Climate Change - Carbon Tax

[midfielder]

What has me pissed is how this whole debate is going....

Both sides of the political fence are becoming more extreme in their claims...

But one thing has me pissed.... it is possible to support measures to improve or react to climate change without agreeing on a carbon tax...

My experience is taxing something never works .. all it does is in the long run is pass on the cost to those that buy or use the product ... with governments playing God on who gets a rebate or not... but those taxed do survive...

Me personally I prefer reward based models ... were those that invest in alternative ideas get special tax deductions ... like for every dollar it cost you can have a two dollar deduction... {BTW not suggesting the 1 for 2 is the model its just an example)..

Other examples is no tax on profits for a certain number of years ... assistance with research and marketing etc..... over to those who can develop a series of reward models...

My life's experiences say when you offer huge rewards ... people with ideas and big corporations react....

Any old how ... that's my view ... in favour of doing something but not a tax...

 

[kevrenor]

No-one likes taxes. Thus they work as a deterrent.

Alas I weep for sensible civic discourse in this nation today!

 

[dibo]

I'll leave aside the Coalition's claims for the moment - how are Labor's claims becoming more extreme?

I think there's a pathological resistance to anything that looks like a tax from some parts.

There's a simple dynamic that a carbon price* generates. Carbon-intensive activity gets more expensive. For the vast majority of people, that means that their power bills will go up a little bit and petrol prices will go up about 6c a litre. This is meant to create an incentive to use less electicity and petrol.

Jesus - I've paid everywhere from $1.02 to $1.54 for regular unleaded in the last year. I wouldn't know where a 6c change starts and ends.

Power prices are going to go up because neither the Labor nor Liberal governments in NSW have made necessary investments in infrastructure, so now we've got an infrastructure debt that needs to be paid off.

At business level, this will increase the cost of some forms of industrial activity. Same idea as for consumer-level stuff, it creates a financial incentive to reduce activities that produce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse pollutants.

The whole point is that financial incentive. Energy companies invest in coal etc. because it's cheap. The fact that it pollutes doesn't matter when considering the net present value (or whatever calculation they're using). Under a carbon price, there's an incentive. The cost base shifts and low-polluting activities become relatively cheaper. The higher the carbon price, the bigger the shift, the greater the incentive to invest in low-polluting activity.

The Government's going to collect additional revenue and feed it back out through compensation payments. These payments will mitigate against the cost rises, but they won't remove the incentive to reduce pollution.

This way, individuals and businesses make the choices on how they reduce their emissions. But the point is that they'll make the changes to reduce their emissions because it'll be worth it to them.

There's the old saying - a rising tide lifts all boats. As the tide moves up and down, everyone moves together. But the movement of the tide doesn't change the fact that if your boat's overloaded, dropping excess weight means you sit higher in the water and you're better off. If you're already sitting pretty, you'll be sitting prettier.

It's a neat, efficient, careful way of dealing with the problem.

Would you rather a large scale scheme of government incentive payments that go out to business to 'encourage' them to do the right thing? Payments that we'd then have to cover through increased taxes etc.? That's basically the Abbott plan...

There's a longer range political question in any case.

What happens in three years if this plan doesn't go through and the Coalition win the next election? Climate change is still happening but we're even further behind the game on reducing carbon emissions. Timelines are getting shorter so transition is more expensive. And eventually they simply get to a point where they've got to act but it really will punch portholes in the economy below the waterline.

What will we say then about this time, this opportunity to do something? We were worried about 6c a litre at the pump? I can't see us collectively not feeling like we were complete suckers for a scare campaign.



*Whether fixed in the form of a carbon tax or market determined in an ETS.

 

[scottmac]

If I hear the word Toxic Tax one more time I think I'll go nuts. For a Liberal Tony sure dumbs it down a lot. He's the quintessential ultra conservative catholic father who would rather just say no to your party than give you the reason for why you can't have it.

I just don't understand why he wants to be leader of this country and its hard to tell if he does either.

There must be a price on carbon in some form. The excuse that other nations of the world are not doing it will just not cut it. Something needs to be done ASAP because the longer we wait the harder and more expensive it will be to make the desicion.

 

[midfielder]

Dibo

I understand I have read how the carbon tax will work.... I just don't think it's clever nor will it solve the problem...

As I said I want measures taken were solutions are encouraged... as I said my life experiences are you can reward an achievement or punish behaviour to encourage a change in behaviour ... sometimes a bit of both ... On balance rewarding good behaviour works better than punishment ... theory as well says rewards work better even dating back to the old theory X & Y back in the 50's or 60's or whenever it was done...

We shall agree to disagree for mine the offer of massive rewards for solving the problem are more likely produce workable solutions than a tax..

Scottmac

Gotta agree with how basic TA is ... he is a worry .... you get the sense that he does not believe it ... maybe gets his figures from Alan Jones ( funny if you watched media watch this week)..

 

[scoober]

on being proactive and being rewarded...

Thorium based power reactors ARE the future, clean, safe, nuclear power with no CO2 output.see basic wiki link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium

if we grabbed this and ran so, so many issues in regards to carbon tax would be nullified. pretty sad when countries like india and china are leading the way.

 

[Bex]

Yeh, clean and safe. How many times have I heard nuclear industry protaganists say that....the problem is, when it does goe wrong (and it will eventually), it goes so, so wrong.

 

[dibo]

upside and downside risks are both massive, and humans are incredibly bad at rationally analysing such divergent outcomes and their relative probabilities.

in a world where our politicians like to retain the illusion of some control over what's going on, nuclear just doesn't stack up as a politically feasible option.

 

[elevated position]

funny thing about this argument (from both sides) is that neither party is worried about potential solutions that are here now. (ozzie companies) One is a company that has the technology to reduce coal emisions.One is a company working on wave generated electricity. (west aust company)Aus gov not interested as yet however France and Ireland entering into feasibility studies. Another company has solar panels to collect and filter water.(cost $360.00 NSW uni has a PV panel that works with hydrogen. (its claim is that a 10 square mt panel will produce enough power for 5 houses and still return some to the grid.(this product has the backing of Rio Tinto which could be why it has not surfaced yet as with the Gov if it is as good as they claim both lose out on revenue.

However the holy grail is not the use of coal but how to store the electricity that is produced. Do that and you dont need to run the plants as much.

 

[Bex]

There's also a company generating both power and desalinated water using ocean floor mounted systems. They use wave energy, however, the hardware doesn't approach the water surface but rather uses the underwater ebbs and flows associated with wave and tide action.

 

[dibo]

It's hard to get the venture capital to go industrial scale with these things without there being a carbon price to create incentives to invest in zero-carbon or carbon-mitigating technology.

 

[elevated position]

most of these projects were on the board years before the carbon tax became the mantra to save the world.
Now if funding is the problem how about the gov make super funds take up some of the challenges and compensate them with zero tax on profits.

 

[style_cafe]

Coldest May on record in some parts of the country.

Even Melbourne had it`s coldest May in 41 years & it`s been bloody cold here too!!

So what`s all the fuss about???




(A tounge-in cheek post)

 

[scoober]

Yeh, clean and safe. How many times have I heard nuclear industry protaganists say that....the problem is, when it does goe wrong (and it will eventually), it goes so, so wrong.

Just to let you know im not for or against nuclear power, im for alternate energy sources that are better than what we are currently dependent on. i invest a lot of money on listed companies that are in R&D within the energy and minerals sector, and most of the major issues for some of these companies is to get government recognition (not just aus), without that they are pointless, or have no way of implementing their technology

people have listed other technologies on here and some are relevant and some will never cover the needs of the consumer.

All i wanted to point out is that unlike uranium with its instability and toxic waste thorium is controllable (flick off a switch!) has no toxic waste (can be handled once spent) no CO2 output, is in more plentiful supply then uranium and is cheaper. energy output for 1 tonne thorium is equal to 200 tonne uranium or 3.5million tonne coal.

 

[midfielder]

One of my sons is into IT and is all into climate change and he has been talking for about 18 months now about what the yanks are working on ... they are trying to create a sun... yes a man made sun..

The Chinese have recently joined in trying to build the sun... I posted the Chinese attempt a little why ago http://ccmfans.net/board/index.php/topic/4431-a-man-made-sun-unlimited-near-clean-engery/

According to my son the Yanks could have this thing build with 15 year or sooner ... the problem is how to use the energy ... that's also being worked on...

A mate of mine works for Toyota and they have all sorts of things going on... one he told me about has a certain appeal and challenge... If you build a big box full of magnets and have the positive and negative things opposite and fire a charge into the box ... it just bounces from magnet to magnet gets down too the bottom of the box goes to the top and just keeps going ... maybe forever... they are trying to work out how to harness the movement of the electric charge travelling from magnet to magnet..

 

[Ancient Mariner]

most of these projects were on the board years before the carbon tax became the mantra to save the world.
Now if funding is the problem how about the gov make super funds take up some of the challenges and compensate them with zero tax on profits.

A carbon tax is a way to make these alternate non carbon dioxide polluting methods economically feasible. Get the level of tax right and the free market will supply the alternatives.

 

[Ancient Mariner]

According to my son the Yanks could have this thing build with 15 year or sooner ... the problem is how to use the energy ... that's also being worked on...

The promise of nuclear fusion as the next great energy source has been on the agenda since the 1960s and like fast breeder reactors always 15 years in the future.

Do not hold your breath waiting.

 

[dibo]

A carbon tax is a way to make these alternate non carbon dioxide polluting methods economically feasible. Get the level of tax right and the free market will supply the alternatives.

damn straight.

The promise of nuclear fusion as the next great energy source has been on the agenda since the 1960s and like fast breeder reactors always 15 years in the future.

Do not hold your breath waiting.

probably holds for the thorium reactors as well I reckon.

 

[dibo]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXpBfRlLnv8&feature=player_embedded

 

[nikko]

Hello Dibo