@ Maling : Yes that's exactly what I was referring it. There's not only talk of taxing industry for its emissions (a tax that would inevitably be passed on to consumers anyway) but I've also heard rumors about taxing individuals for excess car usage etc. Sorry, I can't find a source for that info as yet but I remember hearing about it somewhere.
Either way, paying for carbon emissions is never going to fix the problem.
I just watched that, and I agree that it highlights many of the potential flaws of the ETS being proposed in the United States.
I agree that the concept itself is potentially susceptible to many important issues, but, if implemented correctly and coupled with other 'schemes', an ETS works.
An ETS is the most effective way of directing and providing incentive for a monetary system to be sustainable, because without it, the cheapest "way" is usually the dirtiest.
Yes, it will increase energy and petrol prices:
Burning petrol in our cars and burning coal to create electricity at power stations causes climate change. Carbon trading puts a price on greenhouse pollution so it does mean that the price of electricity and petrol can (read: will) go up.
But it's a complete misconception to think that the ETS is a tax.
It's a scheme which commoditises the privilege of emitting carbon (or greenhouse gases), and rewards acts which reduce carbon. Carbon permits are purchased from the government (or permit holders), and are earned (and thus can be sold by) people who take steps to reduce their carbon footprint. The amount of carbon "permitted" by the government will sequentially decrease over the years. Government doesn't determine the price of carbon permits; supply and demand does - how much big businesses are willing to pay for permits.
Only big businesses (according to ACF, 900 across Australia) are required to buy permits.
What will be a tax is the concept of government throwing money at alternative energies / third world countries. Where's that money coming from, hm? Oh, yeah - the taxpayer. I agree with bvidium that you don't become green by throwing money at something.
As consumers (nay, citizens), we have to understand this: our country (us) is going to have to pay for the wind farms, solar plants, nuclear reactors and tidal generators one way or another. The ETS is a solution in which the market determines that price, not the government. At the end of the day, I think a market-based solution will be the cheapest and most effective way of providing incentive to be sustainable and clean.
A scheme where government picks the renewable energies, the government decides how much to subsidise these energies by (and that's going to cost a shit-ton of taxpayer money to bring renewables' prices below that of burning coal), and continues to subsidise the costs of these energies for their functioning lifetime is - in one word - ineffective.
Under a market based mechanism, like an ETS, if a firm reduces its emissions intensity by acquiring more efficient equipment or, for example, by generating power from burning gas rather than coal, it will need to buy fewer permits per dollar of output. There is a clear, transparent and immediate incentive—a clear price signal— encouraging investment in lower emissions technology. However, if a scheme operates whereby the government pays the firm to reduce its emissions intensity, leaving aside the impact on the budget and the demand therefore for higher taxes, there is firstly going to be a substantial and contentious debate about what the correct baseline is, and then whether it will actually be reduced. Because most capital equipment, especially in the energy sector, has lives running into many decades, as long as 50 years in some cases, the business sector is going to require assurance that any government subsidy will match the life of the asset—so running well beyond 2020. In other words, any scheme has to have a lifetime which matches the lifetime of the investment. If government wants business to make long-term investments to lower emissions, its commitment must be long term as well, which is why a subsidy scheme which terminates in 2020 will achieve very little. Arguments of considerable ferocity will arise as to whether a new piece of equipment would have been bought anyway, with the risk that the government ends up funnelling billions of dollars to companies to subsidise their profit without achieving any real additional cuts in emissions.
I've watched that video you posted, and I want you to read this - a speech Malcolm Turnbull gave in the House of Reps explaining why he will cross the floor on the ETS vote. It's well worth the read.
Also: Australian Conservation Foundation - What is an emissions trading scheme?
http://www.acfonline.org.au/articles/news.asp?news_id=1817
I read that speech from Malcolm Turnbull, and overall, it was not bad.
There are thousands of things I want to write in here, but one point that I'll list now is this:
-Records
I dislike it when politicians always point out the differences in weather in the decade starting from the year 2000 based on their records. It is not just Turnbull who has used this as an argument to action on climate change but a whole tide of them globally.
What I notice is that especially when politicians refer to 'records', they are disregarding historic discovery. what I mean is they are basing these future predictions and calls to action on only our current records which are vastly minute compared to the Earth's life history.
Our records which as a developed society in the world is not the only data we should entirely rely on, and many climatologists will argue this as well; but history should play an important role from the information they get through discovery of pre-developed society times and even pre-human. It's about understanding the balance and cycles of Planet Earth.
While I don't disregard climate change, and sustainability and respecting and replenishing the eco systems will be crucial in my Architecture career, Earth in history has been hotter, colder, more active, less active, more and less carbon dioxide as well as methane in the atmosphere and so on. I'm not saying that we should also disregard out recorded data, but I see no reason 'to head to the hills' over it which is an extreme attitude that has taken society by storm in regards to "global warming" or climate change.
You all might like to check out this video that NASA produced... pretty intersting:
Talks about how the Earth seems to be "running a fever"... I think the focus shouldnt be wether it exists or not but lowering our contribution and planning for a warmer future.
And in a warming world im sure that hotter events would cause above normal cold events...
its a dynamic system that throws itself all over the place.
Thanks for the video...was very interesting...
it almost makes the entire planet feel like a casino...its a gamble and the outcome really is unpredictable I guess at the end of the day..
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