Shaved Monkey wrote:The end game is to drive green investment and change habits.
anything is better than nothing
AgentR11 wrote:Fee and dividend can NOT work, neither globally, nor nationally. It can not survive contact with the political process of any democratic country; and definitely can not survive contact with the political process of the two largest emitters; US and China.
Carbon tax is fine. But you have to be upfront and understand that it is a tax, and the revenues of that tax will not be simply redistributed. They will be used just as any other tax is; to shore up local political support, infrastructure projects, defense, payouts to large campaign contributors. That is political reality. Personally, I'd love to see a massive carbon tax that is passed in conjunction with a repeal of the income and/or estate taxes; with no change in the total revenue received by the government. That would put the tax directly on the sources of most societal expenses. You turn the key in your car, you pay, and you pay big. You set the thermostat to 72F in Winter up north, you pay, and you pay big. You run your company with inefficient fuel usage, your competitors will OBLITERATE you on prices because their cost of goods sold will be drastically lower than yours.
But payout dividend? We all die first.
AdTheNad wrote:You set it up, divide the proceeds by 311 million then send out a cheque at the end of each month.
Any politician who there after tried to scrap it would be absolutely mauled in the polls,
You've mentioned repealing the estate tax before a few times, but never really explained why either. Presumably you stand to gain, or would like to see dynasties more formally recognised, as some people always do well in the feudal system?
To be fair, I also think we should get rid of estate taxes, and whatever the beneficiaries receive should be classed as income and taxed as such.
AgentR11 wrote:Massive redistribution of wealth. There is no way a middle class family would get more back than they pay. If they did, the tax wouldn't do anything to modify behavior.
Any politicians representing a poor or liberal district would get mauled for scrapping it; any politician representing a middle class or conservative district would get mauled for failing to scrap it.
I'd much rather have an honest, annual federal property tax instead; means of production, paying their way, as they are used. (I'd make NO exceptions for charitable this and trust that though...)
That'd be about the same deal really. It comes in a lump, more or less, and would require the same sorts of insurance, planning, and hoop-jumping to keep businesses and family entities intact through the transition. Its the lumpiness of the expense that I'd like to squish; I don't much care what its called.
AdTheNad wrote:No, no planning, no hoop-jumping. There are assets and someone owns them. If they are in a trust, someone still owns them. If a name isn't set against the assets, no one owns them and they should be federally seized. When all assets are registered as owned, and then they change hand, that should be treated as income and taxed as such. There can be a life time tax free allowance that is tied to inflation.That'd be about the same deal really. It comes in a lump, more or less, and would require the same sorts of insurance, planning, and hoop-jumping to keep businesses and family entities intact through the transition. Its the lumpiness of the expense that I'd like to squish; I don't much care what its called.
AdTheNad wrote:No I think you are wrong. There are many people who would get back more, through all social strata. And with it would come a smug satisfaction. Think of all the people with a Prius - generally middle class people - who would get to feel even more superior of their neighbours, and mention it repeatedly, helping to drive change. This would have an almost instant effect on behaviour modification. Wondering if you should drive or bike to work today? Well, not only would you save money on gas, you would effectively be paid to cycle. Brilliant.AgentR11 wrote:Massive redistribution of wealth. There is no way a middle class family would get more back than they pay. If they did, the tax wouldn't do anything to modify behavior.
At the end of the day, the only way the impact from climate change can be reduced, is by leaving fossil fuels in the ground, or pulling CO2 back out of the air. By making fossil fuels more expensive now is the best chance to make alternatives financially viable.
There is no fairer way, than by making the people who use the most fossil fuels pay the most, with the proceeds being shared by everyone who will be effected by climate change. And that is everyone, not just a few wealthy people who want to repeal estate taxes.
Australia's second biggest bank says it's time to get on board the global trend of carbon pricing and tackle the nation's emissions growth.
Geoff Rousel, executive director of Westpac's commodities, carbon and energy trading group, told AAP carbon pricing was the "single most effective mechanism" to cut emissions.
The first report of the Australian Energy Market Operator, released on Friday, showed business was already responding, with a 2.4 per cent drop in energy use in 2011/12.
The drop was driven by lower industrial energy use, greater use of rooftop solar cells and consumers turning off lights and appliances, and it came despite GDP remaining strong.
"A lot of business and industry we talk to now do view a price on carbon as inevitable - this is part of a global energy revolution," Mr Rousel said.
Mr Rousel said businesses must question any cost increases by suppliers attributed to the carbon price to make sure they are not exaggerated.
EMMA ALBERICI: Now I'm curious to know what you make of the current nature of the political debate surrounding the introduction of the carbon tax, something that you found in 2008 and again just last year that was to be in Australia's best national interest.
ROSS GARNAUT: Yes, well, it's an extraordinary atmosphere in which this discussion of a serious public policy issue is being carried out. Most things are being trivialised, the whole debate's being treated as a football game with a lot more focus on the scores.
Don't want to trivialise the importance of football, but this is a really serious long-term issue for the country. And it's a complicated one.
There's a package of measures that came through the Parliament that involve raising a price on carbon, collecting quite a lot of revenue for that, giving quite large tax cuts in a way that improves economic efficiency, substantial family payments, support for trade-exposed industries, support for renewable energy and it's very hard to get a serious discussion of the package as a whole.
Similarly, what Australia does takes place in an international context. We're the highest emitter of greenhouse gases per person in the developed world and we should be a little bit sensitive to that fact and sensitive to what others are doing.
And when I was preparing my second report, there was a lot of focus in the public discussion about how China and the United States weren't doing much. Well, they're actually both doing quite a lot now and you wouldn't know it. There's just no place for real analysis of international developments in the Australian policy discussion on this matter.
EMMA ALBERICI: Well let's take some specifics on the discussion. The Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says it will raise every family's cost of living, it will make every job less secure, but it won't help the environment. In fact he claims that Australia's emissions will be 8 per cent higher by 2020.
ROSS GARNAUT: Well, there are three propositions there. On the first of those, it will raise the cost of living by a small amount. On the second of those, it will not make every job less secure.
It will make some jobs more secure. And it will very substantially reduce emissions below what they would otherwise have been, and in addition puts us in a very strong position at low cost to increase our effort and reduce emissions more if and when action in the rest of the world requires us to do so.
EMMA ALBERICI: Alright. Well you in your 2011 update of the Climate Change Review, you make the point that a market-based approach like that which the Gillard Government has introduced will cost Australians substantially less than a regulatory approach like that advocated by Tony Abbott. Can you tell us how did you arrive at that conclusion?
And how the carbon price compares to mobile phone spending and other taxes
A wee bit of context always helps. This graph below from The Australia Institute highlights how the carbon price compares to revenue from the GST, fuel excise and other taxes, and how it compares to household spending on mobile phones, fast food and other things. It’s fairly self-explanatory.
Taking the time to review that evidence shows that B.C.’s climate policies (including the carbon tax) are starting to push down fossil fuel consumption. Let’s take a look at some of the major questions Donnelly raises:
Is B.C.’s carbon tax working to reduce emissions?
The main purpose of the carbon tax is to encourage people and businesses to use cleaner sources of energy, and to use energy as efficiently as possible. So, to get an idea about whether B.C.’s carbon tax is working, we first need to look at the consumption of coal, natural gas, gasoline and diesel in the province. Statistics published by the B.C. government last week show that the carbon tax and other climate change policies are having a positive impact.
The end-use demand for fossil fuels is down in the province, and it has been dropping faster than the Canadian average, implying that B.C.’s efforts to reduce emissions are delivering results.
s B.C.’s carbon tax having an impact on the economy?
When the carbon tax was introduced in 2008, there were plenty of doomsday forecasts that B.C.’s economy would come crashing down. While B.C. has had its share of economic struggles, the simple reality is that there is no evidence indicating the province’s carbon tax is negatively impacting the economy.
B.C. is not alone in taxing carbon, and the experiences of countries like Sweden and Finland — countries that implemented similar policies more than two decades ago — offer useful lessons for our province. The general message coming from those jurisdictions is that while carbon taxes are not a silver bullet, they’ve helped the environment without harming the economy. A study of seven European countries that implemented environmental taxes in the 1990s found that greenhouse gas emissions were down from two to six per cent, and the overall effect on gross domestic product had been negligible.
Return to Environment, Weather & Climate
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 15 guests