November 06, 2008
From The Australian
This is why we should have a straight carbon tax or carbon rationing instead of relying on the ETS Market system which is just capitalism which has caused the problems in the first place.
A Carbon Tax is where a GST / VAT / .. type tax at some percent is applied calculated on the cost it will take to repair that Carbon that has been emmitted in manufacturing, transporting etc... the product in question. It would be calculated and not a plucked figure.
Carbon rationing is even better where we work out how much carbon per person we're allowed to emit to remain sustainable. It will involve some credit card type arrangement. If you use more than your allocation you can buy from someone who didn't use as much.
Both are politically difficult to implement in our current capitalist societies.
WHILE you were distracted by crashing banks and clashing US senators, you may have missed a small environmental earthquake.
The price of carbon has collapsed.
In only three months, life has become a lot cheaper for polluters. The financial cost of warming the planet has plummeted in Europe's emissions trading system (ETS) and the effectiveness of such a volatile market mechanism in curbing carbon is being questioned.
You may recall that the ETS is a mechanism to encourage businesses to reduce their carbon output. Europe's larger companies are allocated permits to emit CO2, and these allowances, called EUAs, can be traded on exchanges.
Companies that emit less CO2 than their allocation can sell EUAs for cash, but inefficient polluters must buy EUAs or face financial penalties.
The idea is that a shortfall in EUAs allocated by governments will cause the carbon price to rise, stimulating investment in carbon reduction.
It's a market solution to pollution, but this carbon market is showing a distressing tendency to behave like most financial markets -- hysterically. In July, the right to spew out one tonne of CO2 from a chimney would have cost a power generator E29.33, but yesterday it could be bought for only E18.25 ($34.14).
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Read the article.
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5 comments:
'Carbon rationing is even better where we work out how much carbon per person we're allowed to emit to remain sustainable. It will involve some credit card type arrangement. If you use more than your allocation you can buy from someone who didn't use as much.'
I'm floored...the very thought of this is inhumane. It's a glorified food stamp program.
Are we to be treated like the indigenous population and be restricted in what we buy? Is that freedom?
It'll be a sure fire way to limiting Australian wealth and prosperity. Perhaps we should start sterilising welfare mothers and the mentally challenged? Don't need those unsustainable useless eaters spewing out co2 huh?
Geezus and who said communism was defeated. Climbed over the wall and into Greenpeace.
Hi Matt,
To understand what I'm saying you need to have made the conceptual leap to where the world is heading if we don't make changes. That world is one of an exploding population that still insists that every individual can consume resources and produce carbon output. Limits need to be set and this is the fairest way. The sooner this is put in place the greater our carbon allowance. But as time goes on where we continue to over-emit carbon, the lower our individual allowancees will be. Start making significant cuts now and the least impact it will have and will never be like food stamps.
You speak of limiting wealth and prosperity. But don't you understand that a world racked by a runaway climate will limit the wealth and prosperity to the extreme rich (for a while anyway until their money will no longer avoid the consequences of the inevitable)?
You mean Al Gore right...the commoner with a billion dollars already racked up in carbon trading?
What is the meaning of carbon tax? Can you elaborate about it in detail? Accountants Brisbane
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