Australia Carbon Tax Plan Introduced By Julia Gillard

This Sunday, Australia announced its carbon tax plan in an effort to help fight climate change. AFP reports that the plan is to tax carbon pollution at $24.74 (USD) per ton, in a move similar to Europe's emissions trading scheme.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard said at a news conference that there would be a fixed price on carbon pollution until a full trading scheme is introduced in 2015. She said, "As a nation, we need to put a price on carbon and create a clean energy future... This has been a difficult debate that has brought us to this moment. But we are here now and now is the time to get this done."

Reuters reports that, according to Gillard, by 2020 the carbon tax plan would reduce emissions by five percent over 2000 levels, and would cut 159 million tons of carbon pollution.

AFP reports:

Under the scheme to begin on July 1, 2012, about 500 of Australia's top polluters will pay a fixed price, starting at Aus$23 per tonne, for their carbon dioxide emissions for the first three years.

The mechanism would then shift into an emissions trading scheme, with a floating price set by the market. The government will set a floor price and an upper limit for at least the first three years to avoid price shocks.

If introduced, Tony Wood, of the Grattan Institute at Melbourne University, told AFP that Australia's plans would be the biggest outside Europe. According to Al Jazeera, global efforts to cut down on carbon pollution stalled last year after President Obama ruled out a federal climate bill for this term.

The carbon tax has been hotly debated in Australia -- scientists even faced death threats earlier this year. Reuters reports, "To sooth belligerent voters, who polls show are 60 percent opposed to a carbon price, the government has offered tax cuts to low and middle-income households, as well as increased state pension and welfare payments."

Comments

[James Adelaide]

08:48 AM on 07/11/2011

A newspoll less than 24 hours after the announcement? but they take about three days to produce normally.
I smell a rat.....

[Duncan Grant]

09:00 AM on 07/11/2011

So do I. It's name is Julia, ... dead PM walking. Pressure is being placed on Labor MP's to revolt. There are a couple of names doing the rounds.

[Duncan Grant]

08:33 AM on 07/11/2011

Lastest Newspoll has the Coalition on 59%. We are going to see a replay of the NSW State election...and a long lingering death of the ALP following a fresh round recriminations and scapegoating. ALP - RIP.

[Duncan Grant]

08:45 AM on 07/11/2011

If this is translated into seat it would mean that Labor would be reduced to 35 and the coalition would be on approximately 112.

[Twinings]

11:04 AM on 07/11/2011

It will be a sad day for Australia. That will be twice that big business have proven that they can scare the electorate by advertising campaigns. I pity the Mad Monk if he gets in power and realizes big business now expects to get what it wants.

[peter ricci]

08:02 AM on 07/11/2011

Carbon Tax is just plumb dumb. As an ardent science nut and a believer in the falsifiable science of Climate Change, Carbon Tax (a separate issue to believing the science) is just a way so many have found a way to make a killing $$$$ out of something that has little impact.

Three simple measures for the Green Card
1. Electricity: You pay more for your electricity the more you use based on an average usage per household size. Each registered household

2. Fuel: Fuel costs rise per litre (gallon) the more you go over a limit based on industry (business) and average (household size) with a simple registered card that you use to save on fuel each time you fill up. You get tax credits for going under yourlimit (or not using a car at all)

3. Household Garbage: You register with same card and you get credits for disposing off less and organizing your garbage correctly.

In all cases you register to receive your cards for consumers and business. You do not have to, but unregistered users will pay more for fuel, electricity and garbage disposal.

This will drive innovation in industry because consumers/business will think to buy better fuel efficient vehicles, use less power at home and in the office and take care of what they buy and how they will dispose of it. In turn industry will immediately follow suit to create better appliances/lighting, better more fuel efficient vehicles and better lighter greener packaging

[Twinings]

10:57 AM on 07/11/2011

Peter if you truly are a journalist your may want to do some investigating into who is funding the majority of 'climate change skeptic' websites, not to mention the anti carbon tax campaign. For a head start try here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2006/sep/19/ethicalliving.g2

It is an old article but shows what a journalist can do when they bother to background check.

[peter ricci]

01:15 PM on 07/11/2011

If you truly are a person who can read, you will notice from what I wrote that I am not a skeptic on climate change at all. I am a skeptic (backed by real hard evidence) that carbon pricing does not work - two separate issues

[mamacat]

07:42 AM on 07/11/2011

Can we give Murdoch back to Australia?
He seems to have his heart set on destroying America.

[Duncan Grant]

08:31 AM on 07/11/2011

Impossible. Murdoch doesn't have a heart.

[James Adelaide]

08:48 AM on 07/11/2011

No thank you, we do not want him back.

[James Adelaide]

08:53 AM on 07/11/2011

But if you want to send him to Guantanamo Bay, go right ahead

[mamacat]

08:56 AM on 07/11/2011

Not even if we through Fox News into the deal?

[BlackbirdHighway]

07:24 AM on 07/11/2011

Australia has been suffering from devastating drought for decades. Who could have predicted? Well, actually the climatologists predicted exactly that as a result of increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. The Australians waited until the results of climate change beat them over head but they finally saw the light.

Those climatologists also predicted severe drought in the southwest of the US. The deniers claim that higher levels of CO2 makes plants grow better.

So quick, someone go to Texas and ask the farmers there if they have bumper crops from the extra CO2. Or, if they are having severe drought instead, then we should also get to work on reducing those CO2 emissions.

[ILoveFiction]

05:23 AM on 07/11/2011

Well my math is not so good and this makes no sense to me:

"The statement added that at hypothetical $20 carbon price, the average liability for methane emissions would be around $1.60 per ton of coal. This cost should be compared with sale prices for metallurgical coal which are currently over $300 a ton and for thermal coal which are currently over $120 a ton."

So 1.60 should be compared to 300?

It's smaller!

[James Adelaide]

03:03 AM on 07/11/2011

Freehat: How does dealing with our own carbon emissions become anti-americanism? If it shows the USA in a bad light, that is not our intention.
join us in reducing emissions, and you do not need to feel slighted....

[James Adelaide]

02:44 AM on 07/11/2011

Just ME in T: Do not be so ready to accept what the Murdoch press publishes.

I saw the story about alleged thousands of outraged Australians, which was published about three hours after the announcement of the detail of the scheme. THREE hours:

This story of outrage was published before even the commentators had digested the 120 page document, let alone written (or aired) any comment to inform we Australian voters. The story was a scam by Murdoch, there was no evidence offered, just Murdoch running his own game as usual.

[innerpuppie]

01:34 AM on 07/11/2011

Well, there you have it, another country jumping over us when it comes to 'looking forward'. I'm beginning to think that being a world's super power isn't all that great. It's better to be just a run of the mill country - then you have more time to think about the important things in life instead of war and giving money to the rich and looming deficits that are being fought over by a bunch of little kids we call Congress.

[Publicola]

02:15 AM on 07/11/2011

innerpuppie: "Well, there you have it, another country jumping over us when it comes to 'looking forward'."

On a related note,

From the preeminent science journal Nature (March 2011):

----------­­---------­-­--------­--­------
Into Ignorance

As Nature went to press, a committee of the US Congress was poised to pass legislatio­­n that would overturn a scientific finding on the dangers of global warming...

Republican­­s... have made clear their disdain for climate science... Misinforma­­tion was presented as fact, truth was twisted and nobody showed any inclinatio­­n to listen to scientists­­, let alone learn from them. It has been an embarrassi­­ng display, not just for the Republican Party but also for Congress and the US citizens it represents­­...

The legislatio­­n is fundamenta­­lly anti-scien­­ce, just as the rhetoric that supports it is grounded in wilful ignorance. One lawmaker last week described scientists as “elitist” and “arrogant” creatures who hide behind “discredit­­ed” institutio­­ns. Another propagated the myth that in the 1970s the scientific community warned of an imminent ice age. Melting ice caps on Mars served to counter evidence of anthropoge­­nic warming on Earth, and Antarctica was falsely said to be gaining ice...

It is hard to escape the conclusion that the US Congress has entered the intellectu­­al wilderness­­, a sad state of affairs in a country that has led the world in many scientific arenas for so long.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v471/n7338/full/471265b.html

[innerpuppie]

07:55 AM on 07/11/2011

We have GOT to get those Republicans out of control next year. They are taking us back into the dark ages...

[GSR]

12:59 AM on 07/11/2011

http://www.getup.org.au/campaigns/climate-action-now/climate-announcement/give-facts-a-head-start?t=dXNlcmlkPTMyNzUwLGVtYWlsaWQ9MTk1

[Just ME in T]

11:52 PM on 07/10/2011

Please learn all you can about this scheme, being perpetrated by a sleazy pack of slugs in Canberra. I will post as it becomes available, information which may help you educate, not only yourselves, but friends, family members and neighbours. Knowledge is power, and members of parliament can be voted out.
http://justmeint.wordpress.com/2011/07/11/sticking-with-the-frogs/

[Duncan Grant]

04:56 AM on 07/11/2011

Very well set out. Thank you.

[Genders]

09:59 PM on 07/10/2011

THIS is the correct response. Don't create the largest new derivatives market in history as the Cap and trade would have done. Instead, for stability, just tax pollution. Duh. Then subsidies the green tech, the supposed profitable and mature fossil and nukes folks, shouldn't get any subsidies, right?

[AussieLib]

05:26 AM on 07/11/2011

You realize that this new tax is supposed to be temporary, transitioning into an emissions trading scheme?

[Genders]

03:36 PM on 07/11/2011

I do now, that's for pointing that out. That's too bad. That will destabilize the economy even more.

[Moose Luck 99]

08:59 PM on 07/10/2011

The EU economy has been slowed by carbon trading.
Now they are blaming "US Accounting Agency's" for financial troubles.

[Chamique Parker]

08:25 PM on 07/10/2011

That darn global warming:

http://www.greatfallstribune.com/article/20110709/NEWS01/110709004/Montana-ultra-marathon-race-cancelled-due-snow?odyssey=tab%7Ctopnews%7Ctext%7CFrontpage

[BlackbirdHighway]

09:01 PM on 07/10/2011

Is the entire Earth the same temperature as Montana? We are talking about global averages that trend up over decades. One day in Montana doesn't amount to squat in the big picture.

It's always warm somewhere and it's always cold somewhere, but in the month of June, all time record high temperatures outnumbered record low temps (for the month of June), by 11 to 1. Globally, the Earth is warming up.

[Chamique Parker]

10:47 PM on 07/10/2011

It's a hoax. Those e-mails, those damn e-mails.

[Publicola]

10:24 PM on 07/10/2011

Try to remember:

It's GLOBAL warming, not backyard warming.

HTH.

[Chamique Parker]

10:40 PM on 07/10/2011

Neither one. It's a hoax.

[MajorKarmaUSA]

07:46 PM on 07/10/2011

The ignorance perpetuated here and pretty much everywhere these days combined with the censorship of my attempt to expose the many lies and propaganda have me saying less and less here and elsewhere and focusing more on getting me and my family as far from this insanity as possible. The Carbon Tax is a Globalist Scheme; Man-made Global Warming is a Scheme; you are all being slowly boiled to death and it may be too late for you to climb out of the pot you so willingly sit in. They will probably censor these comments as well and that's fine; me and mine will do what we know to do for ourselves. Good luck

[vexed weasel]

09:17 PM on 07/10/2011

Looks like you ran the gauntlet this time...phew!
But if I were you...I'd keep looking in the rearview mirror.
BTW, where are you moving your tribe to?

[GSR]

01:02 AM on 07/11/2011

Who are you and how did you get my name?

[GSR]

01:08 AM on 07/11/2011

vexed weasel.Mmmm that sounds foreign.
You're one of them globalists causing me and my family to flee to the caves.
Gee I hope I can get GBTV where I'm goin'

[Dardedar]

01:58 AM on 07/11/2011

MAJ: "you are all being slowly boiled to death and it may be too late for you to climb out of the pot">>

That's a rather interesting and unfortunate analogy to use when you are one who denies global warming. All of the science is against you. 98% of climatologists understand that the earth has warmed and we are causing it. Are there any other complex scientific fields where you think you know more than the experts, or is it only in climatology?

[MajorKarmaUSA]

02:56 AM on 07/11/2011

To the contrary, many scientist have come out to refute Man-made Global Warming but are always slighted by the media that is owned by the same people pushing the Carbon Tax. I can not do your homework for you but will point out that the Sun is in fact warming all of the planets in our solar system as is aspect of the cycles it goes through over hundreds and thousands of years. I could also point out that one volcano spews more toxins into the air in a years than modern man has produced in the last 100 years but here again, you will only believe what you think will serve you. Fools that you are, the people you are supporting want to rid the planet of 80% of its human population as was set forth on the Georgia Guide Stones. Your 98% number is utter propaganda, as is your reference to the experts but like most here, your supposed intelligence just shows how brainwashed you really are. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKOSiYWwcio&feature=related

[MajorKarmaUSA]

02:58 AM on 07/11/2011

Global Warming: junk science vs. real science : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUQAHVQ1Psc&feature=related do your own homework and don't assume your as smart as you think.