Carbon Tax. Australia’s carbon price mechanism has become law. While domestically the political noise about this has been deafening, globally, the concept of a market mechanism for pricing carbon emissions is quietly accepted. Long standing champions of the carbon tax mechanism include science, economics and business luminaries such as James E. Hansen (NASA), Carl Pope, Gary Becker, Rex Tillerson (Exxon Mobil), Jack Pezzey, Jeffrey Sachs, Gregory Mankiw. Our new legislation has recently been praised in the media by the likes of Peter Voser, the global CEO of Shell, gas giant Santos, Ban Ki Moon (UN), the IMF Deputy Managing Director Min Zhu and more than 334 Australian companies including Fujitsu, AGL, Alstom, Kell&Rigby, Unilever and industrial products and finance group GE.
We are now members of the Global Carbon Club- joining some 850 million people now living with a carbon price. Fighting climate change with a carbon tax with us are the European countries Denmark, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK. China, Taiwan, Costa Rica, Chile and South Korea, a number of Canadian provinces, California and 10 eastern US states are either considering developing their own schemes or already have trial schemes to price carbon. We have nothing to fear being part of this club. If Treasury modeling is right, about half of household carbon cost will be included in energy bills, which are now about 3% of household expenditure. The scheme is supposed to spur businesses to become more energy efficient and cut emissions, and your household will benefit from energy efficiency also. It’s so easy to save energy.
Around $10 saved on your weekly energy will offset all your carbon costs. Apart from all the other tips on this site, simply switching off the beer fridge in the garage when you’re not using it could save you as much as you’ll spend on the carbon tax! And since most households will be compensated for much or all of their carbon cost- any actions will make you a financial winner.