By: Jiri

Jiri — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 12:45:56 +0000

I’ve read the pamphlet produced by the “high level panel on CDM and it is a really eye opener. The members are various activists, bureaucrats and bankers. As a basic axioms they take 1. Climate change can be felt and it will get much worse. 2. The world is not doing enough. 3. CDM transferring money from developed to developing is collapsing. Based on these axioms they recommend the key recommendation is clear: To provide demand for CDM.
As this system is pure bureaucracy we know that it will never work efficiently. More over it just creates web of interests utilising money nobody is responsible for.
Although I don’t agree with axiom 1) and therefore I see the initiative to limit CO2 production as pointless I would suggest far more efficient way to achieve given target.
Simply: 1. Tax carbon production 2. Use this tax as normal part of government budget. This will create incentive to produce energy without releasing CO2 and it will produce enough cash to sustain current levels of government spending.
In reality, taxing carbon is just additional tax driving industry abroad and lowering domestic product. Learning the history lesson and based on current governing crisis it might be wiser taking advantage of fossil energy available at the current cost level to fix the crisis (get rid of debt and balance the budget) and mitigate any potential negative climate effects via technological development and economic growth. The countries taking this route will benefit from competitive advantage.

By: Jiri

Jiri — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 08:58:23 +0000

I’m not very clever person so everything appears to be very simple to me. First, carbon trading and climate change are political issues. So it is clear that they need political solution. The best tool to fight political issue is through regulation or tax and both approaches are already in use on carbon emissions. If these emissions prevail all you need to do is just more regulation or more tax. Governments are very keen to increase tax and especially when people don’t object too much. As many people buy into IPCC and AGW it shouldn’t be too difficult to increase carbon tax. At least EU and US are increasingly efficient in putting more tax and more regulation on fossil fuel. However, some people are still not happy. Although governments collect more tax, the climate change fighters want more control over it. They would prefer to bypass governments and collect “tax” under some scheme which would redistribute the money in favour of their petty project. It is obvious that government will resist this approach as they need this money to pay for social security and interest on their debt. Perhaps even tax payers will eventually resist. We shall see.

Comments on: In search of a new home for CERs

By: Jiri

By: Jiri