Essay by Eric Worrall
Squeezing the global economy dry to solve a fake problem.
The $13.6 trillion question: how do we pay for the green transition?
The public sector will have to provide about 30 per cent of climate finance globally, and the heat is building on governments to come up with ways of doing that.
…
The bill will be immense. If average global temperature rises are to be limited in line with the 2015 Paris Agreement, climate finance globally will need to increase to about $US9 trillion ($13.6 trillion) a year globally by 2030, up from just under $US1.3 trillion in 2021-22, according to a report last year from the Climate Policy Initiative.
…
Former US presidential candidate John Kerry, who stepped down from his role as the US special climate envoy in March, puts the challenge of meeting this bluntly: “We don’t have the money.”
The 80-year-old is now planning to turn his attention to climate finance to prepare for the phaseout of fossil fuels. “We have to put in place more rapidly the funding mechanisms that are going to actually fuel this transition at the pace it needs to be,” he says.
To do that, governments around the world are weighing up options from wealth taxes to levies on shipping. The US is planning to fund the IRA by raising $US300 billion over the decade by requiring large corporations to pay a 15 per cent minimum tax on their profits, as well as through a stock buyback tax, among other measures.
…
Read more: https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/the-13-6-trillion-question-how-do-we-pay-for-the-green-transition-20240507-p5fpwo
The impact of the proposed tax squeeze on ordinary people would be unimaginable.
People in the USA and other Western nations are already reeling under the impact of excessive government spending on climate measures and other wasteful “investments” driving up inflation, coupled with the simultaneous attack on fuel and energy availability and cost. Adding to this burden would inflict hardship previously unknown outside of wartime or great calamities.
All for the sake of solving a problem which does not exist.
This is how great powers fall, not by the hand of a conqueror, but rotted from within by rulers who lose touch with reality, burdening the nation with their delusions, until the structure of society is crushed under the weight of unbridled incompetence. A conqueror, if they appear, merely delivers the final blow to a power which is on the brink of collapse. Let us hope it is not our turn to suffer that fate which has befallen so many throughout history.
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The rent seekers and subsidy farmers need more money (some of which they will kick back to The Party).
Bear in mind Mr Kerry, Tea went into the Boston Harbor for significantly lower tax increases and lead to the eventual overthrow of the British Government in the Colonies
To paraphrase King Henry II of England, “will no one rid me of this climate priest?”
Uh, that would be “climate pest”. We will soon be rid of the pest ….he will probably join the Biden-China Institute.
…assuming that he has not already.
Being governed by political parties does have its downside. All downside in my opinion.
Like being at the North Pole…it’s all southward from there
Your last paragraph is spot on but also should scare the bee-geesus out of everyone!
Coming from an idiot that wants to take all the carbon out of the atmosphere
What, if anything, will the Climate People hear of this plan? What will they think of it? Is their alarmism up to the task of defunding themselves to the bone to put their money where their mouth is?
I can’t wait to find out.
But first remove the Paris money fro the Maldives who are using it to build five new airports – and at near beach level too.
“We just don’t have the money.” True, and you never will.
A good thing, because if you did and spent it your dreamed of system still wouldn’t work. Net zero is impossible no matter how much you spend on it.
You really don’t spend on Net Zero. You spend on its proponents.
The Chinese continue to out emit the rest of the world. “Impossible” is spot on.
Looks like we’re being primed for “Wartime and Great Calamities” to be set into motion so as to have something else to blame for the socioeconomic problems being foisted by political.decisions
“The impact of the proposed tax squeeze on ordinary people would be unimaginable.”
But, Eric, what about the benefits of *climate justice* that will be coming along any time now? Surely the tax squeeze be worth it! /sarc
New “net zero” target – the goal for the “take home” pay of the serfs in all of the Western economies.
(And you thought it referred to CO2 changes!)
Easy solution is don’t make a profit and don’t do buy back shares.
‘To do that, governments around the world are weighing up options from wealth taxes to levies on shipping. The US is planning to fund the IRA by raising $US300 billion over the decade by requiring large corporations to pay a 15 per cent minimum tax on their profits, as well as through a stock buyback tax, among other measures.’
This just might be enough to jolt some of the Left’s useful idiots back to their senses. I double-dog dare the Democrats to front the legislation here in the US.
The Republicans went along with all the “climate change” spending in the Inflation Reduction Act, probably hoping to make some trillions off of “climate change” themselves.
John Kerry has plenty of money.
When he and his cronies have contributed almost every cent they have, and are living in a small suburban house with no car and walks everywhere.
… then I might believe he actually believes a single word he says.
How much did his last hair-do cost ???
Back when he was running for president- I recall him paying $700 for his JFK hair style.
It’s a rug.
It would be a good idea if Kerry could provide a list of the entities that would benefit most from these increases. One thing would be certain: it wouldn’t be the taxpayers, nor would there be any appreciable effect on the climate. But the peddlers of inefficient technologies and products like wind and solar power, EVs and heat pumps would have a field day.
It was never about temperature but always about wealth redistribution and the destruction of Capitalism.
The Capitalists are planning to make trillions in profits in the $US275 trillion Bloomberg estimates it will cost.
They are the ones that own the media that is pushing it.
Capitalists are just human. They are not the driving force behind the madness, but many of them see it as an opportunity to make revenue and profits.
Such that only seek the money are being used by those who seek power to advance “The Cause”.
Can Mr. Kerry give us some shred of scientific evidence that all that money will do anything to make the climate different?
Of course not. But he doesn’t think he has to—he just believes. All that is needed to be named Biden’s special climate envoy.
There is a direct link between the per Capita income of citizens of a country and their per Capita CO2 emissions.
So Kerry must be right. Significantly reduce per Capita income and you will reduce emissions. Several economists have suggested carbon taxes as the most efficient way to do this.
There’s a use for Ketchup, Catsup, Ketsup, however you spell it.There is no use for Kerry.
Lurch is done! Is the red stain catsup or fake blood? Everything else is fake.
Poor John Kerry, desperately trying to stay relevant and in the public eye after announcing his plans to step down from his position as President Joe Biden’s “special climate envoy”, whatever that means.
As to to Kerry’s suggestion to implement new taxes to meet the US share of “the $13.6 trillion Climate Finance Challenge”, Margret Thatcher keenly observed:
“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”
Thank God, John Kerry is on the fade-out route from US politics. Good riddance.
China has done very well with socialism, doubling their people’s life span.
If you were being sarcastic, it’s not obvious. That’s probably why you got negative votes.
One sign of the “success” of a country is the degree to which people want to immigrate to it to become residents.
In this regard, the USA is highly successful . . . Red China not so much.
Personally, I’d never want to double my lifespan while simultaneously more-than-doubling my misery index . . . but YMMV.
I agree with you 100%. Canada has more and more residents who are leaving. So much so that the government wants to impose a huge tax for leaving. Immigrants from war torn countries who land here, return to their homelands in a short amount of time because the cost of living has become so ridiculous here. The carbon tax is a big reason the cost of living is so high…house is another issue…
Maybe for some who survived the “Cultural Revolution” and after some capitalism was allowed.
Aren’t there some Chinese billionaires? You know, the ones who live in the farmhouse? (Animal Farm reference.)
The impact on the hoi polloi is not unimaginable. It would be even more devastating than the Great Depression + COVID lockdowns.
Taxes are unpopular. The residents of the Golgafrincham Ark B (who currently seem to be in power) might propose an alternative – just print the money, and hope the resulting inflation doesn’t show up until you’ve left office.
The cost is astronomical. Bloomberg’s green energy research team estimates $US200 trillion to stop warming by 2050.
There are about 2 million households worldwide, which is $100,000 per household. Probably only 10 percent of households can afford anything additional so that will be $1 million per household.
Given the choice, almost all households would prefer $1 million in the bank and a degree or two of warming.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-07-05/-200-trillion-is-needed-to-stop-global-warming-that-s-a-bargain.
The Earth is still in a 2.5 million-year ice age named the Quaternary Glaciation with 90 percent of the fresh water locked up in ice caps and 200,000 glaciers.
https://www.britannica.com/science/Quaternary
Outside of the tropics everyone, that can, lives in heated houses and apartments, drives heated cars, works in heated buildings, and wears warm clothes most of the year.
This study says that around 4.6 million people die each year from cooler weather compared to around 500,000 that die each from warmer weather. Where temperature is concerned, cold weather is the big killer of humans.
‘Global, regional and national burden of mortality associated with nonoptimal ambient temperatures from 2000 to 2019: a three-stage modelling study’
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(21)00081-4/fulltext
This study from 2015 says that cold weather kills 20 times as many people as hot weather and that moderately warm or cool weather kills far more people than extreme weather. When it is cool our blood vessels constrict to preserve heat raising our blood pressure and that causes more strokes and heart attacks in the cooler months.’Mortality risk attributable to high and low ambient temperature: a multi-country observational study’ https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)62114-0/fulltext
“There are about 2 million households worldwide,” Really?
And 28m of those are in the UK 🙂
Here’s a Bloomberg article related to this. The amount of capital being demanded is absolutely staggering.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-21/investors-call-for-policy-unleashing-275-trillion-for-net-zero
Bloomberg went up 75 trillion in just 2 months.
Now that laws of attainder seem to be an acceptable thing, how about making snooty elites like Kerry and his ilk exclusively pay? I’m quite certain that in today’s “Eat the Rich” environment, that would be quite popular.
i think he should use up all the Heinz family money first.
What Heinz money? He can use his own.
Because wealth transfers have such an excellent track record solving problems?
The US government debt to GDP ratio is already higher than immediately after WW2 viz. 131.5% in 2023 as opposed to 118.9 % in 1946 (Trading Economics), 131.5% is the highest recorded.
I’ve read that the interest payments exceed the defense budget.
The only way to service the debt and pay it down is by encouraging a vibrant fast-growing productive economy like during the post-war years ’47 – ’73 and that will be impossible if the likes of Kerry have their way.
Chris
At this growth rate, interest will dwarf everything else in the budget in a few years.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYOINT