Despite the complete lack of evidence that human CO2 emissions cause any warming of the atmosphere, millions will be driven into fuel poverty as the snow continues to fall on chilly Britain. Even the MET Office has revised its five year forecast downwards to show almost no warming over the next five years, as revealed here at the Talkshop in early January. This unsound measure will cost jobs and drive industry abroad. We need some organisations with deep pockets to mount a legal challenge to this madness. People will die as a direct result of this irresponsible and scientifically unsupported government climate policy.
Britain’s carbon tax: unfair and ineffective
Gerard Wynn – Reuters market analyst
The tax, called “carbon price support” by the British government, is [to be] levied on suppliers of fossil fuels to power plants and these will pass on the cost to electricity consumers.
It has uniquely united environmentalists and energy-intensive industries in opposition.
The tax will be applied when the price of European Union allowances (EUAs) is lower than a rising price floor per tonne of carbon dioxide (CO2) under the British scheme.
The idea is to send a clearer, long-term signal to investors in low carbon energy who may be deterred by the volatility of EUA prices.
The tax will be an important part of the British government’s support package to attract investment in new nuclear power.
By raising wholesale power prices by more than 10 percent by 2015, however, it will also provide an unmerited windfall for existing low carbon generation including nuclear power and wind farms.
Applying the tax inversely to the price of EUAs seemed to be a clever way to avoid charging polluters twice, as a flat-rate British carbon tax would have done.
But with the benefit of hindsight, it is also the scheme’s biggest weakness.
First, European carbon price have collapsed, making them far cheaper than the UK floor price and increasing the size of the tax.
Second, insofar as the scheme succeeds in cutting emissions by factories and power plants, it will decrease demand for EUAs, which can then be snapped up by other European polluters, simply displacing emissions in an effect called carbon leakage.
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