Australia Abolish Carbon Tax

[Rogue]

Climate change remains a threat to our economy and Abbott abolished the lowest-cost solution
JULY 17, 2014 12:18PM

JUST as the sky did not fall in when the carbon tax was introduced, nor will the sunshine break with its repeal.

Today is a triumph of short term politics over long term policy making.

At the margins, certainty on the repeal of the carbon tax will give business confidence.

Longer term, climate change remains a real threat to our economy, which is already prone to drought and floods.

The overwhelming majority of scientists still believe increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere will trap heat close to the earth, warming temperatures, heating oceans and changing weather patterns.

Those changes will negatively impact a range of industries, from agriculture to insurance.

Scrapping the legislation underpinning Australia’s carbon price, as the Senate has today, throws the baby out with the bathwater.

Economists agree a carbon price was the lowest-cost, most effective solution to the problem of climate change.

Australia’s substantial legal framework around emissions trading was almost a decade in the making, soaking up a lot of time and resources to design and put in place.

It should have been allowed to remain in place, albeit with a reduction in the carbon price from a fixed price of around $25 a tonne of carbon to the floating international price, which is more like $7.

Sure, after today, big polluters will pay less thanks to the tax’s repeal.

Households — who forget they were already fully compensated for rises in electricity costs through tax cuts and welfare payments — will enjoy a double dividend if the government is successful in getting companies to refund them the cost of the tax too.

But Australia will be left without a market-based policy designed to re-engineer our economy towards a lower carbon path.

We will come to regret this day.
http://www.news.com.au/finance/climate-change-remains-a-threat-to-our-economy-and-abbott-abolished-the-lowestcost-solution/story-e6frfm1i-1226992069862

[Monk (in hiding)]

Taking the least-squares linear-regression trend on Remote Sensing Systems’ satellite-based monthly global mean lower-troposphere temperature dataset, there has been no global warming – none at all – for 17 years 10 months. This is the longest continuous period without any warming in the global instrumental temperature record since the satellites first watched in 1979. It has endured for more than half the entire satellite temperature record. Yet the lengthening Pause coincides with a continuing, rapid increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration.

http://www.climatedepot.com/2014/07/03/global-temperature-standstill-lengthens-no-global-warming-for-17-years-10-months-since-sept-1996-214-months/

[Rogue]

[Kaere]

This handbasket is getting awfully full...

[Rockhopper]

Tony "Machoman" Abbott flexing his abs again!

Tim.

[Rogue]

He really is a right turd! How about we swap him for NZ's Key. Please!

[Rockhopper]

Better idea; send both to a deserted island and get them out of our misery!

Tim.

[Rogue]

Seems he's upset Putin now. The two of them deserve each other.

[Sponsored content]