companies as cuts in income taxes. The new tax was initially set at C$10 ($10) per tonne of carbon-dioxide emissions, rising by increments of C$5 per year to C$30 in 2012. It seems to be working as planned. Since 2008 fuel consumption per head in the province has dropped by 4.5%, more than elsewhere in Canada. British Columbians use less fuel than any other Canadians. And British Columbians pay lower income taxes too.
The new tax has not weakened the province’s economy, which has been boosted by high world prices for its commodity exports. Unemployment is slightly below the national average, and growth slightly higher. Because the tax started low and its rises were set out in advance, businesses had plenty of time to make plans to cut their carbon use.
A recent poll by the Pembina Institute, a green think-tank, found that 70% of British Columbians think their province should be a leader in cutting emissions. Christy Clark, Mr Campbell’s successor as premier, is committed to keeping the tax. Adrian Dix, the NDP leader in the province, says his party should have supported it. Both leaders want future carbon revenues to be used for energy-efficient infrastructure projects rather than more tax cuts. Only John Cummins, the Conservative leader in British Columbia, still opposes the tax.
At C$25 per tonne, British Columbia’s tax already exceeds the price of carbon in Europe’s emissions-trading scheme. But it is still too low to prompt radical changes in behaviour: it adds just five cents to the price of a litre of petrol. Getting the most energy-intensive industries to make big cuts might take a tax four times as high. Even so, British Columbia has shown the rest of Canada, a country with high carbon emissions per head, that a carbon tax can achieve multiple benefits at minimal cost. Unless Mr Harper reconsiders his opposition to the idea, in the future it might be him who faces being screwed.
My reply was directly to your term pure scaremongering ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by frantic
I do not think that it is.
Back in the real world rest of world has shipped around 15-17% of new jobs/indusrty to china/india for the last decade, we are almost double that at over 30% do you think a carbon CAP will help this?
You can just fob off transport emissions etc and continueto ignore carbon shedding just as long as our balnce sheet looks pretty;)
Excellent post isuzurover, it is interesting that Cummins, the only person still opposed to the tax, before entering politics, worked in the pulp and paper industry in Ontario, the oil fields of Alberta :)
The carbon cap will do what we believe that it is right for the environment and help Australia to be leader in green technology among other factors.Quote:
Originally Posted by frantic
At the end of the day the majority of people do the right thing not because the others do what it is right, we do it because we believe on it.
Regarding the lost of jobs to China, it is a complete diferent factor, cost of labour is one.