OT: Petition for Australians against an ETS (emissions trading scheme)

Well done. I dont know what else we can do to stop this rubbish (or the light bulb ban) but its better than nothing.

Cant really do much at all, simply because ETS schemes are nothing more than taxation by stealth schemes using climate change (or whatever it is as the excuse). Govts are always looking for innovative ways of extracting more taxes from their populations in some disguised manner. An ETS is one of the best yet,as most people will actually beleive that by paying more for electricity they are helping to solve some alleged problem. It may get fiddled with a bit , or renamed a carbon tax, but its still the same thing. Good luck anyway with the petition.

A carbon tax would be, but if they *give* ETS carbon credits to companies as planned, then it is nothing like taxation, just a transfer of money from consumers pockets to the chosen companies. Similar to the water rights they gave farmers, and then BUY back with other taxpayers money. The net effect is to increase consumer costs, but reduce tax revenue, a very bad joke IMO.

MrT.

My understanding is that the Govt sells pollution permits to polluters and the number of permits sold gradually decreases each year. The Obama model in the US is intended to help the US govt reduce its massive budget deficit,so in that case its a taxation scheme. Id be interested to know what happens in the case of where the Govt itself is a polluter, ie in the case where Govts own and run coal fired power stations. Do they give themselves permits.

Since the legislation hasn't been debated or passed, who knows. In any case what matters is whether the amount the government recieves is the same or even a decent portion of what the permits trade for *after* the government has issued them. I will bet it ends up like water licenses, broadcast licenses etc. where the people who receive them make the most money. Time will tell.

We were talking about Australia.

Most of them have already been sold to private enterprise. In any case transferring taxpayer money from one department to another happens all the time.

MrT.