Carbon Tax Isolation

[Sojourner]

As the Durban Conference has wound up it appears that no agreement has been reached for a Global Carbon Tax and it will be looked at again in 2020.

This suggests that Australia is now going it alone with the exceptions of NZ who have a $10 scheme and the EU who have a Carbon Credit scheme. Ours is a $20 Scheme and believed to have been modeled on other nations also having the Carbon Pricing. Now they dont and wont have, and our Industry is left to compete against these other nations that dont have the tax.

How does Australian Industry remain competitive until 2020 over nations that dont have Carbon Taxing?

Naturally here is a "link" that discusses the issue!

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nationa ... 6219406861

[redandblack]

Dear, oh dear.

At the risk of incurring wrath for being cynical about the article and where it's published (seeing that The Australian only publishes anti-climate change spin on anything) and also hastening to say I don't profess to understand exactly what has been agreed, it's still my understanding that both developing and developed countries have agreed to a legally binding position that has action by 2020 as its latest date.

2 points: that is the opposite of what Mr Murdoch's paper says.

My second sentence is possibly one of the longest sentences written on the Politics Forum

[Q.]

Couple of things the article doesn't point out.

Carbon pricing is a global inevitability. Our implementation of a pricing scheme means that, for investors, Australia is already a known quantity, whereas it will be difficult to predict costing impacts in countries that are yet to, but will be, implementing carbon pricing schemes.

Secondly, it is absolutely crucial the successive governments continue with the promised investment into renewable energy so that we become global leaders of the technology and leaders in export of renewable energy technology to countries adopting carbon pricing over the next decade.

[scoob]

Couple of things the article doesn't point out.

Carbon pricing is a global inevitability. Our implementation of a pricing scheme means that, for investors, Australia is already a known quantity, whereas it will be difficult to predict costing impacts in countries that are yet to, but will be, implementing carbon pricing schemes.

Secondly, it is absolutely crucial the successive governments continue with the promised investment into renewable energy so that we become global leaders of the technology and leaders in export of renewable energy technology to countries adopting carbon pricing over the next decade.

Investment into renewables is the most important thing I believe, not sure that the carbon tax is the most effective way to encourage investment... has there been any concrete/specific commitments into this area $$$'s or programs announced??? I believe the gov has sold the CT very poorly - only concentrating on the compensation people will receive and not what they plan on doing with other revenue.

[Psyber]

Couple of things the article doesn't point out.
Carbon pricing is a global inevitability. Our implementation of a pricing scheme means that, for investors, Australia is already a known quantity, whereas it will be difficult to predict costing impacts in countries that are yet to, but will be, implementing carbon pricing schemes.
Secondly, it is absolutely crucial the successive governments continue with the promised investment into renewable energy so that we become global leaders of the technology and leaders in export of renewable energy technology to countries adopting carbon pricing over the next decade.

Quichey's statement brings us back to the issue that Denmark emits 650 gm of CO2 per kWh and France emits 90 gm.
Denmark is years ahead of us in renewables and France gets 80% of its power from nuclear fuel.

In the interest of finding out what is a really viable option, I've been corresponding with Barry Brook of the Environment Institute at the Uni of Adelaide about the issues, including short half-life waste from either Thorium Fission or from fast breeder Uranium Fission models. Here is his blog where some of this is addressed: http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/12/11/g ... questions/

It is too long to quote but here are a few excerpts from the questions and answers posted there:

Q2. Considering ‘energy’ itself is free, enough of it all around us and with cheaper, cleaner, safer, decentralised methods of harnessing it as individuals(going ‘off-grid’) and the growing devastating, global crisis of Fuel Poverty on social-economic conditions:
-Why do you think the energy industry and governments are so keen to continue the current dependency on the infinite extraction of gravely finite fuels, wasteful and polluting means of supplying across great distances from source to customer?
-What are the chances of seeing off-grid autonomous power generation becoming our main energy source? what role could it have in eliminating fuel poverty, climate change and the world economy/markets?

The most commonly proposed ways to overcome intermittency and unscheduled lulls in local renewable energy generation are: (i) to store energy during productive times and draw on these stores during periods when little or nothing is being generated; (ii) to have a diverse mix of renewable energy systems (including distributed generation – the second part of the question being asked), coordinated by a smart electronic grid management system (so that even if the wind is not blowing in one place, it will be in another, or else the sun will be shining or the waves crashing); and (iii) to have fossil fuel or nuclear power stations on standby, to take up the slack when needed. …...

…... As a result, an overbuilt system of wind and solar would, at times, be delivering five to twenty times our power demand, and at other times, none of it. Modelling of these contingencies has shown that a system which relies on wind and/or solar power, plus large-scale energy storage and a geographically dispersed electricity transmission network to channel power to load centres, would be at least an order of magnitude more expensive than an equivalent nuclear-powered system, and still less reliable.....

….. Nuclear fission, the other low-carbon, low-impact alternative, has the advantage of using an energy-dense stored fuel, but it carries a social stigma in many countries (centred on ‘radiophobia’) that will be a real challenge to overcome.
So currently, fossil fuels win by default.

[Psyber]

An alternative approach: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-13/c ... ite=sydney
(Not one I am advocating...)

[Jimmy_041]

Not such a problem when you compare "Per capita greenhouse gas emissions in 2005"

5 Australia 26.9
8 Canada 22.6

Now look at "Actual greenhouse gas emissions in 2005"

10 Canada 808.2 1.83%
16 Australia 569.9 1.29%

They emit around 42% more than us and rank in the Top 10 worst polluters in 2005

List of countries by 2008 CO2 emissions

Rank Country Annual CO2 emissions ,000 m2 Percentage of global total

7 Canada..................544,091 ....................................1.80%
16 Australia................399,219.....................................1.32%

See how statistics distorts the facts

[Sojourner]

Canada are pulling out of the Kyoto Protocol. Article states that Japan and Russia are not going to take it on and that its expected that several other nations will now dump it also - probably those that have since voted in conservative governments!

As per the OP, Australia becomes more and more isolated and left holding the bag for something our competitors will not be doing and not adding the environmental costs to their products as the ALP/Greens assumed they would be when they priced ours accordingly.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/ ... 6220575715

[mick]

The only good thing about this tax is that we probably won't have to edure another ALP/Greens coalition for a generation

[Q.]

Given that the Kyoto Protocol has been a failure, and the talks in Durban centred on this point, the subsequent abandonment doesn't mean much. Yet. Depends on what agreements will follow.

[Squawk]

fast breeder Uranium Fission models.

There are a few blokes on this forum who'd like to describe themselves as "fast breeder models" Psyber! Bet they wish their half life was half as good as Uranium, too!

[fish]

See how statistics distorts the facts

Jimmy if you are talking about distortion of the facts look no further than this howler from the Minnesotans for Global Warming!

Or this gem from the sadly departed Senator Fielding!

The inescapable fact is that Australia produces 1.47% of the worlds emissions with just 0.33% of the worlds population - we produce far more than our fair share of the stuff (four and a half times the global average emissions per person!) and ought to do our fair share to cut our emissions.

[Sojourner]

See how statistics distorts the facts

Jimmy if you are talking about distortion of the facts look no further than this howler from the Minnesotans for Global Warming!

Or this gem from the sadly departed Senator Fielding!

The inescapable fact is that Australia produces 1.47% of the worlds emissions with just 0.33% of the worlds population - we produce far more than our fair share of the stuff (four and a half times the global average emissions per person!) and ought to do our fair share to cut our emissions.

Agreed Fish, the sooner we commit to doing our share to reduce our Carbon Emissions by the use of Nuclear Power the better.

[Jimmy_041]

See how statistics distorts the facts

Jimmy if you are talking about distortion of the facts look no further than this howler from the Minnesotans for Global Warming!

Or this gem from the sadly departed Senator Fielding!

The inescapable fact is that Australia produces 1.47% of the worlds emissions with just 0.33% of the worlds population - we produce far more than our fair share of the stuff (four and a half times the global average emissions per person!) and ought to do our fair share to cut our emissions.

Another use of statistics to distort the facts
If we doubled our population, our emissions wouldn't double but the per capita would reduce.
So we create more emissions, but feel better because, per capita, we go down the ladder
Its called economies of scale

I say pooh bah, and my Canadian example proves what I say.

Maybe the Falkland Islands should have gone to the Argies - those Mofos are the No 10 Carbon dioxide emissions [tonnes] per capita user - even worse than us (we are No 11)

But hang on, they are only No 212 on actual emissions with <0.01% - they must be beating the crap out of themselves over this

[The Sleeping Giant]

See how statistics distorts the facts

Jimmy if you are talking about distortion of the facts look no further than [url=http&#58;//www&#46;safooty&#46;net/forum/viewtopic&#46;php?p=1343864#p1343864]this howler[/url] from the Minnesotans for Global Warming!

Or [url=http&#58;//www&#46;safooty&#46;net/forum/viewtopic&#46;php?p=1312840#p1312840]this gem[/url] from the sadly departed Senator Fielding!

The inescapable fact is that Australia produces 1.47% of the worlds emissions with just 0.33% of the worlds population - we produce far more than our fair share of the stuff (four and a half times the global average emissions per person!) and ought to do our fair share to cut our emissions.

The rest of the world has to get there natural resources from somewhere.

[fish]

See how statistics distorts the facts

Jimmy if you are talking about distortion of the facts look no further than this howler from the Minnesotans for Global Warming!

Or this gem from the sadly departed Senator Fielding!

The inescapable fact is that Australia produces 1.47% of the worlds emissions with just 0.33% of the worlds population - we produce far more than our fair share of the stuff (four and a half times the global average emissions per person!) and ought to do our fair share to cut our emissions.

Another use of statistics to distort the facts

Are you saying we don't produce emissions at a rate around four and a half times higher than the global average?

We do.

[Jimmy_041]

No - I'm saying anyone can use of statistics to support an argument.

Are you saying Belize, Qatar, Guyana, Malaysia, UAE, Kuwait, PNG, Brunei and Australia are the worst polluters in the World?

OK, lets cut their omissions in half in the next year and see what difference that makes to total output

It would equal 5 days of China's output

All produce oil and all have small populations

[fish]

No - I'm saying anyone can use of statistics to support an argument.

Are you saying Belize, Qatar, Guyana, Malaysia, UAE, Kuwait, PNG, Brunei and Australia are the worst polluters in the World?

Anyone can use facts to support an argument too, and that is exactly what I've done. The deniers, nay-sayers and head-in-sanders can whinge and moan all they like but it is a fact that Australia produces more than it's fair share of carbon dioxide emissions.

As for the countries you've listed they all should do their fair share to reduce their emissions, as should the big polluters such as China, the US, India, Russia, Japan etc.

[Jimmy_041]

Happy to agree they are facts, but they are statistics, and any mathematician will tell you, give he or she long enough, and they will find a statistic to support your argument.

Here are the facts to support my argument:

Are you saying Belize, Qatar, Guyana, Malaysia, UAE, Kuwait, PNG, Brunei and Australia are the worst polluters in the World?

OK, lets cut their emissions in half in the next year and see what difference that makes to total output

It would equal 5 days of China's output

All produce oil and all have small populations

I'll go one step further - Lets totally eliminate the emissions of the top 10 emitters per capita

What do we achieve? 10 days of China

I agree that a long march starts with one step, but the reduction of nuclear weapons in our World would never begin with Belize, Qatar, Guyana, Malaysia, UAE, Kuwait, PNG, Brunei and Australia all agreeing to reduce theirs!

It has to start at the top or it is futile.
In the meantime, China, under the guise of being a third world country, will concrete their position as the strongest, most powerful, nation on earth, and the worlds banker, whilst destroying the earth's itself

[redandblack]

Starting somewhere is a better option than just throwing your hands up and saing it' too hard.

I think of Egypt recently, Russia with 'Glasnost', the Berlin Wall, the American Revolution, etc, etc.

They all started with the actions of a very small minority.

You're right, though, Jimmy, that small step changes the world.