Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Carbon Trading

Carbon Taxing Refrigerants But Not Carbon Dioxide?

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ON July 1, Australia not only got a carbon tax, but also a tax on refrigerants based on their global warming potential. Refrigerants are used to keep things cool, for example, food in our refrigerators and people in cars and shopping centres.

The refrigerants industry is claiming the tax will significantly increase their costs.

The Australian government, however, claims that the new tax will simply encourage the use of alternative refrigerants which are less harmful for the environment. Indeed the relevant government website states:

“In many cases there are alternatives to synthetic greenhouse gases already in the Australian market. There are also low or non global warming alternatives in prospect for many applications.
Overseas and Australian experience is demonstrating that natural alternatives [to synthetic greenhouse gases] such as ammonia, carbon dioxide and hydrocarbons can be used safely and effectively.”

What? The Australian government is suggesting that carbon dioxide is, relatively speaking, not a potent greenhouse gas.

So, why in the scheme of things, relatively speaking, do we have a carbon tax?

[Read more…] about Carbon Taxing Refrigerants But Not Carbon Dioxide?

Really Reducing Emissions Would Mean Recession

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In Australia we now have a carbon tax, to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide. But I bet if there really was an across the board reduction in carbon emissions by industry the government would be complaining. Back in late 2008, when the price of oil plummeted, there was no celebrating the reduced energy usage anticipated by the reduction in demand. Rather everyone was complaining about the global financial crisis.

Indeed if our industries really curbed emissions it would be a sign production was slowing and the economy was going into recession.

What does the Australian Treasury really want: energy consumption or a reduction in emissions of carbon dioxide? Given current technologies, economic growth necessarily means energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. The two are inextricably linked.

But go to the Australian Government’s Treasury website and look under carbon price and there is a message about how modelling shows that:

“The Australian economy and the global economy both continue to grow strongly at the same time as we cut pollution to reduce the risks of dangerous climate change”.

Look at Australia’s All Ordinaries index and it shows that the Australian share market has gone nowhere since August last year while some economists suggest that the recent sharp drop in the global base price of metals is a sign of a likely drop in global industrial production and the risk of recession – not economic growth.

It’s a strange business this preoccupation with climate change and desire to save the planet by way of a carbon tax. Carbon is the chemical element with symbol C and atomic number 6. Carbon is known to form almost ten million different compounds including the hardest naturally occurring substance the diamond. But more than this, carbon compounds form the basis of all known life on Earth. Carbon should not be equated with pollution – and neither should carbon dioxide that is the stuff trees breathe in.

The carbon tax is in fact a tax on energy imposed on several hundred of Australia’s most productive enterprises. Most of these enterprises will simply pass the additional cost onto the consumer. Meanwhile the Australian Treasury has already compensated many consumers by way of a one-off payment in anticipation of the carbon tax increasing their cost of living.

If the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, was really serious about us all reducing energy consumption he would surely provide no compensation for the increased costs associated with the tax. He would simply insist ordinary Australians pay more so they consume less.

Indeed if Mr Swan was serious about reducing emissions he would be wanting a global recession, or at least one in Australia so we could do our bit – show moral authority, lead the way in reducing emission etcetera.

What the Carbon Tax and ETS will Really Cost: Peter Lang

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Tomorrow, July 1, Australia gets the carbon tax the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, promised she would never introduce.   The nation’s 500 “biggest polluters” will start paying a $23-a-tonne carbon price.

Retired geologist and engineer, Peter Lang, calculates what this tax, and the Emissions Trading Scheme to follow, will really cost Australians:

Introduction

Popularly called the ‘Carbon Tax’, the CO2 tax and ETS will cost us more than the government claims.  Initial costs will be relatively small – a ‘honeymoon rate’ – but an accelerating rate thereafter will soon create much higher costs.  Some people will be partly compensated for a while, but after that we will all pay the full costs.

Actual costs are not easily derived – much depends on assumptions and estimates.  From Treasury estimates, for instance, the cost will be more than $13,000 per person (every man woman and child), or more than $26,000 per worker, total to 2050 (in today’s dollars).

However, the costs will most likely be much higher.  Firstly, while the ‘honey-moon rate’ includes only the 500 largest emitters, all CO2 emitters will eventually be brought into the ETS to make the scheme work as planned.

Secondly, emissions will eventually have to be measured, not just crudely estimated as is done now.  Not only CO2, but all the other twenty-three Kyoto gasses, from all sources, will have to be included.  The compliance costs are not included in Treasury’s estimates (see The ultimate compliance cost for the ETS).  Therefore, the actual costs the ETS will impose on us will inevitably be higher than we are being led to believe.

Below I explain the calculations of:

  • the benefit (total to 2050)
  • the cost (total to 2050)
  • the benefit to cost ratio
  • the cost per capita and per worker

Lastly, I list the assumptions that underpin the estimate of the benefits.

The cost and benefit analysis figures I used as inputs are chosen from sources well respected for reliability and credibility. The figures and subsequent analysis tell us, in effect, that Australia is planning to spend $10 dollars for every $1 of benefit it hopes to derive – provided the assumptions about the consequences of AGW are correct.  This suggests that our climate policies are flawed and need major change.

[Read more…] about What the Carbon Tax and ETS will Really Cost: Peter Lang

Act Locally to Axe the Tax

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Dear Supporters,

In the next few days we will be launching a poster campaign to coincide with the introduction of the Carbon TAX.

The campaign will consist of distributing this poster http://www.galileomovement.com.au/images/poster_campaign_800c.jpg to shops and business in your local area and asking them to display it prominently in their windows or notice boards.

We have chosen this method of communication as we think it will reach more people than will a letter box drop and needs less effort.

We need your help in two ways:

Firstly, you can request us to send you by mail between 1-5 posters for you to take to your local shops. (More if you are really confident)

Additionally, you are welcome to download and print your own copies and ask businesses to hang them in their front windows.

And secondly, we are looking for 100 supporters to donate $5.00 each to help cover the costs of printing and postage. (All money donated will go towards this campaign only).

Link to our Donations Page http://www.galileomovement.com.au/donations.php

A special big thank you to Steve Hunter who has allowed us to use his illustration.

If you have any questions, or want to show your support or order posters, please email us at Galileomovement@gmail.com

Thank you for your support!
The Galileo Movement

The Long and Costly War on Carbon: Viv Forbes

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‘The Australian government claims that next month’s tax on carbon dioxide cannot be blamed for today’s soaring costs of living.

This tax, however, is just their latest assault in the decades-long war on carbon that is already inflating the cost of everything.

For at least a decade, power companies have been obliged to source 10-15% of their power at inflated prices from costly and unreliable sources like wind and solar. And for every wind or solar plant built, a duplicate backup gas facility is needed, increasing the demand and price for backup gas, hitting other gas consumers. Moreover, the threat of more carbon taxes has deterred the construction of efficient new coal-burning power plants. Rising electricity costs feed into the cost of everything from public transport to building materials.

The climatists are also responsible for numerous policies pushing up the price of food. These include the ethanol/biofuel madness, the restrictions on the fishing industry, the Kyoto scrub clearing bans, the spread of carbon-credit forests over farming and grazing land, the never ending war on irrigators, and the virtual ban on building new water-supply dams.

Then we have all the hidden costs of the climate industry. Thousands of our smartest graduates are lured into well-paid dead-end desk jobs in the overheads industry devoted to climate red tape, while real entrepreneurs are unable to find workers to develop our continent of under-utilised resources. There is an overpaid bureaucracy devoted to climate “research”, alternate energy, international junkets, Kyoto give-aways, and administration, auditing, enforcement, accounting, law and propaganda for their empire of climate taxes and subsidies.

Finally we have income tax implications from all the money being flung around to bribe people to accept their carbon tax? Every Australian will get these bills somewhere, sometime. And who pays for the hundreds of millions poured down subsidy rat-holes like carbon capture, solar panels, pink bats and the IPCC?

Australia’s crippling carbon tax is but the latest symptom of the costly Climate Madness infecting the well-fed elite of the western world.

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Text from Viv Forbes, photograph from Jennifer Marohasy taken near Lithgow, NSW

Why the Carbon Tax? Peter Lang

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Dear Members of Parliament and Senators

Why is the government insistent on implementing a CO2 price, given that it will not make any difference to the climate, or to sea levels, and most certainly will not “lead the world by example” (as has been so clearly demonstrated at the Copenhagen, Cancun and Durban conferences)?

If the government had been given sound, objective advice it would realise that there is no point in implementing a CO2 price unless the whole world participates. Renowned world leader in all matter to do with CO2 pricing, Yale economist Professor William Nordhaus, says in his 2008 book “A Question of Balance” [1], p19:

“We preliminarily estimate that a participation rate of 50 percent, as compared with 100 percent, will impose an abatement-cost penalty of 250 percent. Even with the participation of the top 15 countries and regions, consisting of three-quarters of world emissions, we estimate that the cost penalty is about 70 percent.”

Treasury estimates [2] suggest the Government’s CO2 pricing scheme will cost about $1,350 billion cumulative to 2050 (undiscounted), or $390 billion (discounted at 4.35% per annum, the rate used in the Nordhaus Yale-RICE model (2012) [3]). This cost may be an underestimate; for example, the compliance cost for CO2 measuring and monitoring apparently has not been estimated.

However, the benefit of the Government’s CO2 pricing will be virtually nil.

Why is the Australian Government so insistent on damaging our economy (and our wellbeing) for no environmental benefit?

Peter Lang

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References:

1. William Nordhaus (2008) “A Question of Balance”, p19,
http://nordhaus.econ.yale.edu/Balance_2nd_proofs.pdf

2. Treasury (2011) “Strong Growth, Low Pollution – Modelling a Carbon Price”, [Chart 5:13]
http://archive.treasury.gov.au/carbonpricemodelling/content/chart_table_data/chapter5.asp

3. Nordhaus, Yale-RICE Model (as of March 20, 2012)
http://nordhaus.econ.yale.edu/RICEmodels.htm