ETS

[Jovial Monk]

Pretty minuscule targets, lots free permits (which experience has shown will mean the ETS won't work) and lots of money for the worst polluters. Will it do anything to reduce emissions?

[freediver]

The whole ETS scheme is hopelessly complex. We need to shift the tax base onto things like CO2 emissions instead.

[Rainbow Moonlight]

I don't know what the detail or reality will be from what has been proposed or how carbon trading is supposed to work. I expect with a big family i will be vastly disadvantaged with regard to energy costs as obviously we use more energy than a single person or couple. (even if less per capita..)

I think it is a good idea to edge us all towards greener technology as fast as possible and with as little pain as possible.

[mantra.]

I think Rudd will be compensating those on low to middle incomes and businesses and corporations. You have to wonder where this money is going to come from. There was an article in the Australian yesterday by Paul Kelly - who likens Rudd's ETS scheme to the GST reform by the cunning Howard.

THIS was the only way Australia was going to price carbon: with huge household compensation, help for trade-exposed industry, a modest absolute target equating to an ambitious per capita target and locking our effort into the global agenda.

John Howard, where are you now? This is a deft policy in which Kevin Rudd is Howard. Put precisely, Rudd is a green Howard. He has made climate change into a magic pudding. It is a work of political genius that would make Howard proud.

This is a huge fiscal churn: pricing carbon from just the top 1000 companies is a classic top-end revenue base with the proceeds distributed to households with a bias to the poor and families, where low-income families are over-compensated at 120 per cent, petrol is quarantined from price damage, new funds are created to assist small business and big businesses at risk win healthy protection money.

All the parts of this political machine are stolen from John Howard Incorporated. No wonder the Coalition is tight-lipped. If only Howard had realised emissions-trading policy could look like this. If you thought Howard's GST compensation was generous - and it was - then have a look at Rudd's even more generous carbon pollution compensation. It sure beats the hell out of the GST. Households get more money plus the moral vanity of telling the neighbours they are saving the planet.

Paraphrasing a famous line, Kevin is here to help you, help your pocket and help your planet. The greens and the scientists are still playing in the warm-up arena, having missed the main event entirely.

The policy papers are filled with increases in Family Tax Benefit A, Family Tax Benefit B, sweetheart deals for pensioners, special guarantees for motorists, rewards for self-funded retirees and proof of Labor's commitment to equity. Appendix E of the white paper says the Rudd Government "will use every cent it receives from the sale of pollution permits to help Australian households and businesses" adjust to pricing carbon. In the first two years of the scheme, the extra revenue is $11.5 billion and $12 billion.

The message from Rudd's policy is that politics has not been suspended and the world has not changed. Just the reverse. The wheels of government spin. Only the method of the tax-transfer system is modified and redirected in a new crusade to re-elect another government.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/st ... 47,00.html

[Jovial Monk]

I don't know what the detail or reality will be from what has been proposed or how carbon trading is supposed to work. I expect with a big family i will be vastly disadvantaged with regard to energy costs as obviously we use more energy than a single person or couple. (even if less per capita..)

Except you will be reimbursed 120% or 80% of the extra energy costs, depending on income etc.

[Jovial Monk]

The whole ETS scheme is hopelessly complex. We need to shift the tax base onto things like CO2 emissions instead.

Hmmm that been tried anywhere? Or analysed/discussed?

[freediver]

Some European countries tried a tax scheme, but I think it was limited to petrol. It wasn't based around CO2 emissions.

There is plenty of discussion around this place. Here is a good starting point:

http://www.ozpolitic.com/green-tax-shif ... shift.html

[Jovial Monk]

Nah

Anyway ETS does tax carbon emissions.

It does seem a mild target and many (too many?) free permits.

It looks good on a per capita basis and a lot of the European 20% is smoke and mirrors.

For anybody wanting a handle on the ETS look at George Megalogenis' blog in the Opposition Orifice aka The Australian.