Tuesday, July 01, 2014

Renewables doing better than expected

How Tony Abbott made the carbon tax work

There are some really remarkable figures quoted by Peter Martin indicating the success of renewable energy already in Australia.  I hope they stand up to scrutiny.

His point that Abbott's made up "crisis" narrative if the carbon tax was introduced actually pushed people hard into solar is pretty convincing too.

Given that electricity pricing is expected to drop slightly, but (I think) gas is likely to be going up in price, I have my doubts that Abbott is going to win the kudos he thinks he will from the public for the dropping the carbon "tax".  People are not good at remembering their previous bills - and if yearly prices still creep up, the effect of one significant drop is going to be quickly forgotten.

I think it is disappointing that business generally has not been more prominent in being clear that if you are going to do something about reducing carbon dioxide, the Labor policy was pretty good, and more effective than anything the Coalition is thinking about.  And surely there is considerable disruption from these swings in government policy that has costs too?

3 comments:

  1. Steve,
    It is a price on carbon not a carbon tax.

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  2. Yes, quite agree. I usually am clear on that point, but it's a pain always having to put tax in inverted commas...

    ReplyDelete