Our money should go directly towards better infrastructure such as new urbanist housing developments with cycle ways etc (something giving permanent tangible results).
I think we need to move towards the Asian model of capitalism with more hands on by government and more enlightened environmentalists involved, the trick being getting the right people in charge.

The biggest issue I have with an ETS is, it appears to take little account of efficiency between nations in terms of how (say) food is produced or how essential a good is to life...not directly anyway...ie if our farmers are the most efficient food producers then per kilo we should be paying no carbon surcharge, but everyone else should, the degree they pay varying dependant on how less efficient they are relative to us....If we dont pay zero then some other business endevour in NZ that produces something else (non-food) is going to appear to be the better place to put capital, say planting pine trees....yet we need food, its an essentail to life......and finally while on food as an example, it only makes sense to tax something where the effect is to get a change in a production method to make it less carbon emitting....if cow farts cant be stopped as its fundimental to the process, then its silly to tax on them....

The other issue I have is this "we can carry on polluting just as long as we buy credits from someone else"....so if we can afford the carbon tax....we dont change, potty IMHO.

regards

Nice analysis -- but the problem is that it assumes we have to kowtow to UN and other countries by playing along with their little Kyoto game.

The science is not settled. It is increasingly unsettled, as each month passes and global temperatures continue to decline -- totally out of sync with CO2 levels and "expert" predictions of climate trends.

It would be utterly foolish for NZ to introduce any additional taxes based on such flimsy evidence.

Our best option is to play for time.

J H I would say we have already adopted a form of communism and comrade Key will no doubt call it something else
Baz

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWWNLvgU4MI&NR=1

Considering that the oceans are the biggest carbon sink on this planet, surely our very large EEZ would have to alter the balance in NZ's favour? Any warming of temperatures would result in higher bio activity on the oceanic fronts and increase the "detrital rain" locking the carbon up on the seafloor/oceanic plates/subduction zones. We are going to be rich........now we just need to fertilise the oceans with something.........anyone think of anything NZ has a lot of that we could pump out to sea to get the little algae's to grow a bit faster and poop on the seafloor at a higher rate..........???

Might be a few more fishing eating algae poop as well....we could have a fishing industry too.....we are going to be so rich!!!!

I love it how man thinks he can control mother nature........we will continue to be idiots and every so often mother nature will give us a boot in the a$$.

Sooner we run out of oil the better.......

Paul

Yes, Iron, the southern oceans don't have enough, I don't agree with your simplistic temp = activity calc though, algae live on sunlight, warmth may be counterproductive to organisms that have evolved in cold oceans

Neven

I see a Chinaman with a large very sharp ended length of bamboo getting ready to POP the US Treasury IOU toilet paper sales. He's just waiting for the first US carbon excuse import tax to hit Chinese goods. Then, BANG!

Under the current private debt based monetary system, and the science surrounding climate change very much inconclusive, when these people say we must invest 50 trillion dollars through to 2050 to combat climate change, those that know how international banking works know that, that means borrow 50 trillion, which concerns me a great deal -

This is a start. Achieving the large-scale greenhouse gas reductions that scientists say are needed will require a massive global shift to cleaner energy sources and technologies.
The International Energy Agency recently estimated that the world will have to invest as much as $50 trillion through 2050 in new energy infrastructure and equipment in order to
reduce carbon dioxide levels to half of today's levels.

The renewable energy market is already taking off. Global clean energy investments quadrupled in the past four years, to $150 billion in 2007. Toyota is growing at breakneck speed because it saw that consumers wanted hybrids and other fuel-efficient vehicles. US automakers ignored climate change "“ and now their large sport utility vehicles are sitting
unused in car lots and their very survival is at stake.

No wonder one of America's leading venture capitalists, John Doerr, calls clean energy and other climate change solutions "the biggest economic opportunity of the 21st century."

Many major banks and investment firms "“ key drivers in the global economy -- are also responding in significant ways to climate change. A Ceres report issued in January found that many United States, European and Japanese banks are setting internal greenhouse gas reductions targets, boosting climate-related equity research and elevating lending and financing for clean energy projects.

The report also showed that many major banks are showing more due-diligence in avoiding climate risky investments. A half-dozen banks have begun calculating a "cost of carbon" into their lending decisions and one bank, Bank of America, has gone so far as to set specific greenhouse gas reduction target in its lending to the utility sector.
http://www.ceres.org/Page.aspx?pid=913