Articles Tagged "Green Tax"

Thousands of British businesses will be liable for significant fines and charges under a new government “green tax” scheme

Companies that fail to register their energy use by next month will be hit with fines that could reach £45,000 under the little-known rules. Those that do participate in the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) initiative by declaring their energy use will face charges for every ton of greenhouse gas they produce.

These payments are expected to average £38,000 a year for medium-sized firms, and could reach £100,000 for larger organisations.

Surveys have shown that thousands of businesses are unaware they are supposed to be taking part, or even that the scheme exists at all. The imposition of new charges and fines will put pressure on firms at a time when economists are warning of a “double dip” recession as companies, consumers and the public sector all cut their spending.

Business leaders criticised the CRC — which was created by Labour but implemented by the Coalition — as “complex and bureaucratic”. One accused ministers of swinging “a big hammer” at companies and questioned whether it would have any environmental benefits.

Click source to read FULL report

Europe's 20/20/20 policy will cost billions of pounds, but yield only tiny results.

European leaders have a lot to deal with. The financial crisis has prompted several national stimulus packages and a joint effort to keep Greece afloat, while the EU is in danger of being outstripped by other economies that are growing faster, producing more efficiently and at lower costs.

One bright spot is that politicians remain committed to responding to global warming. Unfortunately, their plans do not withstand scrutiny. New research shows that the EU's "20/20/20" policy, which aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 (and ensure 20 per cent renewable energy), will cost hundreds of billions of euros but yield only tiny benefits. The UK alone will be hit to the tune of an annual 35 billion euros (£28 billion).

Click source to read FULL report from Bjorn Lomborg

Cuts announced last week to finance castings needed for nuclear reactors were deeply revealing of the Coalition’s priorities

The fact that the largest of the £2 billion public spending cuts announced last week was an £80 million loan to Sheffield Forgemasters – to finance a 15,000-ton press for the huge castings needed for nuclear reactors – was deeply revealing of the Coalition’s priorities. It would have helped Britain to build the new generation of nuclear power stations that we desperately need (but which our “green” energy minister Chris Huhne so dislikes). It would also have made Britain a world leader, with the potential to generate billions of pounds of exports, enabling the loan to be swiftly repaid.

Still in place, however, is a £200 million loan to Nissan (£20 million from our Government, the rest from the European Investment Bank), to enable its Sunderland plant to build thousands of Leaf electric cars, which will only be able to drive 100 miles before they need recharging – with electricity from CO2-emitting fossil fuels.

What puts the £2 billion cuts into depressing perspective, of course, is the fact that our public debt is now rising by £3 billion a week.

FEDERAL Treasury and the CSIRO are supposed to be among the most trusted institutions in Australia. They are both supposed to be founded in objective rationalism.

The Treasury building in Canberra houses the greatest collection of economic analytical and policymaking brainpower in Australia. The same, in the fields of science, goes for the CSIRO in Melbourne. Together they should form the rock-solid foundation of policymaking in Australia.

We need to be able to trust Treasury to advise the government based on the best possible economic analysis. Arguably its most important task is to deploy its economic heft against usually well-intentioned "good ideas at the time", or failing that to at least limit their damage.

From the CSIRO we need, very simply, good science. As its own strategic plan puts it: "We are committed to scientific excellence and working ethically and with integrity in everything we do."

Both have, in their separate ways, breached that trust. This is a very serious matter for the governance of Australia. If we can't trust Treasury to give us rational economics and we can't trust the CSIRO to give us good, or even just honest, science -- as in both cases they have generally done for a good three-quarters of a century or more -- we are adrift in a sea of irrationalism.

One of the best-kept secrets of British politics – although it is there for all to see on a Government website – is the cost of what is by far the most expensive piece of legislation ever put through Parliament. Every year between now and 2050, acccording to Ed Miliband's Department for Energy and Climate Change (Decc), the Climate Change Act is to cost us all up to £18.3 billion – £760 for every household in the country – as we reduce our carbon emissions by 80 per cent.

Last Thursday – with northern Britain again under piles of global warming – another tranche of regulations came into force, as this measure begins to take effect. New road tax rules mean that to put a larger, more CO2 -emitting car on the road will now cost £950. New "feed-in" subsidies for small-scale "renewables" mean that the installers of solar panels will be paid up to eight times the going rate for their miserable amount of electricity to be fed into the grid, with the overall bill for this scheme estimated eventually to be billions a year.

Not the least bizarre of the Government's strategies, however, is Decc's new Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) scheme, requiring up to 30,000 of our largest energy users, such as ministries, councils, universities, hospitals, supermarket chains (and even "monasteries and nunneries"), to pay to register with the Environment Agency. Some 5,000 of them, using more than "6,000 megawatt hours" of electricity each year (equivalent to the needs of 1,250 homes), will then have to carry out a cumbersome audit of their carbon footprint, using "three different metrics", in order to pay £12 for each ton of CO2 they emit – at a total initial cost estimated at £1.4 billion a year. This will eventually be contributed by all of us, either through taxes or, for instance, whenever we visit Tesco.

MILLIONS of householders who thought they had been given free eco-friendly lightbulbs have ended up paying £45 for them through a stealth green tax.

Energy suppliers handed out 182 million bulbs as part of a Government carbon reduction scheme to reduce emissions from homes.

But millions of packs of bulbs which landed on doormats added £45 a year to the average home’s energy bill because suppliers passed their cost back to customers, says consumer group Which?

Jenny Driscoll, spokeswoman for Which?, said: “Sending out truckloads of energy-saving light bulbs that might never be used is a box-ticking approach to the very real need to cut carbon emissions. Marketing these as ‘free’ just adds insult to injury. On average, £45 a year is added to household energy bills for carbon cutting measures.”

The Government’s carbon emissions reduction target, known as CERT, orders the six big energy suppliers to help households use less gas and electricity by giving away free insulation, draught proofing and energy-saving lightbulbs.

Click source to read FULL report by Louise Barnett

Have you ever wondered why the eco-lobby is so pro-EU? Now you have your answer. Green pressure groups are becoming financially dependent on Brussels. Ten years ago, they received €2,337,924 from the European Commission; last year, it was €8,749,940.

A study by the International Policy Network reveals the extent to which Green lobbyists look to the EU for their income: Climate Action Network, Friends of the Earth, WWF, they’re all at it. Much of this money, the paper shows, is then recycled into lobbying the EU.

You see how the system works? The EU pays eco-lobbyists to tell it what it wants to hear. Its clients, naturally enough, tell it that the EU ought to increase its powers. A similar racket goes on between Brussels and the mega-charities (see here).

This isn’t just bad for democracy; it’s bad for the environment, because it equates conservation with state intervention and supranationalism. One of these Brussels-funded organisations recently produced a league of which MEPs were greenest. I like to think that I am pretty eco-conscious. I try never to fly or drive when trains are an option; Mrs H sources food locally, and reuses and recycles meticulously; we even had washable nappies for our children. But I came near the bottom of the table because I had voted consistently against giving more power to Brussels.

That’s the Left for you, I suppose, elevating motive over action, valuing the moralistic over the moral.

The carbon credits boom is already costing British jobs

What is the connection between Dr Rajendra Pachauri, the Indian railway engineer who has been much in evidence at the Copenhagen climate conference, as chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and an Indian-owned steel company's decision to mothball its giant Teesside steel works next month, ripping the heart out of the town of Redcar by putting 1,700 people out of work?

Nothing of this complex story is likely to be heard in the dreary concrete shed outside Copenhagen where, as temperatures drop towards freezing, 17,000 prime ministers, officials and climate activists are earnestly discussing how the planet is warming up towards extinction. But it certainly sheds a little light on a colossal worldwide racket these delegates are helping to promote, because the end of the story is that we shall all be paying to export thousands of British jobs to new steel plants in India, for no gain in the reduction of worldwide CO2 emissions.

Thirty years ago Britain's state-owned steel industry, over-manned and highly subsidised, was the most inefficient in Europe. By 1988, after Mrs Thatcher's privatisation and having lost two thirds of its workforce, it was as efficient as any in the world. In 1999, for reasons never fully explained, much of it was sold off to the Dutch firm Corus, which in 2007 was bought by the Indian giant, Tata Steel.

Exclusive to Crikey – Possibly the greatest Scandal of this decade “Carbongate” – the theft of billions of dollars in Carbon Credits.

Over the coming week Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will attend the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference and be hailed as one of the world leaders on climate change action. The PM attends the meeting with Australia being one of a handful of developed countries to have met their Kyoto Treaty obligations. Australia’s Kyoto commitment was to limit the Nations Carbon Dioxide emissions to 108% of 1990 levels.

The Carbongate “Trick”

The “trick” is how Australia, with a rapidly growing economy over the last two decades, has been able to achieve this. Emissions from energy and transport have increased by 23% over 1990 levels. Australians might wonder how with our rapidly growing population and economy over the last two decades, as a nation we seemed to be in a position to claim that we only increased our total emissions by 9%. Well, we haven’t. Our emissions have increased by 30% but thanks to the “carbongate” swindle we can claim it’s only 9%.

A senior Tory MP has issued a direct challenge to David Cameron's environmental policies after warning tough green targets could 'cripple' the economy.

David Davis accused the green movement of having a 'fixation' with imposing targets on reducing carbon emissions.

The former Tory leadership challenger warned that taxpayers are already facing a £55billion price tag for 'green' policies.
before.'

Mr Davis said that building wind farms would blight hundreds of thousands of properties and 'ruin' lives through the unbearable noise levels, while future predicted power shortages would further undermine public support for action.