Carbon Trading: on in Australia, off in New Hampshire

Julia Gillard Picture — PM Julia Gillard - Image via Wikipedia

Australia appears to be ready to run down the Carbon Rabbit Hole, from the WUWT Tips and Notes page

Richard says:

February 23, 2011 at 7:20 pm

A PRICE is set to be put on carbon from July 1, 2012, under a deal announced today by Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

Ms Gillard has announced a two-stage process for pricing carbon, which will start with a fixed price period for three to five years and then shift to an emissions trading scheme with a “flexible” price linked to international carbon markets.

Ms Gillard said that the new deal would be the “cheapest and fairest way to cut pollution and build clean energy economies”.

She said she didn’t believe Australia needed to lead the world on the matter, but added it couldn’t be left behind.

Ms Gillard said she anticipated that the Opposition would “launch a fear campaign” on a “great big new tax”, but said she would “not take a step back” on the issue.

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/pm-to-set-price-on-carbon-from-july-1-2012/story-e6freon6-1226011295526

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pat says:

February 23, 2011 at 4:47 pm

The quickest “consensus” evah! and all in the name of “climate change” with never a mention of AGW:

24 Feb: ABC: Gillard to lay out carbon price policy

In the aftermath of last year’s election, Ms Gillard established a multi-party climate change committee to build consensus on what form a carbon price should take.

The ABC understands the committee has now come to an agreement and Ms Gillard will reveal more details at 11:30am AEDT…

The Government abandoned its previous emissions trading scheme last year after it failed to get it through the Senate.

This backdown is widely believed to have led to former prime minister Kevin Rudd’s slide in the polls, and his eventual sacking…

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/02/24/3147523.htm?section=justin

fyi, the former PM’s sacking is not “widely believed” to have been sacked over his failure to get an ETS through; in fact, the Opposition leader at the time, Malcolm Turnbull, lost his job for backing such a scheme. also note no member of the main Opposition party sat on the “multi-party” committee, and the Opposition is leading the incumbent party in the polls at present. our present Prime Minister promised there would be no carbon price if she was voted in and changed her mind the second she got in. plus the following is from just six days ago!

18 Feb: ABC: Carbon price deal is months away

The Government’s multi-party climate change committee, which is chaired by Prime Minister Julia Gillard and includes the Greens and independent MPs, held its fourth meeting in Canberra this morning.

Ms Gillard and Climate Change Minister Greg Combet were widely expected to unveil their preferred model after the meeting.

But the committee says no final decisions have been taken on how to price carbon or what assistance will be offered to industry and taxpayers.

It says the final design of the carbon price will only be decided when all the elements of the policy can be considered together, and that should happen in the coming months.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/02/18/3142797.htm?section=justin

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Ric Werme writes about New Hampshire:

The New Hampshire House has passed a bill that would have NH withdraw from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, RGGI. Next step is Senate (maybe a stop at a Finance committee, and then the Governor. He may well veto it, but the house passed it 246 to 104. The senate will like pass it by a veto proof majority too.

All in all, looking promising!

http://dailycaller.com/2011/02/23/new-hampshire-smacks-down-cap-and-trade/

RGGI was supposed to segue directly into a national cap-and-trade system, and was designed by Lisa Jackson, now EPA administrator, when she ran New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection. The pitch to industry was that they could get a head start on buying cap-and-trade permits for two or three dollars each, and make a fortune when a federal bill passed with permit prices ten times that or higher. Now that a federal bill is dead, RGGI is a lose-lose for everyone except the politicians who get to spend the money and the special interests receiving subsidies.

The overwhelming veto-proof, bipartisan vote today means that New Hampshire is now on a path to doing something that looked impossible just a couple years ago — repeal a cap-and-trade program. In the process, it could deal the death blow to cap and trade both regionally and nationally.

While RGGI can survive the loss of a small state like New Hampshire, it could probably not survive the loss of a large state like New Jersey, where a repeal effort is picking up steam fast, with at least 37 co-sponsors.

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February 25, 2011 2:07 pm

Update courtesy “Australian” newspaper today 26/2/11. Excerpts as follows:
“THE Greens have pushed petrol to the front line in the war over a carbon tax, insisting prices should rise at the bowser as part of the plan to combat pollution.
As alarm grew within Labor ranks about the backlash against Julia Gillard for breaking her election promise not to introduce a carbon tax, Greens deputy leader Christine Milne turned petrol into a flashpoint for Labor by insisting the transport sector should be included in any carbon pricing regime.
Including transport in the carbon tax regime, which is due to start on July 1 next year, is expected to raise petrol prices at a time when rising oil prices — sparked by the instability in the Middle East — are already driving prices higher and adding to cost of living concerns.
Hitting the airwaves to sell the carbon decision, Ms Gillard dismissed as “semantics” suggestions she had broken an election-eve promise ruling out a carbon tax.
As Ms Gillard tried to take control of the debate, Senator Milne said the climate change committee behind the carbon plan had been the Greens idea and the party had ownership of the scheme “because it’s the one we put on the table ourselves”.
She said while negotiations on the details of the carbon price package had yet to begin, the point of putting a price signal on carbon into the economy was to “drive changes in behaviour”.”That is why we think transport should be in.
But new figures released by the Department of Climate Change yesterday showed Australia’s biggest energy companies would be put out of business if they had to pay the world price for carbon emissions under a carbon tax without compensation.
The giant NSW power company Macquarie Generation, Australia’s biggest emitter, would face a bill of $613 million if it had to pay the $26 a tonne the Rudd government’s emissions trading scheme was based on. The tax bill would be more than three times the company’s latest profit of $196m, while the second ranked Delta Electricity would face a bill of $538m or almost 10 times its last full-year profit.” End excerpts.
A Coalmining leader today said mines would have to close if carbon tax was introduced without adequate compensation (which the Greens would fight tooth and nail)! Investment would dry up as investors moved off-shore and it would have absolutely no effect at all on emissions as they would simply continue elsewhere.
In other words, the carbon tax would see our jobs, industries and investment opportunities exported off-shore, in many cases to countries with far less stringent environmental legislation and controls than we have already.
No-one should be in doubt that Australia is at the cross-roads as far as our future prosperity is concerned and this costly useless tax must be fought until defeated once and for all!

SideShowBob

February 25, 2011 3:28 pm

@Josh Grella
Diversion tactics?! You’re your off your rocker mate. We live in a global village you can’t take china and india out of the equation and they will push up oil prices that’s a fact. Typical of an American – and $1 oil ?! where on Gods green earth do you get this rubbish from? Greenies, yeah right? It’s all the greenies fault – it’s not like the US went through peak oil in – wait of it – oh snap – the 70’s!
@Bruce Cobb
“Of course energy prices are a factor: the higher the cost of energy is, the less the consumer has available to spend, even on needed items. The cost of food, clothing, heating, cooling etc. all go up, making people poorer, which puts a downward drag on the economy, forces jobs overseas, etc. But, I guess that’s what Greenies really want, isn’t it?”
Chris that’s the whole point – to bring down the cost of energy by making people use less! To make people buy more efficient products! You seem to imply that the extra tax money disappears into a black hole. The whole point is to the lower demand on oil to bring its price down so that we’re not paying so much for it to the middle eastern counties. It’s 101 economics mate… lower demand for something and bring down its price.

Patrick Davis

February 25, 2011 7:43 pm

“KV says:
February 25, 2011 at 2:07 pm
In other words, the carbon tax would see our jobs, industries and investment opportunities exported off-shore, in many cases to countries with far less stringent environmental legislation and controls than we have already.”
The process of shifting jobs, in particular manufacturing/textiles, off shore to China has already begun. As an example the New South Wales govn’t shifted it’s manufacturing of clothing and uniforms etc a couple of years ago to China.
Of course the carbon tax will, effectively, destroy what industry is left in Australia as you have highlighted above. The Australian car maker Holden would be severely impacted because all of the parts suppliers would be forced offshore. But there’s more. Australian authorities have already approved the import of a Chinese made car. The thin edge of the wedge has been firmly planted to separate people from jobs and businesses from Australian workers.
The company I work for already has shifted much work to Indonesia, India and China not with the intent to reduce emissions, oh no, simply to increase the bottom line. Why pay an Australian AU$75k p/a when you can pay an Indian in bangalore AU$7.5k? A carbon tax will simply accelerate this process of exporting wealth and employment and we need only look to riots in some parts of Europe and Africa to see what angry, hungry and unemployed people are prepared to do.

Patrick Davis

February 25, 2011 7:51 pm

“Greg Holmes says:
February 25, 2011 at 7:05 am”
Because it never has been about reducing “carbon” emissions to save the planet. It always has been about revenue streams. Sen. Bob Brown stated in the election campaign that…to paraphrase “…if we want improved services, hostpitals, roads, ferries, schools etc etc…then a carbon tax would fund that…” seem clear to me what the intention is. Personally, if ALL other taxes were abolished leaving ONLY a “carbon tax”, which in effect is a consumption tax, then I’d be happy with that. But I am surprised at the number of Australians who support this tax un top of all the other taxes, including the new, temporary, “flood levy” (and when has a tax ever been temporary?).

Patrick Davis

February 25, 2011 8:00 pm

“Andy G says:
February 25, 2011 at 3:57 am”
The liberals are just as keen to establish a unlimited, never ending, revenue stream. Really, its not these front bench puppets we see on the idiot box night after night bleeting on and on about “moving forward with a carbon tax” etc etc, its the political, business and ruling classes that hold the purse strings of those roaming through the halls of real power. All the faceless and nameless men and women who are never elected.
We know Enron was one energy company which was first to raise the idea of a “tax” on enery. We also know the ex-CEO of Enron has/had a buddy called Al Gore. And it is rather ironic that much of Gore’s family wealth was derived from oil. The rest, as is said, is history.

Andy G

February 25, 2011 8:10 pm

“Patrick Davis says:
February 25, 2011 at 8:00 pm ”
As I suspected, Abbott refuses to say he will rescind the climate tax if he wins the next election..
Hypocryte.
If you tossed a coin to see which of he or Gillard was worse, it would land in a pile of cow dung. !!

Al Gored

February 25, 2011 10:46 pm

Completely OT, or sort of, but I just noticed something about that photo of Gillard. If you just added a narrow moustache…

February 26, 2011 3:14 am

Patrick Davis says
“February 25 at 7-51pm”
Patrick, most of the polls I’ve seen since Ju-liar Gillard’s announcement are running betweeen 80-90% against a carbon tax. Personally, I don’t think there are many apart from the evangelical gullible “believers” in AGW that do support it.
Andy G says
“February 25, at 8-10pm”
Andy, I’m no fan of any politician but to be fair, Tony Abbott said he would fight this carbon tax “every minute, every day” and he didn’t accept that it would ever come in
because the people would revolt against it. “Refuses to say he would rescind it” is a typical beat-up by our poor excuses for real journalists.
Talk about the tax has almost disappeared from our biased MSM, particularly the ABC, but few take any notice of them any more. The blogs however, are boiling and more and more people are turning to them to keep abreast of what’s happening at home and around the world.

Andy G

February 26, 2011 12:20 pm

yeah, guess I’m just a bit p…ed off with pollies, and always suspect the worst.
Question is, how can we best fight this idiocy.?

Patrick Davis

February 26, 2011 11:32 pm

“Andy G says:
February 26, 2011 at 12:20 pm”
Well, I don’t know. Voting doesn’t seem to achieve much these days except changing seating arrangements in Parliament. Gillard really has stuck her neck out this time and has commited political suicide IMO. A politico friend of mine reckons she’ll be out before the end of the year, and he’s hoping for a double dissolution election. Be careful what you wish for. The Gillard Govn’t has now announced the tax, but there is no substance or even detail. Gillard keeps repeating the mantra “Families will be sunsidized.” What is the point in taking a tax off someone to return it to them in the form of a subsidy? Vote buying perhaps?
“KV says:
February 26, 2011 at 3:14 am”
I’ve seen polls too, but they are verty close, ~45% in favour, ~51% against and ~4 not sure. I have a feeling that, because of the huge volume of AGW propaganda in the Australian MSM and on TV, voters will support it without fully understanding the implications. But polls are polls, not really meaningful, bit like a global average temperature. And, as predicted, the ABC is stuck on the AGW propaganda bandwagon.

Dr John Penhallurick

February 28, 2011 4:49 pm

Gillard really seems to have put her foot in her mouth with her announcement of the carbon tax. The media have been replaying endlessly over the past few days video or sounds of here repeated promise before the last election:”My government will not impose a carbon tax.” She also seems to have played into the hands of the Liberals, in that the media had earlier been focussing on splits within the federal Liberal Party over migration and boat people,and it was thought that this would help the struggling Labour Government in New South wales, which is threatened with being reduced to a mere rump in the very near state election. But now Gillard has eclipsed that story with her carbon tax. It doesn’t help her that the Greens are claiming ownership of the tax. It is encouraging to say that approximately two-thirds of Australians do not believe that human emissions are making a significant contribution to climate change. I guess this testifies to the wisdom of the crowd.

Ric Werme

Editor

March 10, 2011 5:45 am

Oh good, the reply period is still open. Next to last comment from me here?
Yesterday the NH House Finance committee approved HB-518-FN, the get out of RGGI bill. (BTW, the -FN suffix means that the bill has a significant financial impact and has to be review by the finance committee should it make past the full house vote.) The bill goes back to the full house, then goes on to the senate.
I’ve started a web directory of RGGI stuff for the region and NH, see
http://wermenh.com/rggiwatch/index.html and
http://wermenh.com/rggiwatch/finance_notes.html
Next to last comment? Yesterday was also the first RGGI auction of the year, results will be available after 1000 EST (UTC-0500) at http://www.rggi.org/home
Expect some notes from me.

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