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carbon tax

ellicat

By ellicat
in Politics and Environment

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ellicat Grand Master

ellicat

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If you are against it there is an online petition here -
/>http://www.stopgillardscarbontax.com/

There is also a Brisbane protest planned for 23 March 2011

Time: 10:30am

Location: Qld Parliament, Cnr George and Alice Streets.

NOW BRISBANE

Date: 23 March

Time: 1230pm

Location: King George Square

I'll be there.

If you are interested in any of the Car Stickers etc let me know how many in this thread and I'll order in a bulk amount Friday.

Cheers

PS If you're too shy just send me a PM

Linked thread = http://www.australianfishing.com.au/forum/96-environment/314200-do-you-support-it-#314200

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ellicat Grand Master

ellicat

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Here's an article that gives a run down on what and how a carbon tax is supposed to work. It is written emotively from an obvious supporter, however I have highlighted the point where he fails to elaborate that energy is what is known as inelastic in economic terms. This is pretty basic economics and he may have forgotten his early/basic learning :whistle: Inelastic items are those that will have the same demand irrespective of the price (to a point). Other items that are inelastic (and therefore taxed very heavily) are alcohol, smokes, petrol, water.....etc etc.

My point is that even if the effect of the carbon tax is to double electricity prices the demand and consumption of it by domestic and most commercial users will not be effected in the same proportion, if at all. This is even more-so the case where they propose to pay the tax raised back to those that cannot afford it so they can still consume the same amount :blink:

All this pain for nil result is ridiculous. Rather than reducing CO2 being emitted, perhaps a scheme to reduce CO2 already in the atmosphere would be better. That is if you think it is necessary at all.


/>http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/02/25/3148768.htm

Taxing our carbon waste dump

By Sarah Collerton

Updated Fri Feb 25, 2011 11:48am AEDT

The Government plans to fix a price for carbon from July 2012.

One of the key items on Prime Minister Julia Gillard's agenda is pricing carbon and her new multi-party committee aims to spearhead legislation this term.

With the backing of the members of the committee, Ms Gillard has announced her framework for pricing carbon, which is set to begin on July 1, 2012.

Under the plan, the carbon price will initially be a fixed price set by the Government, before moving to a market-based cap-and-trade scheme.

The initial fixed price essentially constitutes a carbon tax.

The aim of the cap-and-trade scheme, also known as an emissions trading scheme, and a carbon tax are similar: to lower harmful emissions to help reduce the impact of climate change. But both use different mechanisms to achieve that goal.

The Government is yet to decide on what the fixed price will be, as well as the levels of compensation for consumers and business.

Here ABC News Online talks to environmental economist Jeff Bennett, from the Crawford School of Economics at the Australian National University, about what a price on carbon would involve.

What does it mean to put a price on carbon?

The bottom line is that everything we do in our lives involves some production of carbon waste products.

The products that we consume involve the generation of carbon products, especially of course through the use of energy [that] predominantly comes from fossil fuels, which when burned emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

At the moment, emitting carbon into the atmosphere in Australia is free, so what we see is our atmosphere is being used as a waste dump for carbon at no cost.

By putting a price on your emissions of carbon into the atmosphere, just like any other commodity, as the price goes up, you'll use less of it. A lie by omission of basic economic facts

So it's a mechanism for trying to reduce the amount of carbon being put into the atmosphere.

Who would pay a carbon tax?

We are all using the atmosphere as a waste dump, we all use that atmosphere because we're emitting carbon through our direct activities or the products we consume that are produced using carbon as an output.

So every one of us would have to pay some price for carbon waste that we emit.

What the Government is suggesting is that everybody should be buying the rights to emit carbon into the atmosphere so everything that we do that would create carbon we'd need to pay a price for.

What's the difference between a carbon tax and an emissions trading scheme?

One's a quantity restriction; the other's a price restriction.

Under an ETS, the Government sets an amount of carbon that can be emitted into the atmosphere over a particular length of time.

That means that everybody who wants to emit carbon into the atmosphere has to buy a product that the Government sells to them, which is an emissions certificate.

The sum total of those emission certificates adds up to the cap that the Government sets on total emissions. So the number of these trading certificates is of course less than the amount of carbon we are currently emitting into the atmosphere.

So what that means is that there's competition - lots of different people, lots of different activities, trying to get hold of these rights to emit carbon... so there's buying and selling and trading of those certificates. That's the way in which the price of emitting carbon into the atmosphere is determined - through the trading of those rights to emit carbon into the atmosphere.

Under the tax scheme, however, there's a price set immediately. There's an amount you have to pay as an emitter of carbon into the atmosphere.

The Government sets a price, say if you emit carbon into the atmosphere, you will have to pay a pre-determined price.

Would a carbon tax cause price rises?

Undoubtedly. At the moment, our use of the atmosphere as a waste dump for our carbon is currently free.

We don't pay anything to use energy that emits carbon into the atmosphere. We don't pay anything to drive our cars, which are producing carbon wastes. All of that's free at the moment.

What the Government's proposing is for all of our actions that use the atmosphere as a waste dump for our carbon emissions, all of those actions would require a price to be paid for that access.

What would the price of carbon be?

That's the $64 million question. The problem is nobody is holding property rights over the atmosphere.

When we think about prices and costs, we usually think about markets working to tell us what the cost and price will be.

But because nobody owns the atmosphere, there's no market to buy and sell access to the atmosphere and so without a market there's no mechanism for determining what the extent of that price of carbon emissions would be.

That means we have to go to some other way of determining prices and, generally speaking, that will be the Government setting the price of carbon.

What problems will the Federal Government face in setting a carbon price?

It could find that it sets the tax at the wrong level.

It might set it too high or it might set it too low because it doesn't really know yet how the community's going to respond to that tax.

If they put a tax of $50 a tonne of carbon emissions into a policy, the Government doesn't really know how people are going to respond to that.

It might be that that's a very, very low price realistically for people and people keep doing what they've been doing all along, so it doesn't cause the amount of carbon emissions to fall by very much.

Another possibility is that putting a tax of $50 a tonne might cause enormous economic disruption.

It might cause the cost of everything to go up so much that people reduce their economic activity, they reduce the amount of carbon going into the atmosphere and in so doing cause all sorts of social disruptions.

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ellicat Grand Master

ellicat

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Listen
/>http://www.4bc.com.au/blogs/4bc-blog/climate-change-overplayed/20110308-1blsy.html

This fella is reasonably well qualified -

Author - The Skeptical Environmentalist and Cool It

One of the 100 Top Global Thinkers - Foreign Policy, 2010

One of the world's 75 most influential people of the 21st century - Esquire, 2008

One of the "50 people who could save the planet" - UK Guardian, 2008

One of the top 100 public intellectuals, Foreign Policy & Prospect Magazine,2008

One of the world's 100 most influential people - Time Magazine, 2004

'Young Global Leader' - World Economic Forum, 2005

Director - Copenhagen Consensus Center

Adjunct Professor - Copenhagen Business School


/>http://www.lomborg.com/

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Sparksie Newbie

Sparksie

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Oooooh....Ellicat...

Have you got that can of worms photo at the ready?? :P

Yeah, its pretty insane to watch China & India urbanise billions not millions.

What is it? 2 new coal power stations a week in China??

Anyway, not happy Jan and I'll give that petiion a work out and my local federal member as well!!

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ellicat Grand Master

ellicat

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I'll have to get loose worms before the carbon tax comes in.

To get the can they need to mine the material, transport the material, process the material, make the can, label the can, seal the can, transport the can to the shop, light the shop so I can see it, use the cash register to record the sale, I'll have to wear clothes to shop and shoes too if I walk.

That's a lot of carbon emissions to be taxed right there.

If I dig loose worms from the back yard I'll only have to feel bad about the CO2 it took to get the lawn delivered, used to make the spade (and the plastic handle). I hope the neighbour is out as I can then do it nude. :pinch:

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ellicat Grand Master

ellicat

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I'm not so sure on this issue, f/ingnut. It only needs an "independent" to break loose and be true to his constituents and it wont get past the lower house.

You could be right though and the PMess will get them past the post by a big nose.

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Gad Community Regular

Gad

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The Carbon Tax is a federal tax that will go to the government coffers.

When it turns into an ETS the profits will be earned by traders. The profits will be derived at the cost to the producers who will pass it onto consumers.

so basicly the Carbon Tax is a Claytons` GST increase,when you don`t have a GST increase ???, and when it converts to an ETS,the government still gets its GST percentage out of the Carbon/ETS tax.???

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Shirvo Newbie

Shirvo

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Hey Eli,

Put me down for a bunch of stickers mate, hopefully I will get the opportunity to put them over that lying moles mouth before she can utter any more lies to the Australian people. Seriously I would love to see an election soon, knowing that we still have so much red head pain and international embaresment to be put through before we get the chance to stop her. Bring back Mal Brough and let that dude run this conntry.

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ellicat Grand Master

ellicat

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The Carbon Tax is a federal tax that will go to the government coffers.

When it turns into an ETS the profits will be earned by traders. The profits will be derived at the cost to the producers who will pass it onto consumers.

so basicly the Carbon Tax is a Claytons` GST increase,when you don`t have a GST increase ???, and when it converts to an ETS,the government still gets its GST percentage out of the Carbon/ETS tax.???

The carbon certificates will be traded similarly to how shares are traded so there will only be GST payable on the brokerage charged not the transaction value. Business will claim back the GST paid and the brokers will remit the same amount to the government. So essentially it will not cost anything apart from the indirect cost of administration. GST is only paid by the consumer or micro businesses who are not required to register for GST. Business is merely the collector and partial administrator for the government.

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Gad Community Regular

Gad

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sorry not meaning to be problematic..

bear with me,my understanding of this intended tax...:take coal out of the ground,then some one produces electricity with it,then some one manufactures,processes,producers etc for any and every item,food product etc that we the user/consumer use.

Now if there is a Carbon Tax at the start of this process,does not, that cost get added onwards each step of the chain,so that at the end of the chain the user pays.

Therefore for those that are at the end of this chain and can not claim back costs,are they not paying an added type of Claytons GST tax.

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ellicat Grand Master

ellicat

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sorry not meaning to be problematic..

bear with me,my understanding of this intended tax...:take coal out of the ground,then some one produces electricity with it,then some one manufactures,processes,producers etc for any and every item,food product etc that we the user/consumer use.

Now if there is a Carbon Tax at the start of this process,does not, that cost get added onwards each step of the chain,so that at the end of the chain the user pays.

Therefore for those that are at the end of this chain and can not claim back costs,are they not paying an added type of Claytons GST tax.

The final GST exclusive price will be higher due to cost recoupment being reflected in price so the GST in the GST inclusive price would also be higher so if that is what you are saying - Yes you are correct. :blink:

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ellicat Grand Master

ellicat

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If you are against it there is an online petition here -
/>http://www.stopgillardscarbontax.com/

There is also a Brisbane protest planned for 23 March 2011

Time: 10:30am

Location: Qld Parliament, Cnr George and Alice Streets.

I'll be there.

If you are interested in any of the Car Stickers etc let me know how many in this thread and I'll order in a bulk amount Friday.

Cheers

PS If you're too shy just send me a PM

Linked thread = http://www.australianfishing.com.au/forum/96-environment/314200-do-you-support-it-#314200

I ordered 50 stickers and will let you know in this thread when they arrive. I can post or arrange for collection :)

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daveylad Newbie

daveylad

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If the atmosphere is one big pot and we do our bit to clean it up some but then someone else in another corner, lets say India and China continue to crap in the pot (atmosphere) using our coal what well be paying carbon tax on and they do this without any extra tax or trading debits the pot will still contine to get crappy and we will be the only ones paying through the nose to clean it up. It has to be stopped unless all major countries are in on it, Isnt that what John Howard said???

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ellicat Grand Master

ellicat

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The stickers arrived today.

To make it easy for me -

Please send me a pm with your mailing address and number required.

Cheers

PS The government today approved the go-ahead for the largest coal mine in the Southern Hemisphere......go figure :whistle:

Change of time and venue for rally -

Date: 23 March

Time: 1230pm

Location: King George Square

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nathanquigley Newbie

nathanquigley

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I think the tax is bullshit, dont think it will reduce C consumption at all anyway. I'm a scientist, and trust me on this, humans contribute less than 1% of the carbon being released into the atmosphere. The science debate aside, lets say that the tax might be beneficial, I just can't understand why they would bring it in the manner they have eg. a blunt tax that slugs everyone. To me it would have seemed much more effective and appropriate to take more of a carrot and stick approach eg phase it in initially with incentives and rewards for business's and indiviuals who switch to greener energy (the carrot) allowing people and business time and providing them the incentive and support to switch over to less pollutive energy use. After a year of two of phasing this support in, the tax could be gradually introduced... (the stick)

I think the whole idea is crap, but the way its being introduced is even worse. And i think we have the blood sucking evil creature (bob brown)and julia gutless to thank for that.

=)

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