The months of flatlining at the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) should be a hint to the rest of the world that carbon trading is dead. Time to take it off life support. Even at 10 cents a ton, nobody wants it. At it’s peak in July 2008, it traded for $7.50 per ton of CO2.
See who is on the CCX advisory board here
From ACM:
Token Gesture Alert as the government of New Zealand, unable to think straight thanks to years of green environmental propaganda, brings in its emissions trading scheme.
New Zealand emits about 0.1% of global CO2. So even if New Zealand reduced its emissions to zero overnight, AND it were demonstrated that the climate sensitivity is large enough to notice (which it hasn’t been), it would make not the slightest bit of difference to the climate.
Not only that, but I hardly think that China and India are going to look at New Zealand, and, wracked with guilt and remorse by the plucky little country’s valiant efforts to save the planet, stop their coal fired economies in their tracks. Not on your life. China and India are far too busy building their prosperity and lifting their populations out of poverty. It’s only wealthy countries can afford the luxury of pointless environmental gestures like this.
So the only result will be higher prices for poor Kiwis. Everything will cost more: electricity, petrol, groceries, consumer goods – everything – since everything (virtually) requires energy for its production or transportation. As the ABC reports:
New Zealanders are bracing for higher electricity and fuel prices with the introduction of an emissions trading scheme (ETS).
From today New Zealanders will pay around three cents a litre more for fuel.
Electricity bills are set to increase by up to 5 per cent as companies pass on the costs of buying carbon credits to consumers.
Environment minister Dr Nick Smith says New Zealand had to act because its greenhouse gas emissions have increased by 25 per cent over the past 20 years. [So from absolutely tiny, to slightly less absolutely tiny]
“It’s actually about New Zealand starting the path, starting the change to a less carbon intensive economy,” he said. (source)
Good luck with that. Just watch your industries move offshore, and your economy decline for no purpose whatsoever.
For those wondering at my acumen, I am previously the operator of an electronic stock exchange that functioned exclusively in the virtual world of Second Life. I also frequently traded virtual currency on the LindeX, a virtual world currency exchange operated by Linden Lab, the owners of SL. So in the world of fictitious/fantasy securities with little to no intrinsic asset value, I’ve got skillz. I am not a professional financial advisor, securities broker, or analyst in real life and do not pretend to be. However I’m considering the idea that we skeptics could put our brains together to create a Skeptics Fund that would use our more intelligent and skeptical knowledge to send the AGW cultists to the poorhouse by smartly arbitraging these carbon securities. If we do it right, not only will Al Gore die alone and humiliatated as an insane would-be gaia-cult leader and alleged sex offender, but penniless as well…
Given that too many houses in NZ don’t even have insulation or double glazing, it would be far better for the country if money was spent improving the efficiency of these properties than in these money laundering schemes called ETS.
“Ian M says:
July 2, 2010 at 6:48 am
Given that too many houses in NZ don’t even have insulation or double glazing, it would be far better for the country if money was spent improving the efficiency of these properties than in these money laundering schemes called ETS.”
So where’s the profit (For Govn’t) in that? An example; Road User Charges (RUCs). In NZ there is RUCs on fuel, it was introduced by the Muldoon Govn’t in the 70’s to “fund” improvements in the road network. There have been no, IMO, significant improvements in the road network in NZ since. What has happend is as vehicle fuel efficiency improved, TAX revenues declined. Revenues declined, so the TAX went up. And keeps going up. Even a temporary 4c p/l of fuel TAX increase nation wide to fund “transport solutions” of NZ$90m in 2002 is STILL in place. Thanks Helen!
“Patrick Davis says:
July 2, 2010 at 7:04 am
So where’s the profit (For Govn’t) in that?”
Unless I’ve misinterpreted what eco people harp on about, I was not aware that efficiency improvements and reductions in pollution were for the benefit of any government.
Can someone tell me why has a charge been put on electricity when NZ only has one coal powered power station and the rest of there power is hydroelectric, geothermal or wind. and the coal station is only used when there is a drought or power consumption is higher than what the other sources can supply To me this shows that the entire thing is a scam ???????
Yes, one would think these small-scale experiments would help inform the designers of the big-scale stuff, but in the U.S. we have the example of Romneycare in Massachusetts which should scare the hell out of the electorate vis-a-vis Obamacare, but almost no one pays attention. It’s like everyone has to make the mistake themselves, and even then they can still learn the wrong lesson.