The EU is a basket-case, teetering, so when the European Parliament had the chance to “fix” the carbon market yesterday, they surprised everyone and chose not to. Being unfixed, it’s free to collapse, which it did and by 40%.
The Economist headline today is “Carbon Trading Below Junk Status”.
The EU carbon market once was around €22/tCO2 (that was 2008). Australia turned up five years late to the party, and is still trying to trade at similar rates.
Today Point Carbon is listing the carbon price as “€2.80“. Obviously, subject to change, and possibly trending-to-zero.
[BusinessTimes] “Campaigners and traders warn the carbon price could now fall below 2 euros or even to near zero in the coming weeks, and government sales could fail if they don’t meet minimum price requirements, as banks that act as liquidity providers pull out.”
The EU carbon market is not dead yet, but this could be a game changer
[The Economist] The rejection [of the bill to rescue the carbon market] was a surprise. The parliament’s environment committee had looked at the plan in February and approved it by a surprisingly wide margin of 38 votes to 25.
As expected, most members of the largest political alliance, the centre-right European People’s Party, voted against the proposal. This was needed, they argued, to protect consumers from higher energy bills. What came as a surprise is the fact that all but four British conservative members of the European Parliament also voted against the plan. In doing so they defied their own government, which has introduced a carbon floor price in Britain that could soon be higher than the European carbon price. And the European Socialists, which had been expected mostly to back the proposals, instead split, with 44 in favour of the plan and 31 against.”
Go the Brits!
The Economist speculates on whether the proposal might be resurrected (it’s been sent back to the environment committee). It could come back. Though ultimately, the MEP’s would have to change their minds. Since it was an important vote, and practically everyone turned up on the day, that’s a good sign. It might be hard to get any version through. Still, hold the champagne. The vote was 334 to 315.
There goes the Australian budget
The next Australian Budget is delivered in May. It was never going to be in surplus anyway was it?
[The Australian] LABOR will revise down its carbon tax revenue estimates following a crash in the European carbon market, at a likely multi-billion dollar cost to the federal budget.
Five seconds after the price fell, Australian’s started asking why we are paying five times as much. Greg Combet said (effectively) but it’s only for two years. (We all feel so much better then.)
[The Australian] Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry economics director Greg Evans described the Australian scheme as “economic recklessness” and said it should be scrapped.
Minerals Council of Australia chief executive Mitch Hooke declared the scheme was now “untenable”.
Climate Change Minister Greg Combet said the government would revise its forecasts for its carbon price revenue when it delivered the budget in May.
Mr Combet said linking with the European scheme was still two years away. A lot could happen in that time, and the Europeans would try other measures to raise their carbon price.
…
The carbon price will be linked with the EU scheme from July 2015 and the price will float. [or sink — wonders Jo]
Opposition Treasury spokesman Joe Hockey said it’s a “$7bn revenue hole”. Henry Ergas estimates $10 billion (and that’s just two financial years).
Last year the Australia Treasury predicted by 2015 the carbon price would be $29 a tonne.
Gillard can compensate some people, but whatever she does, she can’t compensate The Nation.
——————————–
h/t Stefan, Jim Simpson, ces
As a Brit suffering the prospect of ever-rising electricity and gas prices I can but rejoice at this news. It would have been ludicrous to pursue this policy when the Germans as switching from nuclear to coal, and also when the Greek, Italian and Spanish economies are all forecast to shrink this year.
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What a coincidence. “The Economist” publishes a climate change skeptical article a few days before the European Parliament considers the price of “carbon”. Who owns the Economist? Anybody make any money going short on carbon credits? Woops – a conspiracy theory!
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The Economist enjoys sales of 200,000 but is probably read by many more, no mover or shaker would be without it.
The great Matt Ridley (who IS a Member of the House of Lords) was Science Editor from 1984 to 1987.
He is still in contact with his successor, in fact he brought her along when we went to see the sceptical play ‘The Heretic’.
Methinks he tipped her off that the magazine’s formerly warmist stance needed ‘moderating’, only just in time it seems.
Geoffrey Lean in the London DailyTelegraph followed suit a week or two later, but has since disappeared. Perhaps he’ll be back next week.
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The Economist has been green as grass on global warming for many years. Completely bought the Kool Aid. I have been teetering on cancelling my subscription for a while – I keep it because they do foreign affairs stuff you don’t get anywhere else.
So it was a day for rejoicing when they started walking back from the CAGW scare with that article you mentioned. Full of caveats and weasel words, but baby steps, baby steps…
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The Economist was the same magazine that voted our Wayne Swan the World’s Best Treasurer. Need I say more 🙂
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If Wayne Swan was once considered the World’s best Treasurer, then it would only have been in his own dreams.
Euromoney Magazine, not the Economist, gave Wayne Swan an award- and it was awarded more for hubris than to publicise the ‘best’ finance minister.
The ‘Finance Minister of the Year’ is chosen by Euromoney Magazine’s editor, who claims to consider only ministers whose decisions have improved perception of their country’s economic and financial achievements over the previous 12 months.
It’s worth considering the opening thought from Euromoney’s report on the award:
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I cancelled my subscription a year ago (after over 10 years) and wrote an explanation saying their position on climate change was the main reason.
Let me know if you think it’s safe to subscribe again.
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Are you trying to tell us that the entire European Parliament vote according to what they read in The Economist?
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The predicted implosion of this ideologically driven fiat currency is occurring before our eyes. When faced with the stark economic realities of Europe today, it would seem that there is just enough residual commonsense. In Australia, Julia and her challenged cohorts cling by their long nails to their avowed intent. Personifying electoral volte-face there is nowhere to go – the noose grows ever tighter as they strain to hoist themselves with their own petard.
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Who is allowing Labour to stay in office?
I was under the impression your Federal Government was a rather shaky coalition.
How many grasping placeholders need to be peeled away from the trough for the government to fall?
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Current status
Labor 71 (including Speaker with casting vote)
Opposition 72
Greens 1 (rusted on vote for government)
Independents 6
(2 clinging to Government as they have from the start, because they will lose in an election)
(1 who has always supported opposition and most likely to be re-elected)
(1 ex Liberal who switched to supporting Government until dumped, will lose in an election)
(1 dismissed from Labor party but shielded by them. Gone at next election)
(1 who supported Gov. until they re-negged on promises, now likely to vote with Opposition and may win at an election)
So currently Opposition can muster 73 sure votes out of 149, but need 76 to avoid Speaker tying vote and losing.
Alternatively needs 75 with 2 abstentions from Labor ranks. Just possible.
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It’s better that they go at the Election – more legitimacy that way.
Plus will also include rusted on senators.
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Never count Sheeple votes till they’ve voted.
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Little point of a House of Reps election now. Under the Constitution the earliest possible date for a Senate election is August 3. Just maybe the ALP would accept their near obliteration in the House and either support Abbott or abstain from wanton obstruction in the Senate.
Pigs might fly of course.
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Watching someone call another person a ‘denier’ is not edifying, even when it is UKIP Member of the European Parliament Godfrey Bloom calling the European Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard a denier during the debate in which the EU Carbon Price bailout was defeated.
He was responding to a presentation she had just given claiming global warming was getting worse. He pointed out that there is not a single scientific institution in the world that would disagree with the fact that global temperatures have not increased for at least the last 15 years or more.
He asked her why is she denying that, then proceeded to point his finger and shout ‘denier’! The finger pointing and exclamations of ‘denier’ is exactly what we have had to endure for so many years, it makes a change to see it being directed at climate alarmists.
You can see the short video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvXMBwANyvY&feature=share
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Ironic, wasn’t it? But given the Warmists claim it is not offensive, what’s the problem?
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Jaymez,
Thank you for the link. I watched the YouTube Clip. Nice to see the MEP expressing himself so eloquently and so decisively. I can’t say I warm to a reversal of the ‘denier’ label, but I won’t go so far as to deny the slight internal reverberation evoked by witnessing pleasurable irony.
Did you happen notice the quiet ‘danke’ from the Chairman at the end of the diatribe. Now, that should ahve brought the house down!
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What is sauce for the gander….
Actually I thought it was highly appropriate use of the word ‘denier’ especially since it was used AFTER what she was denying was spelled out…
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The consternation just goes to show that the carbon tax was just a citizen tax by other means.
Look to an increase in something or a change of name to a Green Tax For Sustainable Development Projects (that goes straight to general revenue anyway).
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They invent a Ponzi scheme which quickly goes bankrupt, then they create a new tax or tax increase to fill in the deficit hole they just created.
I so wish for an intelligent politician that I can vote for. The pickings are slim to nil.
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Isn’t that what’s called Socialism. Spending on the expectation of what tomorrow might bring, while knowing that tomorrow will actually bring a Lib/Nat. Government to sort it out. It’s always easier with OPM (other people’s money).
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I paid little attention to Margaret Thatcher when she said: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”
Now I see first-hand; my country being bankrupted in the name of another socialist experiment. Worst of all, not even home-grown, but dictated by unelected global elitists.
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The running out wasn’t a problem for that brilliant Keynesian that presided over the squandering of Lady Thatchers fiscal legacy. As finance minister under Tony Bliars govt. Gordon Brown’s greatest danger in saving the world almost single-handed lay from the first GFC c. 2008 was of running out of ink. The Americans then copied going bigger and better as they always do, to completely debase the Dollar as a credible currency.
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Today, we celebrated the passing of Britain’s greatest peace time prime minister and the passing of one of the most stupid, expensive and damaging taxes in the history of mankind.
Some say Margaret Thatcher bears responsibility for starting up the great Global Warming Gravy Train, but soon realised the stupidity of the concept.
Today’s pygmy politicians are only now beginning to realise how they have been conned by the purveyors of bad science need to gorge themselves at the trough of the public purse.
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I suppose that would be a good metric to recognise an intelligent poly, “they realise the SCIENCE(tm) is corrupt and failing” them.
I still see many who want more more more… I guess they highlight themselves.
I’m no historian, but as I understand it, Margaret Thatcher used global warming to hammer the coal miners and the union behind them, into submission. Strikes were common and causing everybody hurt. I guess for Margaret, it was useful at the time (she probably asked Monkton to look into it).
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Brilliant Greg.
But please, who actually holds the rights to SCIENCE(tm)?
I hope it’s not the UN.
KK 🙂 🙂
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I don’t know what Margaret Thatcher really thought about global warming or how savvy she was about science in general. But I am sure she deserves better than she’s been getting from her detractors. She actually stood up for the real interests of her country, both at home and abroad. If she made mistakes that only makes her human like the rest of us.
Margaret Thatcher is one of my very few heroes among the world’s leaders, past and present.
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There is an interesting & authoritative examination of the origins of the Global Warming scare by this site’s old friend Richard S. Courtney, over at the John-Daly site.
How it all began
Richard’s forthright analysis is always refreshing though sadly not something seen here as regularly as it used to be.
Thatcher’s initiation & promotion of the idea is thoroughly explained in the context of the influences of the day, as principally having emerged as a device for self promotion of a politician with a basic graduate degree in science, on a World stage full of scientifically illiterate leaders.
Little could she have imagined how the Lefties could take a little honest promotion and turn it into such full on exploitation by rank deception.
The Poll Tax was her step too far , in which she thoroughly believed, that ultimately turned the Country and her Party against her. Whereas Global Warming was just an idle curiosity that might have some policy advantage to it.
The Poll Tax idea brought her down, after its watered down implementation in England proving divisive and even after having first had it’s rougher edges knocked on the already disenfranchised Scots. Her Global Warming idea has been used to wreak considerably more damage Globally and it is its continuing proponents that now need to be brought down urgently.
What was it Ike said about beware the scientists ? The
danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.
Beware the politicians using science as a policy mechanism. Be yet more afraid of politicians who haven’t a clue about science even using the the ‘S’ word.
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Joe,
Are you sure of your link? I can’t get to Richard’s treatise as of 12:54 PM California time.
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Worked OK for me
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What’s this? Yet another attempt at a command economy Failing miserably and impoverishing the people again?
But the bankers said they could be trusted to trade and speculate on an invisible trace gas. Surely they had our best interests at heart?
I mean it must have worked successfully somewhere, mustn’t it. Oh, that’s right, it never has worked anywhere has it!
For all those who backed this communist inspired attempt at a command economy – you’re economic imbeciles.
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If somebody is imbecilic, are they sufficiently cogent to realise that they are an imbecile?
In my time, I have worked with a number of clients who have complained, when something failed, that the failure was because their staff didn’t try hard enough to make it work. And these were “hard-nosed” business people.
When you look at the political claque, well ….
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For people complaining their staff didn’t try hard enough – if it’s that endemic, it’s not a staffing problem – it’s a lack of that thing called leadership problem.
To whine about it is just a demonstration of stupidity.
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Economic vandals and fiscal fools
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I could name a few that have done quite well thank you.
Doug
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This is the best bit of news I’ve heard all year. I know the vote was finely balanced (334 to 315), but a year ago it would have all been green-sided, so to me this is truly excellent news. The tide is turning.
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Perhaps.
But wait for the counter offensive, for there will be one.
If you are steadily loosing, the only options you have are to either bleed to death, or retreat and regroup and try to strike a single killer blow.
In gambling, they call it doubling up on deep pockets. And we know how deep the alarmist pockets are, because, for the most part, they are playing with our money.
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Hmm that should be, “doubling-down on deep pockets … ho hum.
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For my money RW, rather than a vicious backlash, I believe that we will witness the deafening pitter-patter of ratus ratus exiting a sinking ship. Time to invest in some ear muffs.
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I think you are correct.
The Over the Top reaction to James Delingpole’s metaphorical closing remark in a piece he wrote in The Australian, “Deluged with Flannery and covered in Viner”. shows a real bit of fear in the Climate Claque that this may actually be their future fate.
His rebuttal An English class for trolls, professional offence-takers and climate activists
Anthony Watts even weighs in here (The screen captures from Mann’s Tweets are priceless) and James replies Apologise to Michael Mann, Anthony? I’d rather eat worms
Too bad we do not have more journalists of Delingpole’s caliber.
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On the counter offensive, maybe the shrill and desperate “news releases” we have seen over the Xmas period, was their counter offensive.
The usual games have been afoot, science by press release, claims of doom unsupported by the documents cited,useful idiots braying bravely..all falling flat on an unresponsive public, cold, broke and increasingly irate.
We might be late too the party as the agencies who orchestrate the cause, all have PR firms, internal polling, the ear of their pet pollies and possibly recognized the end before we did.
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I tried to find the orginal vote numbers when they introduced carbon trading. fail…
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When we celebrate the imminent demise of the European Carbon Trading Scheme, we should be supported by those who both care about effectively reducing carbon emissions. From the Australian on November 23, 2011.
This is a policy that has made the European people poorer for no benefit by any measure. It is a failing policy by a failing institution, that is in denial of the political realities.
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Meanwhile so many people continue to live in poverty
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When a governmental political structure creates a $287 billion zero benefit cost to its citizens, you could be forgiven for thinking poverty was the intended benefit.
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And can you imagine the real good that could have been done in the world with $287 billion? Clean water, malaria & dengue mitigation, basic electricity and infrastructure for the least fortunate.
Who knows how many lives have been lost or blighted for want of that money being spent properly.
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We took away their stick. Well, you took away their stick.
And I’m not talking about the hockey one.
I’m talking about the tax club that the climate evangelicals were beating all of our economies to death with.
Certainly we want to continue. The global warming weed is tough to eradicate. We want to make sure it doesn’t pop up again over in the corner when we aren’t looking.
Can’t ever be dead enough for my taste, but at a certain point these militant CAGW guys start to resemble the Bigfoot hunters.
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Wait, isn’t Australia the country with the “Climate Change Minister”? I’d say right there is a good bit of the problem. What’s next, Earthquake Minister? Maybe Meteor Minister? How about Events Happening in Intergalactic Space Minister? Just what exactly does this ministerial position in the Australian government propose to do to change the climate of the entire planet? Isn’t that just somewhat narcissistic?
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I agree. It’s so Lilliputian. Our climate change minister may as well run the department of big-endianism.
If Jonathan Swift was alive today!
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Juliar’s got that part taken already.
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The “Climate Minister” aka “Climate Clown” (one of many) is indeed the “Intergalactic Space Minister.”
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Nah, just rename the whole shebang, “The Ministry of Monumental Stupidity”
Then it can justifiably be applied to anyone in the Gillard non-government
carcasscaucus !50
We had a minister for Intergalactic Space, but he recently retired from the Senate to become an activist – his name is Bob Brown. See his appeal to Space Aliens here
http://greensmps.org.au/content/news-stories/bob-brown-delivers-3rd-annual-green-oration
So I guess the position is vacant
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…and so is the incumbent.
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A market for which there is no commodity…”Unsustainable”
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Isn’t there a derivatives market for papal indulgences somewhere?
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THREE GUILTY MEN
The Guardian broke this story first, with two articles in which two passages are extremely important.
” The Tory MEP’s who defied David Cameron to reject the plan ”
“former Tory Environment Ministers Tim Yeo and John Gummer intervened on Tuesday, calling for MEP’s to vote in favour of the reforms”.
‘Dave’ and his two little Tory henchmen need not have stuck their necks out, but they chose to.
They will never be forgiven !
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If you read Bishop Hill regularly you will often have read that Yeo and Gummer (Lord Deben) are neck deep in the enviro-industrial complex, especially wind turbine projects. Any pollie who had this type of conflict of interest in ‘evil oil’ would be cast into hell and burned at stake. It just slides off these guys.
The great thing is the conservative MEP’s seem sufficiently able to break with the whips to take this principled stand. Good on them.
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The Germans have learned a hard lesson about alternative energy, the expensive experiment was the same as investing in alternative medicine, it’s total quackery and they will struggle to keep the lights on and manufacturing growing.
The euro is now finished, but it’s a bit like the agw consensus, it’s taken a long time to discover it’s a failed experiment.
It’s completely laughable to think that the Germans based their entire energy policy and economic future on the words of imbeciles like ExcelPhil and Mannmade Panic.
The Germans are quietly furious.
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Alternative medicine is a heck of a lot less destructive and it serves to clear out the Zombies of the Gene Pool
Also occasionally the alternative medicines do work. You just have to research them carefully.
For example: Cinnamon: Potential Role in the Prevention of Insulin Resistance, Metabolic Syndrome, and Type 2 Diabetes Journal of Diabetes Science and Technology
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The Greens wanted our carbon price to start at $50/ton
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They will probably argue now that Australia needs to raise the price to $100 a tonne immediately.
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Any price connected to a ‘junk science’ will be trashed, ultimately it must all collapse and this is true science, don’t you just love it.
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I don’t want to quote my 12 year old daughter but its fits so perfectly “lol”
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The actual worst of all of the Australian experience for me is the actual corruption of Treasury and State and Commonwealth ‘public services’ in general.
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Right on the button NFA
We expect our politicians to be a little corrupt but still that they will hire the best and most capable to look after our affairs through the public service.
Unfortunately they hired people to look after Their Own affairs and are totally corrupt.
All of us; taxpayers and the good and decent public servants in state and federal systems are eagerly anticipating changes soon but that will only be a start.
Politicians need to get their act together, but the problem is that like Obama they “owe” people and are tied to promises to repay.
Government cannot provide everything for voters to take them from cradle to grave and so much of our public service is bound up with support crap on the wrong things.
It has become a monster that can barely move out of its’ own way; it is overloaded and bound with red and green tape and will soon wrap us all and the whole country will be immobilised , if it isn’t there already.
For example, I would never start a small business in this country and paradoxically the safest place to be in the current scenario is within the monster itself.
KK 🙂
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Tasmania is the green and red tape basket case of socialist left stupidity that is rapidly infecting this nation.
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Well, when the Labor Government appointed the inaugural Departmental Secretary of the Climate Change Department (Martin Parkinson) to the position of Secretary of the Treasury, it should come as no surprise that frank and fearless advice was going to be the first casualty as party political dogma became the order of the day.
The second casualty was going to be the reliability and validity of Treasury’s modelling and forecasting.
The third casualty was trust. The Commonwealth Treasury has lost the trust of all professional public servants, the business community and thinking Australians.
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I read at Business Spectator that Swan is telling the EU member nations that they must spend more to stimulate their economies. That’s what wrecked their economies and he is on the way to wrecking ours. Liberation Day 14 September cannot arrive fast enough for me.
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Those who can do, those who just swan around preach!
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Dennis, it is the Federal Government and very wealthy but suddenly turned eco-socialist hypocritical nut job that have infected Tasmania with their social experiment and yes it has now escaped the “Tasmanain laboratory” and is infecting the nation. Remember the Franklin Dam that Bob Hawk stopped to catch a few green votes. Two years ago Wotif founder and Jan Cameron purchased the Triabunna woodchip mill and closed it down. Last year the Federal government stopped a fishing and sea based processing vessel from fishing our waters even though the quotas were not increased. This year our state parliament is trying to introduce legislation to reduce the timber industry by about 60% and the Feds are providing a financial carrot for the contraction of this renewable industry. Reverse all this centrally planned economic lunacy imposed upon Tasmania and we would be exporting more electricity, more timber products and more seafood. The economic multiplier effect of these industries are obvious, an effect which could assist Tasmania getting off the Federal Government drip.
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Seriously I don’t know how so many were fooled by this particular money scam for so long, as anyone with an ounce of self preservation would be able to question It’s legitimacy.
How simple is it to search PONZI, PYRAMID, or MATRIX ? and apply their tactics to Carbon Trading,
– It’s so simple that anyone can do it and you can get in at the start! (like the top of a PYRAMID)
– Pressure tactics, the fate of the planet is in your hands, think of the children and future generations, (ACT NOW)
– Testimonials, IPCC, NASA, ROYAL SOCIETY etc….. How can all these be wrong?
Sad thing is that many can see these political scams developing but are ignored because the scammers have already improvised various counter measures for those pesky truth seekers in forms of Propaganda, wealthy backers (suckers), activists, political sway.
If I could make a subject compulsory learning it would be “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” and continue from there.
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Good analogies Yonnie!
KK 🙂
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http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/photos/alarmists/hansen-eco-vandal.jpg
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repeating that australia is in “favor” of cap & trade???
(2 pages)17 April: Bloomberg Businessweek: Matthew Carr: Harvard Don Tells EU Kill Grants to Save Carbon: Energy Markets
The European Union should consider moving away from costly subsidies for renewable energy and carbon-efficient projects, which compete with the market in meeting nations’ emission- reduction targets, said Robert Stavins, the director of Harvard University’s Environmental Economics Program…
The cap-and-trade system, started in 2005, is the bloc’s main tool in meeting greenhouse gas-reduction targets, a model gaining favor from California to China and Australia(???).
“This would be a foolish time for the EU to back away from cap-and-trade because the rest of the world is starting to follow,” Stavins, who helped set up a market system to control acid rain in the U.S. 30 years ago, said in a phone interview yesterday. “The climate and energy directorates in Brussels need to work together going forward to ensure they’re interacting benignly instead of in perverse ways.”…
Australia will lower its expected revenue from selling carbon allowances after the EU, its partner in a cap-and-trade system set to start in 2015, failed to win support for its surplus fix, Climate Change Minister Greg Combet said today…
EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard, who proposed backloading as a stopgap measure, said the vote was “not the total end of everything” and she would continue to work on a more permanent fix.
“Many of those who don’t support backloading believe in the emissions-trading approach,” Dirk Forrister, president of the International Emissions Trading Association, a Geneva lobby group, said yesterday by e-mail. “Emissions trading continues to be the policy of choice for addressing climate change.” …
EON SE, Germany’s biggest utility, estimated in November that solar technologies were costing consumers at least 10 times more than prices suggested by the carbon market at the time, when permits were more than 6 euros a ton.
“The emissions trading system has sadly become marginalized, and we are concerned that it has lost its ability to prompt low-carbon investments,” according to Oeystein Loeseth, chief executive officer of Vattenfall AB, the biggest Nordic utility. “Against this backdrop, the EU needs to recalibrate,” he said in a statement yesterday…
EU carbon permits will fall to near zero as the bloc seeks to repair the market, said Patrick Hummel, an analyst in Zurich for UBS AG.
“There is no plan B in my view,” he said yesterday by e- mail. “Instead, we might see some national governments thinking about carbon taxation, but of course this debate is at the very beginning.” …
The EU vote shows policy makers shouldn’t start “a war” against their emitters while most of the rest of the world isn’t regulating greenhouse gases, said Matteo Mazzoni, an analyst at NE Nomisma Energia Srl in Bologna, Italy…
“Some people may object to the fact that the EU got out in front” in its bid to tackle climate change, said Harvard’s Stavins. “I’m not going to applaud and I’m not going to jeer.”
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-04-17/harvard-don-tells-eu-kill-grants-to-save-carbon-energy-markets
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All will be good, Swan will look for more savings in the budget to make up for the loss. Hang on, at what point do savings run out?
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Sorry, stupid question time… 🙂
MEP??? Member of Euro Parliament??
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You set a cap
you trade the permits
the price is what the price is according to simple market principles
So either Europe has too many permits available, too many loopholes, or there is simply no demand for the permits…. the latter is great. Personally I would be very happy with a working carbon trading system that had a low price.
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2c a tonne !
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No sense per tonne
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CCX shut down when there were no trades at 5c/t. UN CER’s are currently at 54c/t, after ‘surging’ 38%, so they seem overpriced to me.
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Wouldn’t it have to be somewhere around $10 just to pay the bureaucracy behind it.. before any actual income is derived?
Sort of like the NBN.. probably less than half goes to actually doing something.
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Well it should not really be about income. It should be about addressing rising CO2 levels.
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In your earlier comment you said…
You also add the following in this comment…
You just don’t get it do you Matt?
Do tell einstein, why would CO2 emitting enterprises worry about reducing emissions if all they had to do to conform to policy is purchase cheap CO2 credits?
To FORCE companies to reduce emissions (or send them out of business) one needs to have a high price on carbon because….
oh wait, I’ll make this really simple for you. You are after all a wannabe politician.
WOULD ANYBODY GIVE UP DRIVING CARS IF THERE WAS A ONE CENT TAX HIKE ON EVERY LITRE OF FUEL?
If you can answer that, you’ll understand why CO2 trading permits need to be high. certainly much much higher than a few bucks per tonne.
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“To FORCE companies to reduce emissions (or send them out of business) one needs to have a high price on carbon because”
NO NO NO!
To FORCE companies to reduce emissions you need to make them purchase rights to emit, and you limit the rights to emit to that which is the “appropriate” level. The market sets the price and businesses choose whether to emit or to abate (one assumes they choose the lower cost). The cost of a paermit may be high, it may be low.
As an example… if you had an economy that emitted 100 units and there were 90 permits available under a new regime, then a price would settle where 10 units were cheaper to abate than to but the rights to emit. But if for some economic or other reason (depression, tech change, who knows) in the future that economy only needed 80 units of emissions, then the cost of a permit would be very very low.
SO take Europe… skeptics have long pointed out that the EU fluked getting close to Kyoto targets because Russia’s industry pretty much shut down for a while there (or similar). It wasn;t the price on carbon, it was general structural change in the economy.
015
This guy knows his stuff: http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/business/a/-/national/16789389/goyder-says-global-carbon-pricing-needed/
But also Bah, in a global market for carbon I have absolutely no problem with the companies that make the most money from emitting GHGs from continuing to do so as long as they’ve got a permit. If they are all australian and australian emissions double or treble… that’s great! It is the global situation that matters.
018
Lastly Bah, indeed it appears that ALP got on the bandwagon for the $$$, but that is their problem. They set a fixed price and no apparent cap rather than set up a real ETS.
014
NO carbon price or ETS is needed Matt. Have you not been following the climate news? A carbon price would be a fraud on the population, which is what it is here.
The IPCC ensemble models still aren’t able to model the hiatus, which is increasingly becoming a dip. Not even monte carlo-ing as fast as often as they can can produce even one example. Their assumption of climate sensitivity is still ‘way too high because they don’t include the ocean cycles and the solar magnetic forcing. Which when included drop the inferred climate sensitivity to well below 1 C/doubling.
IPCC’s models aren’t working but mine is. I updated it recently for the 2012 data and was very pleasantly surprised. Good, don’t you think? Although the prediction is running a few years ahead, probably because the AMO is about a quarter phase behind the PDO. But aside from that the CET data has been following the path of the model dead on for the last 3 years. So far this year it also is on the money, the CET has been very cool in the first 3 months of the year.
Matt, empirical net climate sensitivity is low for whatever reason. Pretty much as Lindzen and Spencer found from the satellite IR data. Which means no amount of CO2 added by us can make much effect. In turn that means we should be paid to emit it, not pay a tax, because of the fertilizing effects it has on agriculture and de-desertification.
160
A small price on carbon is one of the most IRRATIONAL things anyone could possible suggest.
It would cost more to administer than it would bring in, and would absolutely ZERO EFFECT on anything exceppt to push up prices for those who can least afford it.
Shear IDIOCY !!!
60
That’s because you’re trying to recover costs and not deliver an outcome.
019
1. There is NO REASON to address rising CO2 levels, they are ONLY beneficial to the Earth’s bisphere.
2. NOTHING done in Australia or the EU will make one iota of difference to rising CO2 levels anyway!
3. Attempting to reduce CO2 emmissions in Australia will most probably lead to a small INCREASE in global CO2 as production and energy use moves to China and India, with the associated to and from transport.
ie ITS A FARCE !!
120
I think you have “Lost it” Matt, Carbon Dioxide trading CAN’T work because its a valueless good, simple as that.
Let’s put it this way, I can tell you how to create millions in offsets but make a PROFIT in the process, IE there is no cost to creating an offset (actually the cost is negative). If offsets make money, then why should any company pay for them?, much cheaper to just invest in profitable activities that generate credits as a byproduct. No Taxes required!
This in essence is the basis of the coalitions plan – carbon dioxide can be abated profitably, and that’s how it should be done, the so called no regrets policy.
Just one industry sector in Australia can collapse any carbon market – I could probably do it myself – I know how, and I’m not afraid to to it.
20
Where is the evidence that a tax reduces energy consumption Mattb. You seem to be still banging out your dogmatic messages on your electricity powered computer sending signals down circuit boards made of gold, silver, lithium, copper, and silica that are nicely encapsulated in a petroleum based polymer case. Your religious messages are sent to coal powered server farms distributing it to millions of electricity powered computers. As you spread your message you are probably wearing leather sole shoes made from methane producing cows who have grazed on man-made fertilised enhanced pastures where rain forests once stood. In the glow of your electricity powered LCD screen the colour of your leather shoes matches your nylon shirt and gortex jacket from Kathmandu. When you flush your bacterial infected feces is fed by gravity and perhaps electricity powered pumps to electric powered filtration systems that ensures you are not living in a disease ridden community and access to quality water. You probably ride to work in on your aluminium, steel and carbon fiber bike with rubber wheels harvested from the rain-forests of Malaysia and pressed out in China using slave labour in coal fired plants. If you are in Melbourne you sip that methane expensive milk latte in glass with a little serviette made from timber and electricity hungry pulp and paper mills. Then it’s off to the concrete, steel, glass office to sit under the glow of hundreds of florescent lights while you design logos or whatever it is you do on your aluminium and rare earth metal Mac sold to you by one of the biggest corporations in the world.
50
The perfect solution to a problem that doesn’t exist, climate changes.
40
No, its a NON-solution to a NON-problem.
80
Would such low price sufficiently sustain the Bankers to maintain their Trading System.
Where the cost of a Trading System exceeds the value of what’s being traded, what’s the point ?
I mean it ‘s not as if it’s even going to make an iota of difference to actual Global Temperatures, is it ?
60
You forgot the Mafia
Green Mafia: 500 Police Raid Deutsche Bank Over Carbon Fraud
30
One really good result from this crash in the CO2 price is that from that huge bucket of money comes a huge fund for Renewable Power.
That renewable power fund will now not be getting what was originally planned.
You may think that new renewable power plants will still go ahead, but watch as proposals thin almost to the point of being non existent.
Why?
Two things.
(1) Those renewable proposals get money from this fund at the construction phase, and that can be anything up to half the total cost, and (2) the electricity they sell to the grids is further subsidised as well, in other words, Government has agreed to pay them part of the cost of the per KWH price of the electricity they do generate.
Proposals virtually do not proceed without those two things in place.
The plant costs a huge amount of money to construct. Having a low Capacity Factor, and for wind that is around 30%, and Solar PV around half of that, and a short life span, 25 years at best, that cost + ongoing costs all totalled up then has to be recovered in the sale of the electricity to the grids, worked out as the unit cost per KWH for the power they do generate.
If there is that (half) subsidy at the front end, then less has to be recovered hence lowering the KWH unit cost. Even so, that cost is still too high, so Governments give them part of that KWH unit cost, now meaning that the electricity cost is (well, sort of anyway) somewhat competitive when it comes to comparison with other traditional sources of power which generate huge amounts of power and have double the life to recover those costs from, hence their lower per KWH cost.
Even so, renewable power KWH cost is still far higher, so Governments also legislate that grids MUST purchase that renewable power.
Renewable power proposals just do not proceed until all those things are set in stone up front before the construction even begins.
Now that this source of money for their fund has crashed, watch as proposals for new renewable plants dry up. almost to the point of vanishing.
Do you get a glimmer of an idea now. Without all those things, renewable power just could not compete. Without all that access to the subsidies, no bean counter in his right mind would suggest to any entrepreneur that he sink his money into a renewable plant.
If they actually COULD compete, then these plants would be rolling off the drawing board quicker than you could keep up with them.
The only license to print money for renewable power is the access to government subsidies enshrined in the original proposal.
Now that source is drying up, any new renewable power proposals will also dry up.
Hmm! I also wonder if the UN slice of that CO2 Tax will also dry up, as that introduction of the CO2 Tax, (part of the original Kyoto Protocol) ensured that part was sent off to the UN.
Tony.
230
Hi Tony,
is there however a danger that the renewable monster will simply start eating funding taken from other sources?
80
Yes, of course
Reality has got it wrong
It must be dismissed and a new Reality appointed immediately 🙂
50
I have to suspect some effort to prop things up. But I don’t know the Australian political landscape like you Aussies know it. How hard will they push to keep things going by begging, borrowing or stealing money to prop up renewable energy?
30
This is good and bad Tony, in essence I like the concept of fault tolerant microgeneration, though our networks are not designed for it – Unfortunately, Solar wind, and fuel cells have a part to play in that market.
Rooftop solar is a particularly good example, at current rates of energy price rise, solar is fast becoming viable as a primary energy source (on a micro generation basis) providing it has storage capacity. That is, microgeneration has value for consumers that want to go off-grid to insulate themselves from the ever increasing cost of centrally generated electricity. They can buy the energy embodied in the Solar Panels at today’s prices, and the generating cost doesn’t increase for the life of the cells. The folly is doing it for ecological rather than economic reasons.
In my view, its specifically un-backed grid-connect solar that’s dumb.
There is nothing inherently bad about Solar, just that it’s a totally inappropriate technology for central generation, because of the ridiculously low (Baseload equivalent) energy density of around 5-10W per square meter.
20
I’m pretty sure that the Big Money Boys will have already stashed away another pile from this scam. Thatcher would hve bee proud of them.
27
i thought this scam was going to generate a lot of money – i want my share!!!
21
What I’ve never been abe to understand is how anybody could think a Carbon Market could possibly work, Markets work on scarcity, but the Carbon Market has to work in a totally opposite way, which was always destined to fail, obviously just another failed religious belief system, what fools they are.
90
Chris,
People who make their living out of producing tangible goods and services, or distributing goods, or selling them, or servicing them, understand market economics, and the law of supply and demand, because they live it every day.
Bureaucrats study Economics 101 at university, where they will learn all about Keynesian economics (but nothing about Haydek), and so they believe that you can use incentives to increase demand, thus encouraging an increase the supply, and they give no thought to the real-world utility of what they are promoting.
It may be business, Jim, but not as we know it.
110
They got the money out Chris so they aren’t that stupid.
Taxpayers -1 Billion ZCU
Treasury -1 Billion ZCU
Scumbags +2 Billion ZCU Needy CC academics and Trade Union Executives for later use in re-election
funding of original donor.
Where ZCU is the Zimbabwean Currency Unit equivalent to USD $1.00
KK 🙂
40
Quite simply, the feral government should now resign with due haste. It has proven itself to be incapable of managing the Australian economy for the benefit of its citizens.
There are no ‘ifs’ or ‘buts’ in this … they have taken the economy to an untenable place.
80
Just because it contains the worst PM ever, the worst Treasurer, the (ex) worst Attorney General, the worst Communications Minister, Peter Slipper and Craig Thomson you think they are no good and should go.
You are obviously a misogynist!
Is sarc/ necessary?
50
The entire thing is a classic example of how this issue has been distorted and exaggerated by those supporting it as well as demonstrating the poor grasp of facts and science by the same.
I keep hearing people talking about carbon. Carbon footprint, carbon sequestration, carbon this, carbon that when what they mean is carbon dioxide. These are two entirely different things, carbon is an element while carbon dioxide is a compound that contains said element. Basic chemistry but apparently beyond those who are supporting this sort of nonsense.
Of course carbon dioxide doesn’t conjure up sooty black imagery like referring to the element. But it does make one wonder, what about the manufacture of carbon fiber materials as used in aircraft, bicycles, etc? Should we stop manufacturing and using anything containing carbon? We contain carbon, if the attack is on carbon rather than the compound CO2 it makes one wonder how long it will be before the human race itself is their target. If we aren’t already.
160
Check the Fabian Society original objectives, the elimination of human beings who were considered to be a drain on society, a cost with no reason for being alive, according to the socialists.
70
I’ve got a little list……
10
The Coalition and economic commentators will be closely scrutinising the forward estimates to be delivered with the budget next Month. We are already expecting a deficit of at least $20bn for the 2012/13 financial year which Gillard and Swan had said would be a surplus of $2.5bn less than 12 months ago – “no ifs, no buts, it will be delivered on time, as promised”, they said.
When they did the mid year review in September the Labor Government were still desperate to cling to a surplus so they made some adjustments, brought forward some $8bn of company tax payments and took money from inactive bank accounts and anywhere else they could find it. Our treasurer Wayne Swan then beamed delightedly and promised a very tight $1.1bn budget surplus.
But by Christmas the smile had gone and what had already been obvious to everyone else in the country, became inescapable for Wayne Swan and he admitted there would be no surplus this year “because of a significant decline in Government Revenues”. What he really meant is that while revenues are still at record highs, they are not at the levels he stupidly thought they would grow at.
Since Christmas our treasurer Wayne Swan and our Finance Minister Penny Wang have refused to give an indication as to what the budget deficit may be. In March the budget cash shortfall was running at $26.3bn. So unless something miraculous happens we can expect a minimum $20bn deficit for 2012/13 and quite possibly much more.
There has been little done to cut Government expenditure, and no reason to expect significant rises in Government revenue for 2013/14, but there will be added costs of new promises such as the Gonski Education package and the NDIS health services package. So an Herculean effort will be required to find cuts in expenditure, or new revenues sources to cover the $20bn – $30bn in excess expenditure this year plus at least $15bn in new promised expenditure next year.
But then 2014/15 and beyond gets even more interesting because Australia will join the EU carbon trading scheme. The market forecast for the European carbon price for July, 2015 is $3.46 a tonne, meaning just $800 million would be raised, leaving a revenue shortfall of almost $6 billion. So for the 2015/16 financial year there will be at least another $6bn to find added to the already built in structural budget deficit of at least $20bn – $30bn plus $15bn in new expenditure promises. Taking the halfway figure of $25bn in structural deficit, then that means in today’s dollars, the Government has to find an extra $40bn more just to break even in 2013/14, and 2014/15, rising to $46bn from 2015/16.
So what we will effectively be looking for is how Labor, who have delivered record deficits since being in office, but who had promised strenuously a surplus this year, will now be trying to deal with massive structural deficits with no realistic outlook for increased government revenues from royalties. The only way to make up the shortfall is to introduce significant new taxes, and/or significant cuts in Government expenditure. A Labor Government has never been able to do the latter, so expect a raft of new taxes to be announced in May’s budget, or the most creative bookkeeping and economic forecasts Wayne Swan has ever produced if he is to avoid a backlash from new taxes! After all, his budget forecasts have never gotten within a bulls roar of the actual outcome anyway!
130
Well they did say they would deliver a surplus about 200 times. Emphatically. So I think appropriate penance would be to paint, in red, “I must deliver a budget surplus” 200 times all over Parliament House in Canberra.
Like this.
90
Oh Bruce,
Classic.
I can just see the two Centurions, umm, Waynee Poo and Craig Emerson as the supervisors with Joe doing the painting.
Oh, nyuk nyuk nyuk.
He’s just a very naughty boy!
Tony.
90
But gees, don’t let Garrett loose with a paint brush !!
50
Contrary to Green Union Labor spin there was no mining boom when the Coalition inherited $96 Billion of debt from Labor in 1996, they took over an economy struggling to recover from the worst recession for 60 years circa 1990, recovery was under way but no mining boom revenue until 2002.
Since 2007 revenue has been at all times much higher than at any time earlier yet the socialists have spent the $22 Billion surplus the Coalition handed over, taken earnings from the $60 Billion Future Fund the Coalition established and from zero debt (Coalition repaid $176 Billion including interest by 2006) they will have created a $300 Billion debt plus hidden off budget NBN Co debt. And they had racked up $174 Billion from 2008 to 2012 and will add more this financial year.
One in every eight Australians now lives in poverty while this government wastes borrowed monies and all the revenue coming in and runs the budget into deficit.
Worst ever federal government.
120
Racked up $174 Billion of cumulative budget deficits as at 30/06/2012
40
I for one think this not a good analysis. A range of commentary suggests the Howard Govt was significantly at fault. And it was spend or sink in the GFC.
018
Matt it was not a case of spend or sink for the Australian government in the GFC. The RBA’s quick action, a large and rapid fall in the currency and a rapid recovery of Exports to China were the reasons Australia sailed through the GFC relative to other developed nations – not Wayne Swan, $900 cash handouts and a further bloating of an already bloated Federal bureaucracy.
Australian cash rates were the order of 400+ basis points higher than Europe and US at the onset of the GFC in October 2008. These rates were high in turn due to the much stronger state of the Australian economy relative to other G20 nations. Plus as you may know, Australians have very high household debt levels linked to our real estate prices and a preference to own rather than rent their homes. This means the economy is even more sensitive to interest rate changes. So our Reserve Bank had far more ammunition than the EU or US Fed and that together with China would have done the job. The interest saved on the average Mortgage alone amounted to nearly a $900 cash handout every month!
Yes there is a range of commentary suggesting our government played a bigger role (lead by the Economist), but that is no surprise knowing which way journalists usually lean – especially European ones and those who write for Fairfax.
Further, since 2007 Australian Federal government tax receipts have grown by about 50%. Yet somehow our government managed to grow expenditure by more than this!! Any company Director who presided over such a state of affairs would be looking for a new job.
Jaymez’s analysis is correct.
90
“Significantly at fault”. Please explain and quantify Matt, otherwise it’s just a slur. “Range of commentary”, yeah, know where you’re going there with that one. Politics is about perception isn’t it and there is nobody as expert at creating false perception as your lot are my friend. As for the GFC, I can’t say for sure but I’m deeply suspicious that the decadent philosophical excesses of leftist politicians played more than their fair share of a part in that debacle. I would love to see an honest and robust dissection of what started the GFC. For example, putting a price on and making a commodity of CO2 (plant food) is truly Machiavellian. You’d only do that if you were completely confident that you controlled both the message and the messenger no?. I just don’t understand why anyone would want to do that, it’s almost a pathological anti humanist affliction.
50
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/australias-most-wasteful-spending-came-in-howard-era-finds-imf-20130110-2cj38.html
05
look that is not to point fingers, but essentially whether ALP or Lib the govts of recent decades read from the same hymnbooks when it came to economic fundamentals. The rhetoric of one Vs the other is just for the posturing. If you are bagging me out and lapping Dennis up then you have to have a good hard look at yourselves.
06
.
MattyB
Are you running for the Greens & Ms Milne?
20
You know what Matt,
If I have money in the bank (That the government doesn’t get first – See Cyprus, and Federal Government’s attempt to raid My Superannuation Bank Account) then I can afford a few luxuries, like the odd environmental or “Future” fund, or perhaps even to take a holiday… However if the cupboard is bare and the kids are starving, and I’m borrowing just to meet the grocery bills, is that the time to buy the new 80″ Plasma?
Me thinks not … Hence the difference between Howard and Gillard, Howard had money to spend, Gillard does NOT!
So I care not whether Howard wasted money ten years ago, that does not give Gillard the right to spend my money (and my children’s in interest payments) wastefully, especially now.
PS.. How much of Swannies $900 dollar cheque landed in the pockets of the local drug dealer?
30
DOH !! Howard saved up money, with repeated surpluses.. He then had the money there to spend.
Despite the extra spending in the latter part of his government, he STILL was running increasing surpluses.
That is what RESPONSIBLE people do, they save up so they can buys stuff later.
Gillard and Swan ahve spent, spent spent, without the funds there to cover the spending, and NOTHING really to show for it.
Totally IRRESPONSIBLE !!
40
Dave – not as far as I’m aware. It would be unusual for someone who is not a Greens member to be running for the Greens, especially if he had no knowledge of it.
03
Perhaps spending in a GFC has merit, but on pink bats? On school canteens and BBQ areas?, Increasing middle class welfare? Here is an idea how about making GFC stimulating spending in roads, rail, ports and dams – things to enhance our domestic productivity, help slow cost increases and increase cost competitive exports in agriculture, mining , forestry and manufacturing.
40
Spot on Maverick. With the GFC Labor had a rolled gold opportunity to fix Australia’s huge infrastructure deficit and they blew it.
20
The Euro may well be dead by 2015.
A mere slip of the tongue by Germany’s Reserve Bank Chief suggesting that the ECB should reduce interest rates further (down from 0.75%) resulted in the Euro falling a couple of percent on the market within a couple of hours.
The Cyprus situation has sensitised the world to the dire state of the “Experiment” (Youtube video of UKIP MEP Fagare).
Banks throughout the Eurozone are having trouble in persuading savers that their savings are safe in the bank… which they aren’t. Germany’s Chancelloress Angela Merkel said a week ago that savings are “protected”; they were previously guaranteed. Nobody is standing behind Germany’s banks. Nor any other banks in the Eurozone. All deposits are at risk. The advice given to those who have money to make deposits, is to carefully vet the bank to make sure that it’s capable and willing to give the money back in full, when required.
The bail-outs being provided via the ECB are in direct contravention to the Maastricht Treaty. It appears that the EU can do as it pleases; waive all inconvenient rules and impose arbitrary directives on member states; aided by the corrupt governments of those states.
ECB Bank chief Draghi has allegedly had meetings with France’s Champagne Socialist government and given them the go-ahead to print as many Euros as they want; underwritten by the ECB via STEP (not even fiat currency but fake money).
When ABN-AMRO cocked up a public announcement about customers’ gold deposits no longer being available for withdrawal as gold, it produced the expected result; a loss of confidence in gold holdings. It turns out that ABN-AMRO, having been taken over by Deutsche Bank(*) some time ago, had previously divested its gold depository to a Dutch sub-contractor which also provided ABN-AMRO with “transparent” customer accounts so that gold depositors at ABN-AMRO automatically had accounts at that gold depository. What changed was that the subcontractor was changed to UBS (Union Bank of Switzerland) which doesn’t offer transparent accounts so those wishing to make withdrawals of gold deposits “from” ABN-AMRO need to open an account at UBS so that they can withdraw the amount credited to them by ABN-AMRO.
(*) BTW: Deutsche Bank has a risk exposure to derivatives in the trillions of Euros.
(OOPS… premature posting)
70
I would say the confiscation of deposits in Cyprus has pretty much ended the Euro as a viable currency. The smart capital should already be in flight. This would be particularly so where it is most needed such as in Greece, Italy, and Spain. If I lived in Spain, I would be tempted to withdraw my money from my account at the bank in large notes and simply place it in the safe deposit box. They would have to physically open my security box to steal my money.
Why should anyone tolerate negative rates of interest our outright confiscation? If you can’t flee the country, at least you can flee your deposit account.
70
The alternative for the governemnt, in order to meet the revenue target, is to issue more CO2 allowances. If they allow 7 times as much CO2 to be emitted, then they can meet their budget objective. 😉
70
If they could plant a forest of money trees all would be repaired thereafter, a socialist dream, more money to spend on crazy ideas.
30
Why plant trees when you can simply run the printing presses….
(not advocating this – just expecting it)
30
You need the trees to make the paper to print the money that’s not worth ….
40
Actually, aren’t Australian currency notes now plastic..
derive from petrochemicals, of course.
40
I was waiting for somebody to point that out.
You can’t burn them, you know? But they do melt.
40
“but they do melt.”
hmmm.. I have zero intention of trying to find out, at least until my cheque from “big oil” turns up.
30
The notes also make good shrinkies, I heated and shrank a one dollar note once to about a third its size. I took it to the bank and asked for a new one, but they refused.
10
The problem that the Fabian/Common Purpose acolytes** have is that to hide their aim of creating a new form of Communist Society, they have hidden their plans by using the corporations to collect the new taxes and to impose the new totalitarian control.
Thus the CO2 scare was designed to justify the CO2 taxes. Then some clever clogs decided to create carbon credits so companies could continue to emit CO2; after all you couldn’t shut down all the factories at once. These were then bought and sold and in Europe became controlled by the Mafia. Politicians also allowed more credits to be produced to get voted in and the price is falling.
Because the price is falling, the aim of funding the EU bureaucracy by the income stream has failed and the Communist Monster is dying. Also, major fossil fuel companies, e.g. Shell which had planned to earn twice as much from carbon trading as from selling fuels, have come unstuck. David Hone, currently in charge of this having inherited it from James Smith, presently running the UK Carbon Trust, is Australian.
Also involved are major banks, e.g. Deutsche. This has so many debts that it is dependent on carbon trading to survive. It owns major politicians. In the US, the same plan was used. The aim was to replace the $US with the Amero. However, Cap and trade failed and the Chicago Carbon Exchange failed. Plan B has been to use the EPA to force Communism on the American people but they have responded by creating shale gas and more oil than you can imagine.
The end game is nigh. Only the UK and Australia have high carbon taxes. Industry is hemorrhaging, so are real jobs. The UK government is stoking a new housing bubble to keep the Ponzi scheme alive.
**Probably Cameron, Blair, Obama, Rudd, Gillard, Brown, Prescott.
60
Our company works for animal by product rendering businesses most of which are integrated with abattoirs. Most of these emit well over 75,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalents each year.
The threshold for permits is 25,000 tonnes/year. Thus some of these plants, which export much of their tallow and bone meal produced to China, are getting hit with an added energy cost of AUD23/tonne and that for a product that needs to be competitively priced.
That impost is having a significant effect on Australian companies that work for those businesses. This has led to a loss of Aussie jobs. One smaller renderer we work for has reduced their working days to get below the annual emission of 25,000 tonnes of CO2.
Idiots like Combet and Gillard, who claim they are for the worker, both need a good, swift kick up the backside.
Here is the relevant info from the Clean Energy Regulator.
http://www.cleanenergyregulator.gov.au/Carbon-Pricing-Mechanism/Fact-sheets-FAQs-and-guidelines/Guidelines/Documents/Guide%20to%20Carbon%20Price%20Liability.pdf
Liable entities must report under the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Scheme (NGER Scheme) on
the extent of their emissions and satisfy their liability for each tonne of CO2-e they emit, either by surrendering
emissions units or paying a unit shortfall charge.
The carbon pricing mechanism commences on 1 July 2012. In the first three years, the carbon price will be
fixed (fixed price period). From 1 July 2015, the price will be set by the market (flexible price period).
•
In the 2012–13 financial year, the carbon price is $23 per tonne. The carbon price will be $24.15 per tonne in
2013–14 and $25.40 per tonne in 2014–15.
•
From 1 July 2015 onwards, carbon units will be auctioned by the Clean Energy Regulator. The price will be
set by the market and the number of units issued by the government each year will be capped by a pollution
cap set by the Clean Energy Regulations
80
So Maggie was right then?
60
She was right most of the time….
20
of course she was
02
[…] think he's right. The knock-on effects are going to be cataclysmic – in places like Australia, for example, which had been relying on the rigged EU carbon trading market to prop up Julia Gillard's carbon […]
00
The key phrase in Jo’s reply is “The Carbon Market is not dead yet, ” … no BUT required, because as long as it’s not dead, it doesn’t deserve “game-changer status.”
Modern Socialistic governments have plenty of time to concoct 100s of different scams to prop it up. Wake me up when it’s gone….then I’ll be impressed.
10
The price says that gold is unfashionable but lots of people are buying it. I read in foreign press that Perth Mint’s sales of gold coins have double in recent weeks. That Swiss banks are having trouble securing gold (and other precious metals) for customers who want to buy it.
Why the falling price? Is it to encourage panic sales? Investors aren’t being fooled.
The flight is away from cash. Especially large bank balances.
40
I have a friend who trades in very expensive curios.
This year the entire stock sold out.
Money is definitely heading out of cash into solid objects.
40
I am sure by now everyone is aware of the “Cyprus Haircut” but I doubt very many people are aware of some of the other skulduggery governments are up to in their endless quest of new ways to raid our pockets.
California:
“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” ― Margaret Thatcher
Governments are running out of other people’s money so they are looking for creative way to fleece the Sheeple. Obama’s latest plan to raise tax revenue is targeting IRA Retirement Accounts. An idea that has been floating around for a couple of years including complete confiscation and replacement by an annuity that disappears at death and therefore can not be transfered to your heirs.
80
The whole thing is already old news to those of us who pay attention. But surely this doesn’t surprise you, does it?
Now we can leave socialism out of this because governments at all levels for almost as long as there have been governments have been only too willing to “protect” the poor citizen by taking charge of his property and when there’s even half an excuse, confiscating it. Socialism has nothing to do with this phenomenon at all.
I will bet that if all the laws were changed such that the unclaimed property had to be distributed to charity the whole thing would cease to be a problem at all — at least as far as government is concerned.
On the other hand, the major charities would then all line up to insure the gravy train continues to fill their coffers.
When the people pay attention they get what they deserve. And when they don’t pay attention they also get what they deserve.
It would go a long way if the responsibility of those who hold any property under any trust or fiduciary duty, like banks, had a clear legal obligation to actually keep straight records and maintain contact with customers, even at the expense of going searching for them. As the article said, it ain’t that hard if you want to find someone. But nowhere in the chain does anyone really want to be bothered.
These are the people to whom you entrust your hard-earned money and the responsibility to govern. And it’s going exactly the way we’re giving it an incentive to go. If it’s ever to change it will need the people changing the way they think, changing what they demand of people they put in a position of trust, before it will get better.
Similar reasoning applies to the fear of terrorism. It’s easier to pass money laundering laws that provide little real protection than it is to spend the money and the time to chase down and wipe out the bastards once and for all. I don’t care who they are, simple crackpot, homegrown or otherwise. People die who shouldn’t die when we play these damned games.
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PS:
Are you surprised at Obama?
Vote no on anyone with an interest in greater government power.
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You are correct it is not only ‘Socialism’ it is any government where power is moved into the control of a handful of people. For those who still think governments will ‘Take Care of You’
DEATH BY GOVERNMENT By Dr. R.J. Rummel.
Democide, the killing of citizens by their own government murdered 169,202,000 people in the 20th century.
So thank you Jo for foster freedom.
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gai, since when has government been about anything other than holding a gun to somebody’s head and demanding something or other, property, life, etc?
Even the parts that most people define as “good” are mostly fraud. Numerous rules are promulgated (with severe penalties for disobedience) with the promise that if we follow them we’ll be “safe”. Sheer nonsense of course. As you point out in your later post, governments are very good at killing people. That’s about all they are good at.
30
Naturally it would never occur to them to stop spending what they don’t have.
30
Yes but once they convince themselves that they have a right to what belongs to someone else there’s no need to think any further. What they want to do is already justified.
Barack and Michelle Obama are just two angry black racists with a clenched fist upraised at the world of successful people around them who they believe have cheated them and stolen from them and from all those “down-trodden” with whom they identify. Their presidency is not taken seriously. It’s just one long gotcha party at the expense of hard working Americans. They’re getting even with the world. To hell with anything but what they want. And they’re getting away with it.
This is all the substance these two have. And I defy anyone to show me a different picture of them that is credible and believable.
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In case this has not been linked; Monckton :-
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/nights/audio/2552466/calm-on-climate
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Unfortunately, death comes very hard to this nonsense.
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The Fall of Australia — Coming Catastrophes in the Australian Economy
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It would be nice to have a transcription for those of us with old computers that do not support video or hearing problems.
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The link is sound only: no video.
00
That would be covered by the “those of us with hearing problems” portion of the comment.
10
can you believe this????
Clumsy voting clouds EU Parliament CO2 backloading ballot
LONDON, April 18 (Reuters Point Carbon) – A second vote by EU Parliament on the future of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) could be even tighter than the first after lawmakers admitted they accidentally voted the wrong way in Tuesday’s ballot, which rejected an emergency plan to prop up carbon prices…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2303665
am sure, like me, you are calling BS.
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My post at 11:11am yesterday:
Reality has got it wrong
It must be dismissed and a new Reality appointed immediately 🙂
I wasn’t being sarcastic, simply sardonic
If these people can nonchalantly employ armed thuggery on life savings (Cyprus), strong-arming a changed re-vote is just Play School
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in typical EU fashion, if u lose a vote, u just pretend it didn’t happen, and carry on with your agenda!!!
TABLE- Estonia backs ETS fix, Spain says undecided
LONDON, April 18 (Reuters Point Carbon) – Estonia became the sixteenth EU nation to support an EU Commission plan to prop up carbon prices by cutting supply on Thursday, while Spain said it has not yet decided…
The plan requires 255 votes in favour to gain approval in the European Council of Ministers.
Spain joins Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, and a handful of other governments that remain undecided over the proposal.
Below is a table of the 27 member states, their publicly-stated positions on backloading and how many Council votes they control…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/reutersnews/1.2303645?&ref=searchlist
Spain yet to decide on backloading: official
LONDON, April 18 (Reuters Point Carbon) – Spain is yet to decide whether it supports a plan to rescue the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) by cutting supply, an official said Thursday, five months after the nation’s climate minister told reporters it would back the measure…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2303640?&ref=searchlist
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reminder the proposal did fail:
Pressure builds for Britain to drop CO2 tax after EU price collapse
LONDON, April 18 (Reuters Point Carbon) – Britain has been urged to scrap its carbon floor tax after the failure of an EU proposal to prop up carbon prices could leave British power companies having to pay 10 times more than European competitors for each tonne of carbon dioxide they emit – a move that will also distort energy prices across the EU…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2303546?&ref=searchlist
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18 April: Reuters: German prosecutors search EnBW offices over two cases
German utility Energie Baden-Wuerttemberg (EnBW) said state prosecutors and tax fraud investigators from Mannheim searched the company’s offices on Thursday.
“The search is related on the one hand to ongoing investigations regarding Russian business dealings back in the years 2001 to 2008. The other in connected to the so-called sales tax carousel as part of the international trade of carbon dioxide certificates,” the company said in a brief statement.
The carousel trade, already subject to court cases in the past, involved a ring of European traders. They had imported carbon emissions permits in one country without paying value-added tax and then sold them to each other, adding tax to the price and pocketing the difference…
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/18/enbw-investigation-idUSL5N0D53VU20130418
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Crikey!
If this Global Government Gravy Train gets derailed the shineybum fatcat NWO types at the UN will have to come up with another pressing disaster for mankind that “only they can protect us from”.
Any bets there will be an up up-swing in the dramatic reporting of scare on epidemics like “H5N1” & Swine Flu?
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confused?
18 April: Deutsche Welle: Is Climate Change taking a break?
“Over the last decade there has been very little new warming,” says Ed Hawkins from the University of Reading in the United Kingdom. The development is not unexpected, he told DW: “We are confident that human emissions of greenhouse gases have caused a large component of the warming over the last 150 years, but at the same time we do not expect every year to be warmer than the last. There are reasons why temperatures may remain flat for a decade and continue to warm later on.” Hawkins cites periods in the 1960s and 1970s when temperatures were actually cooling…
Another possible reason Hawkins mentions is the increased burning of coal in countries like China and India. The particulates produced help reflect solar radiation back into space, and so cool the planet. He stresses it is not yet possible to say whether the current slow-down in temperature rise is being caused by natural variability or is human-induced…
Peter Lemke is head of Climate Science at Germany’s Alfred-Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine studies (AWI). He warns against taking a short five-year average as an indicator of how the climate is developing:
“When it comes to climate processes, we always look at 30 year periods”, he told DW. “And for the last 30 years there is a clear upward trend.” Using a shorter time span means that one single year can distort the picture…
But certainty that global warming is happening does not mean certainty over its effect, says Lemke: “The question is: how sensitive is our climate system to the rise in the CO2 concentration? And what will it mean in terms of precipitation, temperature rise or ice melt? That is a complicated issue.”…
Climate warming = colder winters?
The long winter and cold spring which might give people in western Europe the impression the earth is cooling rather than warming have been caused by a stable area of high pressure over Scandinavia – a weather phenomenon rather than climate change. AWI climate chief Lemke stresses that seen from a global point of view, the winter was warmer than usual…
http://www.dw.de/is-climate-change-taking-a-break/a-16740391
previous story below the above article:
“It’s getting warmer faster than ever before”
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bbc world service radio last nite had ten-minute piece on IMF/Christine Lagarde calling for “green development” to save the world economy. bbc promo-ed this before the programme began & repeatedly highlighted it in the actual piece (listen to first ten minutes). bbc presenter says highly unusual for IMF to bring up “green development” and also says we know from Deutsche Bank that green businesses are very job intensive…
AUDIO: 18 April: BBC: IMF’s Christine Lagarde’s view of the global economy
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0172763
18 April: IMF: Move From ‘Three-speed’ To ‘Full-speed’ Global Recovery, Urges Lagarde
“What we need is a full-speed global recovery—one that works with growth that is solid, sustainable, and balanced but also inclusive and very much rooted in green development,” Lagarde told a news conference at the start of the Spring Meetings in Washington, which involve economic policymakers from the IMF’s 188 member countries, government officials, civil society organizations, journalists, and invited participants from the academic and private sectors…
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/survey/so/2013/NEW041813A.htm
will blow bbc’s claim this is unusual for IMF in a separate comment.
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meant to say i would blow bbc’s claim apart…
Runnalls says IMF an “unlikely source” for “Climate Change” talk in February this year!
1 Feb 2013: Globe & Mail, Canada: DAVID RUNNALLS: ‘Roasted, toasted, fried and grilled’: climate-change talk from an unlikely source
But the most startling statements came from the heads of those bastions of economic orthodoxy: the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the IMF and a former finance minister in the conservative government of Nicolas Sarkozy, pointed to critical pivot points for the economic future.
Her final pivot: “Increasing vulnerability from resource scarcity and climate change, with the potential for major social and economic disruption: This is the real wild card in the pack.” She went on to call climate change “the greatest economic challenge of the 21st century.” This from the head of the IMF…
Ms. Lagarde concluded with a call for a new kind of economic growth. “So we need growth, but we also need green growth that respects environmental sustainability. Good ecology is good economics. This is one reason why getting carbon pricing right and removing fossil fuel subsidies are so important.”
In response to a question from the audience, she said: “Unless we take action on climate change, future generations will be roasted, toasted, fried and grilled.”…
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/roasted-toasted-fried-and-grilled-climate-change-talk-from-an-unlikely-source/article8077946/
EU Business reports IMF’s Lagarde links “green development” to saving the economy in June 2012!
12 June 2012: EU Business: IMF ties environment to restoring European growth
IMF chief Christine Lagarde tied saving the environment to restoring growth in Europe, saying Tuesday that green development cannot get going while advanced countries are stuck in crisis.
Speaking ahead of the June 20-22 UN Conference on Sustainable Development, the Rio+20 Summit, Lagarde said that environmentally friendly growth cannot be disconnected from restoring fiscal health and growth in the advanced countries.
“Today, I believe that we are facing a triple crisis — an economic crisis, an environmental crisis, and, increasing, a social crisis,” she said in an address at the Center for Global Development in Washington…
The IMF managing director conceded that economic growth “can potentially harm the environment and that environmental degradation can in turn hurt economic performance. We need to get the green economy right.”
A key then is fostering policies that are “good for stability and good for growth,” including properly pricing the costs of pollution and other destructive activities.
Getting such prices right is “the best and most comprehensive route to reducing environmental damage.”
http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/environment-un-imf.h3m/
no doubt there are more examples to be found. shame on you, bbc.
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….we know from Deutsche Bank that green businesses are very job intensive…
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Of Course they are job intensive. If you use two hundred
slavesunion workers with shovels to build a road you can replace one diesel eating bulldozer. After all Aza Sheldon took 65 feet off Pemberton Hill starting in May of 1835,and used the dirt to fill in Boston’s Backbay. He used 199 immigrant Irish to man the shovels, 60 Yankees drovers and twenty-six oxen to do the job for twenty-eight cents an acre and did it in five months. link and linkOf course the Greenies won’t allow you to use the oxen today…. link
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So is people smuggling … illegals arriving on Australian shores are now coming in fishing boats sponsored by Deutsche Bank.
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More pure Delingpole on Carbon trading…
I may be an American but I love Delingpole’s wit.
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Vigilance ! They may still try to resurrect its stiff carcass like in Monty Python’s Dead Parrot sketch !
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Dellingpole = twat
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You didn’t tell him that to his face, did you?
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I think that there is a far better solution for those who think that “carbon” is such a poison for our environment.
Those who think this should ALL immediately remove themselves from the electricity grid, stop driving cars, catching trains and flying on “green” junkets, stop consuming anything in any way related to petrochemicals, stop consuming anything that in any way relies on ANY of the above…. and most of all, to enjoy the life they have made and chosen for themselves.
Oh!…. and by doing so to stop being such hypocrites!
This will remove far more carbon from the environment than any silly carbon pricing ever will and none of these people would have anything to complain about regarding their choice, since that is what they believe in. They can feel proud that they have “saved the planet”!!!!
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Wow – yeah – that’s like the most stupid comment I’ve ever heard.
How about you go burn your house down and celebrate the CO2 you’ll emit.
Here’s an idea, how about rather than remove myself from the grid, stop driving, etc etc, I just live in a society where the total emissions are capped, a rational economic structure is in place to reduce costs, and we all get on with our lives as normal.
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Mattb,
I’ve been watching your pretty inane comments now, both here and at the last Thread about (what you think it is) Cap and Trade, or an ETS.
I give up. It’s pretty obvious you know very little other than what your Green Masters tell you. For years now, I have explained it in fine detail.
Now I know full well that you never read these, as it goes against what your Green puppet masters tell you as they waggle your strings, so why read them in the first place. That would be dangerous, as you might actually learn something. I also know your distinct aversion to take any links we offer you to read, as again, they go against what you believe, in that hypnotic trance state you are in.
Therefore I won’t go over any of it again, because there’s no use, other than to add that any Cap and Trade of itself cannot ever lower emissions. It’s an artifice to make money from this, and that money, all of it comes from me and you in the form of a Tax, if you will, a consumption tax.
Oh, and Matt, where you say here:
Any ETS or Cap and Trade is specifically designed to RAISE costs. That is the intent, to send a signal to use less.
Huh! As if that will ever happen.
It CANNOT lower emissions.
Tony.
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“any Cap and Trade of itself cannot ever lower emissions”
This is, indeed, a fundamental difference of opinion. I know it is an appeal to authority but I’m comfortable having pretty much the entire economic community on my side of this argument.
011
Crippling the economy may lower emissions locally, all other things being equal, but it will only shift them to other areas of the globe without the same constraints.
Even North Korea could use the opportunity.
Crippling the economies Globally, making a level but barren playing field, won’t change the macroclimate though to any measurable or significant degree.
Now can we stop the bickering please, before this site begins to resemble a warmist’s armpit and the serious commenters become notable by their increasingly rare appearances ?
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This is the trouble though Joe. If europe’s cap was set too low then emissions flee to China. If too high then the cost of permits plummets as there is no competition there are plenty to go round. (that’s the case now).
If some investors had the price racked up on speculation that the EU would cut emissions then bully for them, but every stock market has your speculative traders. What’s the alternative a fixed price? Not so efficient.
I don;t blame the EU for having excess permits and thus a low price, but I think they (and Australia) are doing the smart thing in having market based systems in place for such a time as a global system is in place.
08
Well, smart in the smarting sense maybe.
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Tony, I am sure Matt receives a very nice salary for supporting CAGW. Don’t expect words to trump $$$$.
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Mattb…. you are one dumb [snip]. You live in a dream world. You are happy to carry on as normal so long as somebody else (you think) pays for it. Reduce costs? Yes, you want YOUR costs REDUCED while others pay. You are the World’s biggest [snip]hole hypocrite sliming along on this planet!
Cap your own emissions, that’s what I say and you want to call it stupid? Either walk the talk or just shut the [snip] up.
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“Cap your own emissions, that’s what I say”
No you didn’t, you said reduce them to essentially zero.
07
Yes, that’s correct. How else do you expect to make an impact. How else do you expect to not be labelled a hypocrite? The truth is that you want to do nothing…… and are doing nothing, yet you are perfectly happy to harp on about carbon. You expect to maintain your lifestyle while at the same time expecting OTHERS to reduce carbon emissions (at no cost to you of course!). Hypocrite.
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All that snippiness is putting you on some thin ice, Backslider, nearly as thin as the ice under AndyG55.
Besides, each base insult only emboldens his superiority ideation.
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darn, that pretty much shows that you never read your own comments . !!
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Clearly MattB’s daily hypocrisy pushes his buttons. Backslider does not want burn his house down. Your arguments are degenerating Mattb. Backslider likes his house. He likes how carbon producing bricks, metal roof, plaster sheet, carpet, stainless sink and electrical powered lighting, heating, washing and cleaning delivers shelter, comfort and health, social interaction and education to he and his family. It’s called civilization Mattb and electricity is the key delivery medium.
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yes I like my house too Maverick, and civilisation. That’s my point.
06
Civilization is BASED on carbon. It is BASED on energy. The only question is whether that energy is produced by slave labor and most people live a short and brutal life or that energy is based on CO2 producing fuel burning.
The only other options are water power and nuclear, both of which cause the Environuts to throw major temper tantums if you even mention them.
.
Biofuel and wind power COST more energy than they produce and Solar is a pollution nightmare with no good engineering solution to the energy storage problem.
Liberals are great at coming up with dreams of Utopia and selling it to the naive but they really SUCK when it comes to the nitty gritty engineering.
Unfortunately the greedy financiers, corporations and politicians saw CAGW as a great way to make lots of $$$. Unfortunately it is the typical transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. People died in the 2008 food riots and now the UK has 65 deaths a day caused by CAGW.
Matt, your continued blind support of this makes you an accessory to this DEMOCIDE
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Let’s get all bleeding heart here why don’t we Mattb? What makes you think you are entitled to a house when so many do not have one? What about the millions that are starving while good food goes into creating bio fuel? They don’t care about a house, they just want something to eat.
So tell me Mattb. If we are to raise the living standards of the World’s poor and destitute to the privileged level that you enjoy, what will be the World’s total carbon emissions? The truth is that you just do not care. Hypocrite!
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Backslider, you forgot to have them remove themselves from the carbon cycle, as in use no carbon within their bodies and never again exhale or excrete.
The irony of a carbon based life form obsessing over the carbon cycle and demonizing carbon, is too much.
This excess of irony is usually mistaken for stupidity, the moronic type.
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Backslider you’ll be happy to know you’ve been relegated to author of the second most stupid post of all time. Easy come, easy go.
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Mattb says, “Backslider you’ll be happy to know you’ve been relegated to author of the second most stupid post of all time. Easy come, easy go.”
This, coming from YOU! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
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You are just pissed off because I won’t tell you the origin of life… say hello to your cousin chimp next time you pass the zoo.
50
Ha ha and you claim to know the origin of life? Good luck with that one. I do indeed say hello to many distant cousins, evolutionary speaking, at the zoo.
06
No Mattb, it is you who claims to know the origin of life. That you choose to believe in fairy tales is your perfect privilege. I prefer science.
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Please stop giving Mattb oxygen.. Just ignore him and he will go away.
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[snip]
10
[SNIP.]
02
[snip]
10
[SNIP. settle down Andy. Please check your email. -Jo]
—-
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This thread appears to be deteriorating quickly due to the likes of Mattb.
So here’s something OT but related to the Moon rocket engine recovery story from a week or so ago:
http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/04/how-nasa-brought-the-monstrous-f-1-moon-rocket-back-to-life/
I loved this article. The mighty F-1 may yet fly again!
In the words of astronaut Joseph P. Allen in the preface to his book “Entering Space”: “These spaceships, incorporating aspects of every science and applying every technology of our age, are more than computer-guided craft of cold composites and metal. They are monuments to human innovation. Aboard such a ship, in every corner, in every nook and passageway, we sense the skills of those who built it, and their minds and spirit travel with us.”
As the song goes “here’s a health to the ship’s designers and the welders of her seams…”
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Thanks for that enlightening return to sanity Mike. ( I wouldn’t put it all on Matt B. He’s easily led).
We still have a lot to aspire to, even if it means looking back to see forwards.
40
Crazyfornia is going to try selling carbon credits they’ve extorted from businesses via it’s CARB bureaucracy but with carbon decreasing in value the state will be lucky to sell to anyone.
50
The same day this EU ETS junk price hit the news, another unpalatable message from the Business Council of Australia emerged:
One or two good nuggets in there, but overall it is a call for cryptofascist feudalism that will do exactly the opposite to “improvements in the standard of living”. For one thing, BCA has completely fallen for the CO2 emissions reduction scam, placing “clean” coal on an equal footing with nuclear.
I’m increasingly persuaded that unions are of some value in industries that have multinational megacorporations that can dictate local wages through holding a large (>5%) slice of the jobs in that sector. Concentrated control over job demand should be counter-balanced by concentrated control over labour supply, and vice versa.
As another example, can anyone explain how the following advice will generally lead to “improvements in the standard of living”? :
What possible business plan is viable when it’s owned by Chinese state investment bureaus but not economically viable when its owned by Australian companies and shareholders? Is
7 - 5 < 0when 5 is Australian? Sounds to me like a call to sell off Australian jobs and assets to China and grind Australian wages down to the level of China. Keep jobs in Australia, work for $210/month! 🙁As for the recommended “nuanced approach”, I guess “nuanced” is code that means to do whatever level of nepotistic corruption keeps the directors out of Chinese jails.
Ironic too that they should want to shut down socialist syndicalism (trade unions) and replace it with socialist communism (Chinese state enterprise).
Oh yes, slashing the unions and throwing open the doors to Chinese investment could certainly save our economy… somehow… despite other analysts indicating Australia doesn’t need saving!
And would this be… saving at all costs?
Please someone teach me the value of wholesale Chinese investment, `cuz I `aint seein’ it.
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You can see what happens when you let in foreign investment by looking at the USA. Statistics (courtesy of Bridgewater) showed in 1990 Foreign ownership of U.S. assets amounted to 33% of U.S. GDP. By 2002 this had increased to over 70% of U.S. GDP. link
And to add insult to injury.
So the USA now has foreign owned corporations outspending American citizens during our elections and as Senator Durbin said, “And the banks — hard to believe in a time when we’re facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created — are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place.”
“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.” – Benito Mussolini
Of course they want you to think it is ‘Socialism’
30
Cap and Trade will reduce emissions in the same way that indulgences reduced sinning
70
Jo,
Government keep advertising that they are “going” to get investors and jobs to our economies…
In reality, the same governments have heavily integrated policies that make that impossible to attract industry that is competitive with cheaper markets.
In Canada we import cheaper workers, have companies that will “hire out” to cheaper wages of importing cheaper labour due to the heavy restrictions based on our own work force to keep them safe at the work place.
Our resources are wanted but NOT the labour that has even put vast restrictions on farming. It then is far easier to destroy crops that need heavy labour and replace them with a different crop that is abundant and cheaper. Tree crops to land crops…not really a hard decision with governments insisting on a piece of the pie to keep workers safe. Yet in other countries…competition is not a factor when they do not have to protect their workers.
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Joe Lalonde
… put vast restrictions on farming. It then is far easier to destroy crops that need heavy labour and replace them with a different crop that is abundant and cheaper….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Very true.
They finally got the WTO farming regs in place here in the USA but they will not impact farming for a year or so. The USA produces 32 percent of the world’s corn, over 50% of the world’s soybean, 10% of the world’s wheat and supplies about 25% of the world’s wheat export and just under 2% of the world’s rice production , but is the second leading rice exporter. So the US is a big food exporter. link
You can see not only the USDA but the EPA has it’s nose firmly stuck into how farmers run their farms from ‘SUSTAINABILITY to Pesticides, Composting, Integrated Pest Management, Organic Farming, Pollution Prevention, Best Management Practices, and Conservation link
After reading all the addition red tape I will have to deal with and talking to the
Animal Rights ActivistUSDA agent for my area I am now out of farming. It just isn’t worth the additional time and effort to comply or risk the fines levied on the word of one inspector without any chance of a jury trial.This may seem like a minor issue until you realize Portugal lost 60% of her farmers, Mexico lost 75% of her farmers and in 2008 the EU stated they were going to wipe out one million polish farmers (~65%). A shift from independent farmers to corporate farms and a captive market means skyrocketing food prices to go along with the skyrocketing energy prices. The US law is written such that a one line amendment will regulate home gardens
…..
A side note on Jury trials in the USA. The 6th and 11th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Article 3 Section 2 give US citizens the right to a trial. As Joan Biskupic stated
Here is how the politicians have gotten around the US Constitution to make sure citizens are denied their right to a trial:
I know people here are not US citizens but you might want to check what rights you thought you had have been eaten away through ‘interpretation’ I was completely shocked when I found this out about our right to jury trials in the USA. It puts citizens completely at the mercy of the little bullies firmly wedged in the government bureaucracy.
20
I saw this posted on a ‘green’ friend’s FB page by one of their ‘green’ friends.
“I was asked to help with something but I don’t know enough about it. Can someone help me please? Want to know more about biogas and is it as sustainable as solar power? Is it something that we should oppose or advocate for. Help please…”
So that’s how they do research!
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If the Greens and Labor politicians and those bureaucrats in Treasury are convinced the federal budget figures do not need to be adjusted because the EU price on Carbon will get back to their projected $27 in 2015, then they should all be madly buying carbon futures. Maybe they should be made to convert the current value of their Superannuation funds and whatever other investment funds they have (I know Gillard doesn’t have anything, but it’s possible others have been more frugal than her), to carbon futures. Based on current futures pricing they could make a killing.
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[…] The real problem, is, what took them so long: Game Changer? EU carbon price hits “Junk Status”. (Australian Govt hits $10b Black Hole) […]
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