[LINK] Tony pulls it off!

[Marghanita da Cruz]

Richard Chirgwin wrote:
<snip>
> I have found Ross Gittins' writings a...
> 
> His reasoning is this: even with the concessions, polluters will still 
> be limited to a fixed amount of credits available; the subsidies given 
> by the government are unfair, because they shift the cost burden to 
> citizens, but not ineffective.
> 
<snip>

The problem is that an incentive is needed
to move away from high CO2 producing energy
sources to more CO2 efficient processes and
increasing the CO2 sinks.

One clarification that was sought in the
Senate, was that the emissions from OS
users of our Coal would not be charged to
us but the customer.  This is an
interesting point, we loose both ways -
as OS users have a strong  incentive to
look at  alternative energy sources.

There is also some contradiction in the
suggestion that the ETS is a Tax. The
existing tax and increased cost  of Petrol,
in recent times, has probably been the most
effective (just note the lighter traffic on
Sydney roads) in reducing Carbon Emissions
and making consumers think about the
vehicles they drive and choose public
transport, to cycle or walk. Though
ofcourse, the influence of the price of
petrol is  diminished through company
cars and the virtual  encouragement
to drive a less efficient vehicle for
tax purposes.
<http://www.ato.gov.au/individuals/content.asp?doc=/Content/33874.htm>

Unfortunately, the choices for electricity
sources is not so simple. Though one useful
change would be more incentives for solar
energy generation and feeding it back
into the grid.

Thos giant empty australian homess could be
generating solar electricty to meet our
daytime needs.

...and ofcourse we are now stuck with 
buying
Chinese or German solar collectors!

Marghanita
-- 
Marghanita da Cruz
http://ramin.com.au
Tel: 0414-869202