South Korea announces delay the day after Australia’s carbon tax repeal
Story submitted by Eric Worrall
In a sign that rejection of climate alarm is gathering momentum, South Korea has thrown doubt on its carbon plans. Significantly, the announcement was made the day after Australia abolished the carbon tax. According to the report;
“July 18 (Reuters) – South Korea’s finance minister has called its impending emissions trading market “flawed in many ways”, hinting that he would pressure other ministries to delay the planned 2015 launch, a local newspaper reported.
Choi Kyung-hwan, who is also deputy prime minister, said problems had been found with the scheme, which is due to start in January, and that the government would review them before deciding whether to delay it, modify it or implement it as planned, The Korea Times reported on Friday.”
http://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL6N0PT3CZ20140718
(h/t to WUWT reader Pat)
South Korea’s courageous stand against carbon madness raises hope that Australia’s rejection of carbon pricing will be the domino which topples any chance of global cooperation on CO2
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to eric worrall & Peter –
thank you both for putting up the links to this story. i have a strong feeling South Korea has now seen the light, & will not go down this route following the repeal of the carbon tax/ETS in Australia.
sanity must prevail.
John Carter says:
July 19, 2014 at 12:31 am
////////////////
John
There are some who consider that rising levles of CO2 is a cause for concern.
There are others who consider (and in my opinion correctly) that “…CO2 has such a minuscule effect at current concentrations that it cannot even be measured. The proof: there are no empirical, testable measurements showing the fraction of a degree rise in temperature due to the rise in CO2. AGW may well exist, but it is still an evidence-free conjecture.” (see dbstealey says:July 19, 2014 at 2:21 am). I myself would slightly qualify that so that it read “…CO2, if it has any effect at all, has such a miniscule effect…..”
But leaving aside the issue as to whether Co2 is or is not acause for concern, the issue here is the response. And that is what I take issue with.
A Carbon Trading Scheme and tax, does not reduce CO2 emissions one iota. At most, it redistributes where those emissions come from, without on a global level reducing the emissions. But for the main part, it does not even do that. It merely means that an additional cost is incurred (the carbon tax) which additional expense is past onto the consumer. It merely means that the cost of goods and services goes up, and everyone (well apart from the fundmangers trading in those schemes) are poorer. Hit its the poorest the hardest since they have the least disposable income.
Accordingly, the policy is a FAIL, if its purpose is to reduce CO2 emissions. Proof of this is that we have had such schem for years and global emissions have continued to rise.
The same is true of reneawable energy (wind and solar). They do not result in the reduction of CO2 emissions, because of the need for conventional backup. Given the vagrancies and unreliable nature of wind and solar such that at times it produces NO repeat NO net energy, 100% backup is required. Evidence suggests that windfarms are about 25% efficient (may be longer term it will be less pehaps falling to 20/21%) and that means that on average conventional backup is required for 75% of the time. One might think that would result in a 25% saving in CO2 emissions in line with the 25% realtime contribution by wind. But that is not the case, since the backup has to be operated in ramp up/ramp down mode. This is like the start stop motoring in a car, In urban driving (where the average speed can be 12 mph or less, London is often said to be about 5mph), the fuel economy of all petrol and diesel cars is significantly worse than when driving on the motorway/freway at speeds of 60 to 70mph. accordinly, although the conventionally fossil fueled backup is only called upon on average to produce energy for 75% of the time, the amount of fuel used and hence CO2 emitted, is as much as if it had been used 100% of the time as conventional baseload generation.
Accordingly, the policy is a FAIL, if its purpose is to reduce CO2 emissions. It simply does not achieve any reduction in CO2 emissions.
The position is simple. If one is concerned about CO2 emissions, then the only viable policy is to go nuclear. Presently, that is the only technology that will achieve a reduction in CO2 emissions.
So two issues arise. One is the science. This will out in the end. May be in 10 years or 20 or 30 years we will know the answer as to whether CO2 causes any significant and measurable warming. It is just a question of time.
The second issue, is the political response. May be it is folly to respond to an issue that we do not know is a problem. I have my views on that. However leaving that aside, for the sake of argument, lets accept that it is sensible to respond to a percieved ‘threat’ . Well if that is the case, then the policy must result in curbing the devil at the heart of the threat, ie. to achieve a substantial reduction in CO2 emissions. The Carbon tTrading Scheme and tax does not achieve that result. Nor does the drive towards renewables. Both are policy FAILS on a grand scale.
Should the cAGW theory come crumbling down, the backlash will be substantial. Not because the uncertainties of the science were covered up, but rather because it is obvious that the policies which have been conducted as huge expense, never did and never could result in a significant reduction of CO2 on a global basis. Even a 12 year school child on analysing the date can see that this is a reality, and it is for this reason that there will be such a huge public backlash.
“John Carter says:
July 19, 2014 at 12:31 am
Is it possible that it’s madness, or at least extraordinarily counter productive, to not address the radical change to the long term long lived greenhouse heat trapping gas concentration of the atmosphere,…”
Fails right off the bat!
You are all evil deniers, for I have seen the light.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Global_warming_denialism
In insult to the word “Rational”.
Greg wrote about the UN Green Climate Fund. Last time I read about it, the Secretariat had been happily established in South Korea, and had spent the money already allocated to this purpose on, well, establishing a Secretariat. But maybe more fresh money has arrived lately.
The 100 billion dollar goal must however be way over the horizon, remember, the plan is to dole out this sum EVERY YEAR, which means that the bank account must be replenished with this amount annually, as it is hardly likely that this gigantic sum could come from interest rates?
And half of it is supposed to be “given” by private business, which should give governments a great opportunity to hold back their part, if the companies don’t play the greenie game.
I suspect that the fund so far only has a rather measly amount of money, judging by the silence from MSM on the subject.
“Under South Korea’s scheme, which could be the world’s second-largest if launched, emissions will be capped at around 547 million tonnes per year between 2015-2017, according to the environment ministry. Firms will be given free allowances based on their historical CO2 output levels but must buy more in the market if their emissions exceed allocated levels….
But some analysts have warned that the market’s emissions cap will be too low and have forecast that the South Korean carbon price could rocket towards $98, which is the penalty firms have to pay per tonne if they don’t meet their targets.”
Well perhaps they can purchase extra indulgences from North Korea. Apparently, Cuba and North Korea are on “sustainable” diets already and may have some credits they can sell to South Korea.
ON the EPA and the U.S I suspect that the EPA is facing quite a legal battle on it’s regulations,if it intends to try to enforce them as law. I wonder if it knows the extent of the battle it faces,as I suspect each and every one of them will be challenged.
John Carter says:
July 19, 2014 at 12:31 am
Is it possible that it’s madness, or at least extraordinarily counter productive, to not address the radical change to the long term long lived greenhouse heat trapping gas concentration of the atmosphere
Usually I just ignore John Carter’s posts since he just seems to be trolling for clicks to his blog, but this jumped at me. By greenhouse gases, I have to assume he means CO2, since I haven’t heard of anyone advocating limits to water vapor emissions. To make a long story short…
Increase of CO2 content in the atmosphere for the past 50 years as measured at Mauna Loa:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/mauna-loa-co2-1-percent-scale.jpg
Sure, that looks like a radical change. Not.
richard verney says: July 19, 2014 at 2:43 am, “South Korea is in competition with Australia.”
Bingo, Competition will kill the carbon tax schemes. China is not going along with the CO2 scam and no one can afford to let them get more of a financial edge.
John Carter asks, “Is it possible…?”
If the past is prologue
http://geocraft.com/WVFossils/PageMill_Images/image277.gif
then I’d say it’s very, very, very, very, very (did I say very?) unlikely.
Economic self-interest to the rescue. “Why should I chop my foot off if you aren’t going to chop yours off”? The more valid question of why anyone should chop their foot off can come later.
Reblogged this on Centinel2012 and commented:
Well it would seem that some politicians have realized their mistake, not much change of this here for now but there is still hope that sanity will prevail.
Howard Baker recently passed away in the US. He was a powerful player in the global warming scam for many decades. Political mentor to Al Gore and arch pro nuclear politician being just two lines on his long resume. He was a driving force in federal funding for dodgey climate science used to baffle a clueless public. Active to his last days we have seen the passing of a founding grifter of the big scam. RIP
John Carter, one word – logarithmic.
Which of course leads directly to another – asymptotic.
Which means you can throw away your rubber sheet.
John Carter (July 19, 2014 at 12:31 am) “…the great bulk of climate science…the great bulk of climate science…”
The great bulk of climate science says global temperatures should be warming at 0.2C per decade right now and accelerating, but instead we see 0.1 or less and decelerating. Some bloggers (although not the great bulk of climate science) now suggest that the heat is disappearing into the deep ocean. But the models model the ocean including the deep ocean. So on the one hand we are supposed to believe that 17 years of warming at 0.1C per decade is a mere weather fluke of ocean warming that somehow cannot be modeled even though it is allegedly caused by CO2 warming the atmosphere and somehow transferring into the ocean. While on the other hand we are supposed to believe that the models will be vindicated by 2050 or 2100 and the atmosphere will suddenly start heating instead of that warming being sequestered in the ocean?
As others have suggested, you need a new hobby. Alarmism is so mid-2000’s.
“since I haven’t heard of anyone advocating limits to water vapor emissions. To make a long story short…”
Give them time
One country ending carbon tax, and another proposing to, is not “a sign that rejection of climate alarm is gathering momentum”
Get some gorm please.
…_
The true progressives are those standing up against the social madness of climate obsession.
John Carter,
If one takes the time to review the climate assumptions in your first post, the results are that many of your questions become irrelevant.
You do outline in your economic summary, Pielke’s iron law rather well however. People are not going to inflict on themselves an actual injury today to avoid a poorly demonstrated dubious problem tomorrow. And when those proposing the self-injury are increasingly seen clearly as less than credible, it is even less likely that this will willingly happen.
Which sheds some light on the frequent calls by the climate obsessed to abandon civil society and democratic means to facilitate imposition of the climate obsessed agenda.
Mike McMillan says:
July 19, 2014 at 1:47 am
I wonder, 120,000 years from now, when the apes drill down the ice cores to check the CO2 levels at the very end of the Holocene, whether they will find this 400ppm spike
No problem for the ice cores. The current increase over the past 160 years will be seen is a spike of 325 ppmv in the worst resolution (560/600 years) ice cores over a span of 800,000 years. But there are 40 year resolution ice cores which span 140,000 years, thus these will show a spike of around 375 ppmv over the past 40 years. But as the emissions/increase still is growing…
Global warming is a huge hoax so that Obama can set his cronies up in “green” businesses paid for by our tax dollars! We are being lied to and stolen from on a daily basis. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS GLOBAL WARMING. Say it. Believe it. Live it!
John Carter says:
July 19, 2014 at 12:31 am
Is it possible CO2 has zero effect on climate? Then what?
catweazle666 says:
July 19, 2014 at 4:43 am
John Carter, one word –logarithmic.
Which of course leads directly to another – asymptotic.
Which means you can throw away your rubber sheet.
Perhaps wearing it is a better option. As a warning to the rest.
John Carter, I have condensed your remarks to the following, for ease of following your logic:
We should be in panic mode about carbon dioxide being different than some level in the past. People who refuse to go into panic mode are trying to use science incorrectly to justify their position, and are doing it from a simple-minded view of having it cost more to mitigate than it would cost to just adapt.
hunter says:
July 19, 2014 at 5:21 am
John Carter,
If one takes the time to review the climate assumptions in your first post, the results are that many of your questions become irrelevant.
You do outline in your economic summary, Pielke’s iron law rather well however. People are not going to inflict on themselves an actual injury today to avoid a poorly demonstrated dubious problem tomorrow. And when those proposing the self-injury are increasingly seen clearly as less than credible and proposing schemes that only lead to their own enrichment and not worldwide reductions in CO2, it is even less likely that this will willingly happen.
Which sheds some light on the frequent calls by the climate obsessed to abandon civil society and democratic means to facilitate imposition of the climate obsessed agenda.
I would add the above bolded change to what you wrote..