Michael, I see where you are coming from.
Germany or Denmark are countries that put considerable emphasis on climate change, yet neither has a carbon tax as such. What I am trying to answer is the question why that is so. And I think the answer is that while they value climate highly they value energy independence (and particularly in the case of Germany social benefits) just as highly. As happens, personally I'd favour energy policies like those in France. Replacing coal with nuclear should cut world CO2 emissions something like 30 or 40%. High gasoline taxes might cut US transportation demand in half. I do find it instructive to look at French per capita emissions compared to other countries. http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/tableh1cco2.xls F 2000 6.73 F 2004 6.71 Germany 2000 10.31 Germany 2004 10.46 USA 2000 20.60 USA 2004 20.18 At $25 per tonne as an implicitly accepted reasonable value for CO2, I think that other considerations are more important for the tax/subsidy decision. Gasoline is taxed ten times as heavily as that in Europe. Deep mined coal in Germany still gets heavy subsidies. Based on a quick google, about a hundred euros per tonne of carbon, though this is supposed to be phased out. http://www.gruene-jugend-nrw.de/Resolutionen_Ansicht.127.0.html?&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=137&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=75&cHash=f9bbf296c0 A hundred Euros per tonne is nearly twice the cost of imported coal, and it is over $30 per tonne of carbon dioxide (the link is to a German Green Party website). I suppose another way of expressing my main point is: If CO2 taxes are to have a significant impact that goes beyond the value put on other considerations, $25 as an implicit value is too low. That's less than the fear premium put on nuclear power in Germany, or the energy independence premium coal has in places like Germany, Denmark, the UK, the US or Malaysia. ------------------- With CO2 taxes being implicit, rather than explicit, it is rather tough to estimate what the implied value actually is. After all it depends on other implied values (like energy independence, avoided traffic accidents and so forth). My educated guess is that $25 per tonne of carbon dioxide is somewhere near what the implied value in Europe is, and in the US it's maybe half that. I also think that translates into a willingness to spend something like 0.2% of GDP in Germany, and 0.1% of GDP in the US. 5% of GDP is what I think it roughly would take to get emissions to zero within 30 years. http://heikoheiko.blogspot.com/2006/07/comparisons-between-europea-and-us.html That may not sound like much, and it is not, if people were convinced that the survival of mankind was at stake. But it is a lot when compared to other priorities, like say healthcare, or education, or defense spending. 5% of US GDP is a quarter of the US federal budget and more than the US spends on defense. Heiko heikoheiko.blogspot.com --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change. Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
