Is climate change real?
We answer a number of questions on whether or not climate change is real, what role humans play in it, and what impacts it could have.
What is the carbon tax?
We explore the carbon tax and whether it will have any impact on the global effort to halt climate change.
How will it affect me?
We address what a carbon tax would mean for you, and for the country. We also consider the alternative plan that the Federal Opposition has proposed.
Opinion: Gina Rinehart – Australia Says NO
Gina posted a video the other day talking about how conditions in Australia are too harsh for mining companies such as her own. We all need to drink less and work harder for less money. That’s easy for her to say when she inherited so much of her wealth and leveraged her land rights to form a deal with other big mining companies. Check out this Facebook Page for more on Gina – http://www.facebook.com/NOGinaRinehart
Opinion: Did Labor Sell Out?
Questions are now being asked. Did Labour blink? Is this a tremendous backdown, or a step in the right direction? These questions all depend on your perspective. Just today, we can see that the Coalition is claiming the removal of the price floor, and a forthcoming agreement to buy and sell carbon credits with European nations will actually make it easier for them to roll back the carbon price.
There is also talk that the changes to the carbon pricing scheme will see a massive reduction in the revenues that the government was counting on in 2015-2016, with Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox declaring that “It’s fanciful” to expect the carbon price in Europe to hit $29 by then. $29 is where the government expected the price to rise to once it became a floating price, and is what revenue projections were based on.
Continue Reading…Carbon Tax Floor Price to Go!
So it looks like Labor blinked. In the face of criticism from some segments of the business sector, they have agreed to drop the floor price of $15 that was to be enacted over the next few years. Instead, an agreement has been struck to limit the number of permits Australian businesses can buy from overseas to 12.5% of the total, as well as to limit purchases from developing nations. This should go some way to alleviating concerns of rorts that may have otherwise taken place when it comes to permits.
A decision has also been announced to link Australia’s carbon pricing regime to that of Europe’s as well as 3 other nations. The idea is that this will add legitimacy and be the beginnings of global framework for pricing carbon. Some criticism has come that this new agreement will see carbon pricing fall too low to have meaningful impact on decisions made by power-providers, however a counter-criticism is that the governments in Europe will begin to move to limit carbon production further, driving the price up from where it currently sits at $10 per tonne.
Craig Emmerson on the Carbon Tax
What do you all think of his performance? Does Craig look like a clown, or was he making light of all the doomsday hyperbole that’s been tossed around regarding the town of Whyalla? Post your thoughts in the comments below!