Tag Archives: australian
UPDATE 2-Australia Plans To Scrap Carbon Tax, Bring Forward Trading Scheme
Tue Jul 16, 2013 10:51am IST * Scrapping carbon tax will slash permit costs, saving businesses billion * Move to ETS in July 2014, a year earlier than planned * Change in plans seen as “good for coal, bad for gas” By James Grubel CANBERRA, July 16 (Reuters) – Australia’s government moved on Tuesday to scrap its carbon tax and bring forward an emissions trading scheme in a policy shift to win over voters, angry over rising power costs, before an election expected within weeks. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said he wants the fixed price on carbon emissions to end on June 30, 2014. A floating carbon price, or emissions trading scheme (ETS) that will be linked to the European carbon market, will start the following day, a year earlier than planned. On current prices, the shift would see the cost of carbon permits fall from the planned A$25.40 ($23.09) per tonne from July 2014 to around A$6 per tonne, saving big businesses billions of dollars in carbon costs. Rudd also said the change would slash A$3.8 billion ($3.46 billion) from the federal budget over four years, but his government planned to make up the gap with savings of around A$3.9 billion from a range of measures. The widely unpopular tax, blamed for rising electricity costs, was due to raise A$8.14 billion in 2013-14 and A$8.6 billion in 2014-15. Scrapping the plan would cut average household electricity and gas bills by A$4 a week, Rudd said. “This is modest relief, but it is real,” Rudd told reporters at a media conference in Queensland state. BIG POLLUTERS PAY The carbon tax, introduced by Rudd’s predecessor Julia Gillard as her central policy to cut carbon emissions, is currently set at A$24.15 a tonne. It applies to around 300 of Australia’s biggest polluters, including mining giant BHP Billiton, Qantas Airways and BlueScope Steel, and 60 percent of the country’s 550 million tonnes of annual emissions. Rudd’s new carbon plan relies on his centre-left Labor party winning national elections, due between late August and November, and on receiving support from the minority Australian Greens party. Rudd ousted Gillard in a party-room vote three weeks ago, a move which opinion polls show has resuscitated his party’s chances of re-election. The conservative opposition has promised to scrap the carbon price altogether if it takes power, with opposition leader Tony Abbott dismissing the ETS as a “so-called market in the non-delivery of an invisible substance to no-one”. Deutsche Bank carbon analyst Tim Jordan said the policy shift would have no real impact on carbon markets because there was no effective forward market beyond the current fixed-price period. However, he said the move could see a change in the investment outlook as coal-fired power became more economic compared with low-emissions gas-fired power. “Europe has seen a big switch back to coal with the falling carbon price. So a lower price for coal and a lower carbon price in Australia could be good for coal and bad for gas,” he said. Rudd said compensation for trade-exposed industries would remain in place, bringing down the cost for the most emissions-intensive industries to around A$0.50 a tonne from July 2014. Carbon market research firm Reputex said it expected the floating carbon price in Australia to be up to 40 percent lower than the price of European permits until mid-2016, due to lower emissions and lower demand for permits in Australia. Rudd’s government plans to make up the budget gap left by scrapping the carbon tax by removing a tax concession on the personal use of salary-sacrificed or employer-provided cars. Continue reading
Tony Abbott Pours Scorn On The Concept Of An ETS
BY:LAUREN WILSON From: The Australian July 15, 2013 ETS on the horizon Kevin Rudd says he’ll scrap the carbon tax and move to an emissions trading scheme a year earlier than was plann TONY Abbott has dismissed emissions trading schemes as markets for the “non-delivery of an invisible substance”. The Coalition Leader’s criticism of the widely accepted, market-based method of trying to curb carbon emissions came as Labor prepares to switch from a carbon tax to an ETS one year earlier than originally planned. Treasurer Chris Bowen said today the Rudd government’s decision to move early from a fixed to a floating carbon price was a response to changes in the Australian economy and a concession families could do with hip-pocket relief. But Mr Abbott, who has campaigned against a carbon tax, said the change meant nothing. “It’s more fake change from Kevin Rudd. The one thing he has done is he has admitted that what the Coalition was saying about the carbon tax was right all along,” he told reporters in Sydney. “This is not a true market, just ask yourself what an ETS is all about, it’s a so-called market in the non-delivery of an invisible substance to no-one.” Under an ETS, companies trade permits allowing the right to discharge emissions. Permit buyers effectively pay a charge for polluting, providing an economic incentive for reducing emissions. Mr Bowen today conceded the costs of switching to an ETS next year will be “significant”, as he again refused to rule out a cut to industry assistance programs. However the Treasurer rejected opposition claims the hole punched in the budget by fast-tracking to an ETS would be in the order of $6 billion. “We are responding to two things, we are responding to the change in the Australian economy, the rapid transition away from the mining boom and the need to stimulate non-mining investment,” Mr Bowen told ABC radio. “And we are responding to people’s concerns about cost of living – it is an acknowledgement families can do with cost of living relief,” he said. The Treasurer said the cost of making the move to an internationally-linked ETS sooner was “significant”, but rejected Coalition claims of a revenue shortfall $6 billion. “The opposition doesn’t know what it’s talking about, we’ll be putting out the Treasury figures, the Treasury figures make it very clear what the cost is and how it is going to be paid for,” he said. “It’s obviously a significant cost but it’s not what the opposition are suggesting.” Mr Bowen said the household compensation would remain, but refused to rule out changes to the industry assistance package. “Yes there are industry assistance measures that are predicated on a certain price, but I am not pre-empting what are going to do in the package,” Mr Bowen told Sky News. He warned the government had made “tough choices” to find savings to offset the revenue shortfall, but stressed Labor was committed to the schoolkids bonus. “The schoolkids bonus is a very important measure, it’s very important to the government and it will remain very important to the government,” he said. Mr Abbott said the ETS was “still a tax”. “He won’t admit it but you will keep the carbon tax under Kevin Rudd. If you vote for the Coalition, the carbon tax is gone, lock stock and barrel. Not rebadged, not renamed but abolished,” the Opposition Leader told the Nine Network. “The best thing to do is to get rid of it altogether. Mr Rudd vindicated everything we have been saying about the carbon tax,” Mr Abbott said. Greens leader Christine Milne, who negotiated the original carbon pricing package with the Gillard government, warned the Prime Minister against taking the axe to green schemes. “I am really concerned with where the government is going to get the money it’s a $4 billion to $5 billion hit on the budget,” Senator Milne said. “I want to see the clean technology fund maintained, the biodiversity fund maintained, low carbon communities – enabling people who live in those communities to be more energy efficient – I want to make sure the Climate Change Authority stays,” she said. “I am really concerned Labor will slash them, they’ve already taken the knife to the biodiversity fund this year,” Senator Milne said. Continue reading
Tony Abbott Branded ‘Climate Denier’ After Carbon Trading Tirade
Last updated on 15 July 2013, 8:11 am A summary of today’s top climate and clean energy stories. Email the team on info@rtcc.org or get in touch via Twitter. Tony Abbott has branded emissions trading as dealing in an “invisible substance”, carbon dioxide. (Source: Liberal Party) Australia: Opposition leader Tony Abbott has branded emissions trading a “so-called market” that deals in an “invisible substance”, carbon dioxide, as the Coalition digs in politically ahead of Labor’s looming overhaul of its clean energy package. ( Guardian ) Poland: Poland’s shale gas business is facing a serious challenge after the EU’s highest court, European Court of Justice, ruled that Warsaw violated European law by allowing licences to be issued for the exploration and extraction of hydrocarbons, without fully open tenders. This affects around 100 shale gas exploration licences issued by Warsaw to firms believed to be in breach of the EU’s Hydrocarbon Directive. ( EurActiv ) UK: The government may be promoting the controversial practice of fracking for gas shale because figures from that industry hold senior advisory roles within the government, campaigners have warned. The former BP boss Lord Browne, Centrica chief executive Sam Laidlaw and BG Group director Baroness Hogg have all been accused of the potential for conflicts of interest. ( Independent ) Germany: The European Union is planning an investigation into Germany’s renewable energy law due to concerns that exemptions for some firms from charges levied on power users breaches competition rules. Lawyers in Brussels are rumoured to have been looking at the law which provides a framework for Germany’s push to renewable energy, and that Commissioner Joaquín Almunia had concluded it may breach EU rules. ( EurActiv ) China: China’s electricity consumption, used a barometer of economic activity, rose 6.3% year on year to 438.4 billion kilowatt hours in June, an official statement said Sunday. The National Energy Administration said that the growth rate was 2% higher than a year earlier and 1.3% points higher than in May. ( Xinhuanet ) China/Australia: A new research programme has been announced which will see Chinese and Australian researchers working together to confront the challenges of climate change policy. The $305,000 programme will be run by the Australian National University’s (ANU) and led by Associate Professor Frank Jotzo of the School’s Centre for Climate Economics and Policy. ( PS News ) Pakistan: Pakistani Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif is scheduled to inaugurate Pakistan’s first private hydropower project in Mirpur, Azad Kashmir, on Monday to be registered with the United Nations’ Framework Convention on Climate as a clean mechanism development project. The 84MW project is expected to replace 135,000 tons of oil import valued in excess of $100 million per annum. ( News Tribe ) Czech Republic: A new unique station near Bystrice nad Pernstejnem will examine the impact that expected climate changes will have on wheat and barley. The station, built with the EU’s financial support, consists of 24 automatically controlled chambers similar to greenhouses that enable researchers to simulate different climate phenomena which experts expect to develop in the Czech Republic in the next hundred years. ( Prague Monitor ) – See more at: http://www.rtcc.org/…h.aCxubGOy.dpuf Continue reading
