Reasons to Oppose a Carbon Tax #3

Dear Government Member of Parliament,

Let us look quickly at your Government plans to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

From the above link – I have assumed your Government is aiming to reduce its emissions by between 5 and 15 per cent below 2000 levels by 2020. I have chosen the mid-range 10% reduction for the graphic below.

CO2 emissions China vs Australia

Let us further assume that Australian voters come to agree with your GreenLabor Government Carbon Tax plan – that the huge national sacrifice is worth the pain – to reduce our emissions by the ~80 million tonnes from current levels which gets us down to 10% below 2000 levels by 2020.

All those jobs exported to Asia – all those mortgage foreclosures – all those chilly winters as we try to reduce our rocketing electricity bills – all those rocketing grocery bills – fuel prices heading skywards – all will be worth it to do our bit to save the planet.

What will our decade long sacrifice mean in global terms if the above fairy story came to pass.

The figures show that China alone – not adding in the rest of the world – just China – will wipe out our tens years of painful ~80 million tonnes of carbon dioxide reductions in just 48 days of their emissions increase from 2008-2009.

48 days respite – that is what our decade of financial sacrifice will buy just from Chinese emission increases.

Luckily my little scenario was a fairy story – because Australian voters will not return your GreenLabor Government at the next election – whenever that is. An election could be held sooner than 2013 of course if the GreenLabor Government was to lose a seat in a byelection.

Your Government should do the decent thing – call a fresh election now and campaign on a platform to introduce your Carbon Tax – and then your Government could earn the mandate to introduce this colossal change to our national life.

PS: The BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2010 can be downloaded

Yours etc

3 thoughts on “Reasons to Oppose a Carbon Tax #3”

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  2. Warwick

    It is going to be interesting to see HerRanganus’ popularity level post the budget (PNG refugee distractions notwithstanding). The upper house change-over will probably move Aus into legislative constipation & “the errant bus” may not be needed.

  3. The left wing Guardian is seeing the futility of a purely national approach to a reduction of emissions.

    According to standard data, developed countries can claim to have reduced their collective emissions by almost 2% between 1990 and 2008. But once the carbon cost of imports have been added to each country, and exports subtracted – the true change has been an increase of 7%. If Russia and Ukraine – which cut their CO2 emissions rapidly in the 1990s due to economic collapse – are excluded, the rise is 12%.

    I might add, if the collapse of the East German economy is excluded the rise would be higher!
    But the lesson of Russia, Ukraine and East Germany is that,to use Obama’s slogan, “Yes we can”, but the price is the economic collapse of our economy!

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