train said:
Murray's explanation is so overly simplistic as to give me cause for concern. I hope there is some meat behind his conclusions. It's little more than a sound bite. Have gasoline taxes which are what ? 50% of the cost of a litre, significantly reduced consumption ? What would the taxes have to be before they did so and how would this effect employment etc
The cigarette example is also not the same for many reasons :
1.Energy is essential while cigs are just an addiction
2.The economy wouldn't blink if smoking disappeared
3.Everyone consumes energy
etc etc
Is anyone aware of any country that has actually adopted such measures ? If so have they had an impact?
IMHO if we bring this in the carbon tax should go soley to domestic alternative energy solutions and/or emission reduction technologies.
1. We are effectively addicted to oil too. So tax penalties should have the same impact on excessive oil consumption that they do for alcohol and nicotine. A certain level of oil consumption is unavoidable but carbon taxes / carbon trading forces everyone to pay a lot more attention to it than they would if it was free. Look at the popularity of smaller cars. Do you think there would have been as much emphasis on building smaller cars if it weren't for the high costs of gas? This is just common sense.
2. I agree. Things change. The economy has been changing since day one. This will bring new challenges and opportunities but wealthy, educated and scientifically advanced countries like Canada are usually able to adapt and prosper.
3. Everyone will continue to use energy. But how much energy is really necessary and what about all the things we can do to control or capture the emissions? We can always find ways to consume a little less energy and to use it more cleanly.
This Pew Centre article talks about carbon taxes and trading.
http://www.pewclimate.org/press_room/opinion_editorials/oped_miamih07122007
..."As for the cap-and-trade system in Europe, it is actually a major success. The system covers more than 10,000 sources and has spawned a robust emissions trading market with millions of transactions per month.
So why the bum rap for cap-and-trade in Europe? It is a classic case of no good deed going unpunished. Cap-and-trade is the EU's primary means of complying with the Kyoto Protocol, which requires emissions reductions between 2008 and 2012. Looking ahead to the five-year ''compliance period,'' the EU wisely launched a ''learning phase'' for its emissions trading system. And, it has learned a lot.
For example, the European Union learned that its emissions data were flawed and that companies could reap windfall profits by reducing emissions much more cheaply than had been expected. The EU thus is rapidly improving its emission data, and in 2008 it will allocate a smaller percentage of emission allowances.
To commentators appalled that the EU's system thus far hasn't achieved significant emissions reductions or caused industry much pain, the response is clear: they weren't trying to reduce emissions yet. They were just getting their system up and running.
Both a carbon tax and a cap-and trade system would use economic incentives to drive emission reductions. Cap-and-trade, however, has some important advantages. It's more flexible for one, allowing you to link your system to other cap-and-trade systems around the world. In today's global economy, where companies operate in multiple countries at once, this kind of system has obvious advantages. Cap-and-trade also allows the ''banking'' of emission allowances - reducing emissions early and using the saved emission allowances for later.
But the key difference between a carbon tax and the cap-and-trade approach comes down to the issue of certainty. A tax provides for cost certainty; the cost is fixed because of the tax. Cap and trade, on the other hand, provides for environmental certainty. What's fixed is the cap itself -- and it is based on an assessment of the level of emissions you need to get to in order to protect the climate.
In response to a carbon tax, many emitters will reduce their emissions rather than pay the tax, but that result is not guaranteed. With Alaska and Greenland melting, and with droughts and other weather extremes on the rise, environmental certainty would seem to be the more compelling imperative.
Combine that with the fact that taxes are awfully hard to get through Congress, and the case for cap-and-trade is even stronger. Which just goes to show: We shouldn't let carbon-tax enthusiasts use false arguments to trash a politically feasible approach in favor of one with a snowball's chance in a warming world."
Also, a few more examples of emission trading schemes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emissions_trading
Major trading systems
United States
A prominent example of an emission trading system is the SO2 trading system under the framework of the Acid Rain Program of the 1990 Clean Air Act in the USA. Under the program, which is essentially a cap-and-trade emissions trading system, SO2 emissions are expected to be reduced by 50% from 1980 to 2010.
Some experts argue that the "cap and trade" system of SO2 emissions reduction reduced the cost of controlling acid rain by as much as 80% versus source-by-source reduction.
In 1997, the State of Illinois adopted a trading program for volatile organic compounds in most of the Chicago area, called the Emissions Reduction Market System.[12] Beginning in 2000, over 100 major sources of pollution in 8 Illinois counties began trading pollution credits.
In 2003, New York State proposed and attained commitments from 9 Northeast states to form a cap and trade carbon dioxide emissions program for power generators, called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative or RGGI. This program will officially launch on January 1, 2009, and by 2018 each state's carbon "budget" will be reduced 10% below their 2009 allowances.[13]
Also in 2003, corporations began voluntarily trading greenhouse gas emission allowances on the Chicago Climate Exchange.
In 2007, the California Legislature passed Ab-32, which was signed into law by Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger. This bill is aimed at curbing Carbon emissions. Thus far, flexible mechanisms in the form of project based offsets have been established for 5 main project types. A carbon project creates offsets by showing that it has reduced carbon dioxide and equivalent gases. The project types include; manure management, forestry, building energy, SF6, and landfill gas capture. California is now one of five states and one Canadian province that have joined to create the Western Climate Initiative, intending to set up a regional greenhouse gas control and trading environment.
