Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Lord Stern, author of the Stern Review (2006), a government report which was used as the basis of UK climate policy, now says we need a four trillion dollar per annum carbon tax to save the world from CO2.
Climate change: $4 trillion carbon tax is needed to save humanity from global warming, say economists
World Bank-backed report says revenue could be used in a number of ways, such as paying out household rebates, alleviating poverty and fostering low-carbon infrastructure
Ian Johnston Environment Correspondent
Tuesday 30 May 2017 14:56 BST
A global carbon tax that would raise trillions of dollars if applied across the world should be introduced if the world is to avoid dangerous climate change, 13 leading economists have said in a new report.
Led by Professor Nicholas Stern, who produced the groundbreaking Stern Report in 2006, and Professor Joseph Stiglitz, who won the Nobel Prize for economics in 2001, the experts suggested a price for a tonne of carbon dioxide of $50 to $100 (£39-78) by 2030.
If implemented all over the world, the top price would raise about $4 trillion – more than the UK’s and Germany’s gross domestic products, but less than Japan’s – although the report suggested poorer countries might charge less.
Currently about 85 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions are not subject to a tax – while the fossil fuel sector receives subsidies of up to an estimated $5.3 trillion. The world’s largest carbon pricing scheme is in the EU, but it only charges about $6.70.
…
The full report, sponsored by the World Bank, is available here.
So much for claims that renewables are “free energy”.
That’s a lot of redistributive change, but is it enough to cover the progressive debt that forces recurring catastrophic anthropogenic economic recession?
Wait, what???
The fossil fuel sector receives subsidies of up to an estimated $5.3 trillion???
Yeah, I can invent estimated numbers too.
Better check the link….
Ah, here it is:
“Mispricing from a domestic perspective accounts for the bulk of the subsidy.”
Riiiiight. If a government doesn’t charge enough in rents and royalties and the like, as greenie thinks they should, then it is counted as a subsidy.
As opposed to green energy subsidies which are actual cash payouts to green companies. Funded by those insufficient fossil fuel royalties.
Now who voted for these “economists” to make decisions on behalf of the planet?
Hurrreeeyy. . . hurrreeeyy. . . hurrreeeyy! Step right up to the climate midway again folks! See millions, billions, trillions traded for pigs, pokes, and lies . . . starving polar bears straight from the sands of a sinking arctic . . . snarling snow leopards swept away by melting glaciers . . . gasping Gurkhas in search of water. . . coastal residents on stilts . . . climate grifters juggling semi-intelligent humans . . . grim reapers galloping the streets . . . massive throngs wandering aimlessly with spoon and bowl in search of gruel and something to buy it with . . . You there in the back! Why are you wearing that parka?! Hurrreeeeyy . . . hurrreeeyy folks! . . . see Guinness records for limos and Lear jets parked at annual climate conferences . . . hear tragic tales of carbon destruction from Nobel laureates . . . You there on the right! Can you spare us a few trillion? That’s it! Step right up and empty your pockets on stage . . . our global banking brethren will assist you . . . hurrrreeeyy. . . hurrrreeeeyy. . . hurrrreeeyy . . . folks! Alternate energy is on the way! Please . . . please be patient! . . . a few more dollars will complete the work . . . the sun’s gonna shine . . . the wind’s gonna blow . . . hurrreeeyy . . . hurrre. . .
(Updated)
This really is the nerve that hurts the skeptic team more than any other isn’t it? The thought that someone or some thieving organisation is going to “tax” you… It distorts your thinking, your perception of the world and leads you down a path that has you denying the reality of the situation.
If there was no monetary consequence for the scientific reality that increased CO2 is causing warming, that will probably result in harm to the environment and to life on this planet, then this website would not exist.
Here folks, we have the motivation for the denial, the minimising, the distorting, the twisting of facts, the cherry picking, the head burying. Mention the word tax here and you have the town folk reaching for the pitch forks and the shot guns. No word sends a chill down the pine more than the “T” word. Just saying.
[????? .mod]
Simon
Rather,
Here folks, we have the motivation for the denial, the minimising, the distorting, the twisting of facts, the cherry picking, the head burying, the exaggerations, the propaganda, the screaming and ranting. Mention the word
tax“freedom” or “growth” there and you have thetown folksocialists and thieves and communists reaching for the pitch forks and the shot guns. No word sends a chill down thepinespine of eco-illogists more than the “freedom” word. Except growth, better lives, and increased comfort for billions.Mmm….. freedom doesn’t have to mean freedom to shit on our neighbour.
Simon
No. Economic freedom, and a moral culture (compared to a socialist’s deadly, immoral cultural of instant gratification of the elites and slavery of the masses) means MY freedom and MY ABILITY to build and operate and run the sewage treatment systems that permit me to drink pure clean water in my own house and process the sewage so MY NEIGHBORS DOWNSTREAM CAN drink pure clean water in their own houses and process the sewage so THEIR NEIGHBORS DOWNSTREAM CAN drink pure clean water in their own houses and process the sewage so so THEIR NEIGHBORS DOWNSTREAM CAN drink pure clean water in their own houses and process the sewage so the clean water goes into a cleaner environment.
In your socialist Russian, Chinese, Venezuelan, Congo, Angola, and (etc) areas, the rich do shit on their neighbors. And the solar cell factories do dump unprocessed chemical wastes in their neighbors fields and drinking water. And the wind turbine plants do beat the slaves in 16 hour days of labor and no care. Europe? A little better. Because socialist Europe is using the systems capitalism built and financed.
RACookPE1978
Apart from some of your personal assumptions about my politics (which are mostly wrong), I don’t disagree with a lot of what you have written. I’m absolutely for freedom of people to explore ways to be prosperous. Some may even call me a wealthy man. Can I say I have done that all myself by making good choices and hard work. But I fail to see what that has to do with my point that this site is fuelled by the fear of being taxed.
Simon, I can’t speak for Anthony, but you are nearly right as far as I am concerned.
If global-warmers weren’t trying to use the half-baked “science” as leverage to gain control over the lives of others, then I for one would be quite happy to let them get on with spouting their drivel ad infinitum.
That wouldn’t make them right, of course, but the global-warmers were widely ignored for years before they gained any political traction. Along with many people, I have better things to do with my life than point out the errors of global-warmers. I certainly don’t apologise for saying they ought to be ignored a lot more. When the subject returns to being an obscure academic backwater, then the need for a site like WUWT will certainly be less.
“this site is fuelled by the fear of being taxed”
It’s more fuelled by a refusal to allow rent-seekers using manipulation and fear tactics to con citizens into accepting yet more government control (and conveniently, money, status and power for the rent-seekers).
“this site is fuelled by the fear of being taxed”
Actually, let me quote Michael Crichton, “It’s an invitation to totalitarianism”.
“Here folks, we have the motivation for the denial, the minimising, the distorting, the twisting of facts, the cherry picking, the head burying.”
Imagine that . . ; )
‘… the scientific reality that increased CO2 is causing warming ….’.
==============================
CO2 is a greenhouse gas and all other things being equal would cause ~1C for every doubling in concentration; to get to the 3C that the IPCC speculates by 2100 the concentration would have to reach ~ 3200 ppm or eight times the current concentration in theory.
That’s ‘the science’ as I understand it.
There is no way of identifying or isolating the causes of the warming since the LIA.
Practically, trying to limit the use of fossil fuels is futile and potentially socially disastrous, so-called ‘renewables’ (wind and solar) are useless.
Is it even seriously plausible that the ‘renewables’ can possibly substitute for the rest, excluding nuclear?:
http://www.euanmearns.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/bp2016primarypercent.png
Simon May 30, 2017 at 10:43 pm
If there was no monetary consequence for the scientific reality that increased CO2 is causing warming, that will probably result in harm to the environment and to life on this planet, then this website would not exist.
===============================================
Simon, you have made multiple assumptions in this one sentence:
1.That increased CO2 is causing warming that will probably result in harm…-Neither the IPCC, nor anyone, has yet to show this to be fact. Why should carbon emitters be charged if carbon emissions do no harm? I imagine you would object to being ticketed for reckless endangerment and fined $500.00 for driving 25 MPH in a 25 MPH zone – that is, committing no foul.
2. If there was no monetary consequence…- You assume skeptics are unwilling to pay any environmental mitigation fees. Have you seen anyone here griping about sewage treatment fees? You sound like you think I throw my garbage over the fence into my neighbor’s yard rather than pay for garbage pick up.
3. If there was no monetary consequence…-implicit in this phrase is the assumption that a couple of trillion $ is a minuscule fee. Even if it was, skeptics object to paying any tax that will not accomplish the claimed purpose. Do you know of any evidence that reducing carbon emissions will put the climate back to the supposed perfection of 1850? 1880? Any year?
SR
What is your evidence that our perceptions have been distorted Simon? To date the main impact of anthropogenic CO2 on the climate is the Earth has measurably greened – the Earth is now a more benign place for life than a few decades ago.
Predictions of disaster are the product of deeply flawed computer models.
Four Trillion dollars is a lot of money – it could do a lot of good, simply by being left in the pockets of the people who earned it.
Eric,
Hard to believe but $4 trillion is a decrease of $2 trillion from the $6 trillion/year “investment” the World Bank (and UN and IMF) declared was needed back in 2015 for the next 15 years. Clearly, the World Bank has recognized some significant potential efficiencies in the intervening two years.
Har, har.
So they are going to move to embargo and sanction the US for not going along with their climate madness. And of course Soros, convicted financial criminal and uber rich manipulator, is behind it. It is long past time for that truly evil ancient monster to receive justice.
Simon, “reality” has nothing to do with a belief that $4 trillion per year is going to “fix” the climate. You are so deluded you think that money can control the climate. You can’t even accept the facts that Stern has run a transparently corrupt scam to justify impoverishment if the world. The point that brings together people to be skeptical is that people like you are out of your minds and in your delusional state think that you can suspend rational thinking when the topic is climate.
“You are so deluded you think that money can control the climate”
And worse, he apparently also thinks “private” sector companies managed and funded by government would function efficiently and effectively. There’s no way these companies would turn into phoney job creation entities, cash slush pits, targets for fr*audsters, etc.
Hooray for Simon declaring the obvious. Yes, you are absolutely correct, if there was not 4 trillion dollars at stake few people would care about your hobby. But there is and so I do (care about your hobby).
As to whether this website would exist; how can you be so smug and sure? It would likely still have Willis E’s sailing adventures, discussion of ENSO, things like that of interest to a meteorologist.
Eric Worrall:
You say
Stern has a ‘track record’ that indicates the credibility which should be afforded to his ‘work, and an understanding of his new assertions is helped by knowledge of the origin and nature of the Stern Review.
On 21 June 2005 the UK Parliaments’ House of Lord’s Select Committee on Economic Affairs published its Report of its assessment of the economic implications of anthropogenic (i.e. man-made) global warming (AGW). That Report can be read from here and its ‘Conclusions and Recommendations” can be read here.
That Select Committee Report rejected the then UK government’s energy and energy taxation policies. Importantly, it concluded
And
In effect, this was a rejection of the government’s policies of subsidising ‘renewables’ and taxing fossil fuel usage in attempt to promote ‘decarbonistation’.
A government is required to respond to a Select Committee Report but is not required to adopt recommendations of a Select Committee. The then UK government of Tony Blair decided to respond to the Report of the Lord’s Committee on Economic Affairs by commissioning Stern to assess the maximum possible costs of putative AGW. This Stern did, and his assessment was further biased by adoption of silly depreciation assumptions.
Simply, the Stern Review was commissioned to be – and was – a grossly biased report that deliberately exaggerated the economic risks of AGW and which the UK Government could cite (i.e. hide behind) whenever there was mention of the Report from the Lord’s Select Committee on Economic Affairs.
Thus the Stern Review fulfilled its purpose despite its methods repeatedly being shredded in the economic literature.
Richard
For the record, there is evidence he’s been committing fraud for his own personal gain as well as his political masters.
Link Here.
Link got removed so I add another to a website listed on the left.
http://climatechangedispatch.com/lord-sterns-climate-research-center-defrauding-uk-taxpayers/
And the link here.
If you give the accreditation near the start of the article, we can tell straight away that we don’t need to read it if it’s from the Grauniad or Independent because they just feed out the same nonsense over and over again.
May I quote former V-P Joe Biden.
No,not that quote,” Is this a joke?”
I was thinking of his response to President Obama, ” This is a big F***ing Deal”.
This story should set combatting climate change back a few decades.
But of course it won’t be on the evening news.
The whole Stern Report was dodgy from the start.
No problems though – a bit of Quantitative Easing will do the trick!
That won’t cost anyone anything of course Oh except maybe a couple of decades of stagnation or stagflation,
USD 4 trillion over 7 billion is about $600 for every person on this planet, to be spent every year. As one of the stated aims is ‘poverty alleviation’, it probably means that less than 20% of the world will need to come up with the goods and hand it over to ‘administrators’ who will distribute a small portion of this amongst the ‘poor’, the rest going on ‘administrative expenses’. Just another socialist agenda, doomed for failure
Both Stiglitz and Stern are previous Chief Economists at the World Bank, which, whilst it pretends otherwise, is a UN body.
Joe Stiglitz, Columbia University, Socialist International:
https://usefulstooges.com/2015/10/20/joe-stiglitz-soros-point-man/
Nick Stern, London School of Economics:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3863462/Exposed-university-helped-secure-9million-money-passing-rivals-research-bankroll-climate-change-agenda.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2523726/Web-green-politicians-tycoons-power-brokers-help-benefit-billions-raised-bills.html#ixzz2nV84KSiQ
Nick Stern: Carbon Trading Consultant
http://sppiblog.org/news/a-nest-of-carbon-vipers
“United Socialist Nations” – http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/science-papers/originals/un-progress-governance-via-climate-change:
“Joseph Stiglitz said (January 17th 2011) that he thinks any global agreement fighting climate change will involve trade sanctions for those who refuse to sign up to a global deal to reduce CO2 emissions.
This is the idea of the moment, because both Lord Stern and German economist Ottmar Edenhofer, have proposed the same thing.
In November 2010, Stern said that countries that were taking strong action on emissions, could in the future move against US exports, if the US failed to impose restrictions on CO2 emissions.
Edenhofer, Deputy Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, wrote a paper with colleagues in 2009 about the effects of tariffs in gaining consensus on global warming.
“High Level Climate Finance”
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/science-papers/originals/high-level-climate-finance
George Soros – Jan. 15 2010 (Bloomberg)
“A U.S. law to curb carbon emissions would spur billions of dollars of spending on green-energy projects in developing countries, billionaire George Soros said.
“If you had the legislation in the United States you would have a market for carbon emissions and for offsetting credits provided to clean-energy projects in the developing world”, Soros said at a conference yesterday in New York. “Right now you don’t even have that. The United States is the laggard.”
“Without a cap on carbon dioxide emissions that puts a penalty on pollution, low-carbon investments won’t be profitable”, Soros, founder of $25 billion hedge-fund firm Soros Fund Management LLC, said at the Investor Summit on Climate Risk at the United Nations.”
George Soros is in Brussels today, meeting with the EU Commissioners for Migration and Borders, Humanitarian Aid and Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs.
I wonder why?
So they are going to move to embargo and sanction the US for not going along with their climate madness. And of course Soros, convicted financial criminal and uber rich manipulator, is behind it. It is long past time for that truly evil ancient monster to receive justice.
Why would they want to start a world war with the world’s largest super power?
That embargo would lead to the destruction of probably 3/4 of the world’s economy in very short order! Though after all the smoldering was done, carbon emissions would be practically nonexistent.
Why would an economist like Stern have any confidence in climate models when he must know that the models of his own field of presumed expertise are crap? Or perhaps he doesn’t know that either.
Look up “the banality of evil”. Stern and gang are the embodiment of it.
A few commenters have queried the $5 trillion in fossil fuel subsidies.
This is what the paper linked to by Eric actually says:
This paper estimates fossil fuel subsidies and the economic and environmental benefits from reforming them, focusing mostly on a broad notion of subsidies arising when consumer prices are below supply costs plus environmental costs and general consumption taxes.
Estimated subsidies are $4.9 trillion worldwide in 2013 and $5.3 trillion in 2015 (6.5% of global GDP in both years). Undercharging for global warming accounts for 22% of the subsidy in 2013, air pollution 46%, broader vehicle externalities 13%, supply costs 11%, and general consumer taxes 8%. China was the biggest subsidizer in 2013 ($1.8 trillion), followed by the United States ($0.6 trillion), and Russia, the European Union, and India (each with about $0.3 trillion). Eliminating subsidies would have reduced global carbon emissions in 2013 by 21% and fossil fuel air pollution deaths 55%, while raising revenue of 4%, and social welfare by 2.2%, of global GDP.
In other words:
1) Most of the $5 trillion is not subsidy at all.
2) Most comes from China
The idea that western taxpayers are shelling out trillions to Big Oil is ludicrous
Those “environmental externalities” are the crack-cocaine of ‘green-economists’. Rather like the aerosol-forcing so beloved of climate modellers, it is something which is unknown, probably unknowable, yet allows the dishonest to produce any result they want from their shoddy calculations.
Fossil fuel subsidies = all the money that isn’t yet extracted by governments from private sector ‘fossil fuel’ companies.
” Moreover, there are second-order impacts, including the freeing of public resources for alternative uses, and positive macroeconomic impacts (such as growth and higher employment) associated with climate-related investments” (Page 16 of the report). I guess if you take $4 billion from someone you will have some resources for doing other things. These folks are living in an alternative universe.
No, these thugs are building a new universe for us to live in.
I’ve scanned to the end. The whole report is about taking from the rich and giving to the poor – nothing else. How wonderful it must be to get paid to write reports about spending other people’s money and confirming your virtue at the same time.
This is great. The Left is out to extort even more money in their usual deceitful way then go out and build windmills which they’ll use to disperse the ashes of all the money they’re burning to keep warm and jet around the world. The justification will be that the money is beneficial since the ash it produces will block the Sun’s rays by reflecting them back into space and thus save the Planet from the knuckle scraping scum they extort.
Perfect.
I am reminded of the final chapters in The Lord of The Rings: The Hobbits return home to The Shire, only to find it overun with gangs of bullying thugs called “gatherers and sharers” who do a lot more gathering than they do sharing.
Stern should be stripped of his title. The group that wrote this should be, if we lived in rational times, the butt of many jokes.
But we live in insane times where “leaders” would rather worry about the weather than the health and safety of their people. “Climate change” is a transparently corrupt money grab. We are living in an Austin Powers movie. It is long past time to stop the climate madness.
“We are living in an Austin Powers movie”
But the ransom isn’t a measly ONE MILLION DOLLARS.
http://s7.postimg.org/48a7y6at7/carbon_tax_4_trillion_dr_evil.png
The lies they tell are truly astounding. Here’s just one beaut: “climate policies, if well designed and implemented, are consistent with growth, development, and poverty reduction”. Laughably false. The exact opposite is true. Attacking fossil fuels strikes at the heart of the economic engine of Western nations. Think Great Recession of ’08 was bad? Their “solution” to a non-problem would be way worse. And advancing and poor countries would also suffer. China would make out like a bandit though.
Their only problem is that CO2 does Not cause global warming. The trillions of dollars they’re stealing from the average folks will do absolutely nothing to “save the world”.
Here we go again. Yes, some people here do say so. I’m not convinced there is no uncertainty on how much.
Will they take travelers checks?
Sadly, Stern is a hooker paid for by Jeremy Grantham. Jeremy honestly means well, but he does not know anything about physics, weather, climate, biology, or a lot of other such things. One day, for laughs, I would like to see an analysis of what happens when it is shown they are dead wrong and they have misallocated tons of money for the wrong things as the global temperatures drop significantly.
Stern is the only star that Trump will soon kick in the ass. Look and wait! The face of Merkel on the G7 summit and the obvious distance to Trump speak for themselves in our climate chancellor of “PIK” (Potsdam-
Institut für Klimafolgenforschung ) case. Soon there will be something for skeptics to celebrate: the all-encompassing doctrine of the world around the anthropogenic guilt of climate change becomes a mardi gras funeral. Lets spend for the trumpeter and drummer at this funeral.
Paris? Shmaris!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/31/donald-trump-pull-paris-climate-deal-reports2/
Apologies. Just saw this after I’d posted mine. The excitement, I guess!
Us Brits getting reports of The Donald pulling out of the Paris Agreement.
If you’re going to go in go large. This is a commendable double-down just in time for Trump withdrawing the US from the absurd Paris thing. What a bunch of grasping snakes these people are.